The Annals of The Summer of Love: 40th anniversary edition

Hey!
It's the anniversary of "The Summer of Love."

We learned this while watching the Cal-Tennessee college football game, live, from Berkeley, Calif., courtesy of play-by-play man Brent Musburgher, who sounded a bit wistful while making a sidebar note between plays of the aforementioned anniversary.

(Hey! Was that Musburger behind the purple granny glasses selling the brown acid out in the Haight back in the day? Just wonderin.)


Anyhow, after Brent (pictured here before and after) mentioned the anniversary, we did some quick mathematics and deduced it was the fortieth anniversary of the fabled Summer of blah-blah.

So we read up on the festivities here in SFGate.com and realized the Summer of Love has sadly devolved into the Summer of ... Viagra? ...Metamucil? ...Death?

Read on:

The old hippies look a little worn...Many of the bands were flying missing-man formations. Canned Heat featured only one original member - drummer Fito de la Parra - because most of the other guys are dead...As this generation approaches senior citizenship, signs of old age are beginning to show. Buddy Miles has heart problems. Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers can't use one of his arms. Merl Saunders was backstage, getting around pretty well after his stroke. There were a lot of canes and more than a few wheelchairs...

Bummer.