Having missed out on the Grateful Dead, I thought I had better make sure I saw the other great 60s SF band Jefferson Airplane, now called Jefferson Starship. I dashed out and bought a ticket for a concert over the Bay in Berkeley in a week’s time. Walked back via Haight Street to see if I could find out any more there, investigating several hippy thrift shops filled with slightly mouldy second hand clothes, the detritus of the flower power era. Shopping as a hitcher is anyway rather pointless because anything worth buying is too big and heavy, and that includes clothes and records.
Straight on to the welcoming Golden Gate Park, and a visit to the celebrated De Young Museum. At the time this museum was the premier classical art gallery in San Francisco, containing all the fusty old historical paintings one would expect, but still enjoyable. Since my visit it has been entirely rebuilt in the modern style by Herzog & de Meuron, who designed the Tate Modern in London.
A quiet evening in watching the Olympics in Montreal, along with half a billion people round the world. We were enthralled by the gymnast Nadia Comăneci who at the age of 14 had just scored a perfect 10.0 on the uneven bars. Other memorable athletes were the 10,000 metre runner Lasse Virén from Finland and the record breaking American hurdler Edwin Moses. Great Britain were notable by their absence, only winning 3 gold medals that year.
In the meantime here is the Rolling Stone magazine 1976 guide to the Stations of the God’s Eye, aka Pilgrimage Places in The Haight, so you can see what I missed.