{"id":18486,"date":"2026-06-28T14:01:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T14:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=18486"},"modified":"2026-06-28T14:01:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T14:01:59","slug":"i-hope-something-is-done-to-exterminate-the-growing-hippie-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=18486","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I hope something is done to exterminate the growing hippie community\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birth is violent, people \u2014 no less so in art than in nature.<\/p>\n

As Laguna Beach\u2019s iconic Sawdust Art Festival opened Friday celebrating its 60th year, let\u2019s travel back in time to when the righteously angry rejects of the serious, \u201cstuffy,\u201d juried Festival of the Arts fomented a revolution and created the Timothy Leary-esque thing now known as the Sawdust \u2014 and how a split among more radical rebels and tamer traditionalists birthed yet another festival, the juried Art-A-Fair, which is also turning 60 and, today, is sandwiched between the other two festivals on Laguna Canyon Road.<\/p>

Read more Who\u2019s playing in the World Cup today? TV schedule for June 28<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing quite like the Sawdust, though. Streakers once bared behinds (and everything else) on its meandering paths. Visitors once smoked contraband in the bushes. Artists once created towering structures merging fairyland castles with Tim Burton movies, making city planners apoplectic.<\/p>\n

Before there were professional entertainers, artists launched jam sessions in the aisles. Before there was up-to-code infrastructure, visitors could smell the electrical boxes smoldering.<\/p>\n

\u2014 the year the then-itinerant festival found its forever home, in Laguna Canyon \u2014 show how the town\u2019s Very Proper Art Posse was aghast at the invasion of counter culture freaks. In the letters, the old guard warned Laguna Beach city fathers of impending doom and social collapse, and even begged for hippie \u201cextermination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filthy, smelly, undignified, etc.<\/h4>\n

\u201cThe unwashed, long-haired, dirty, barefooted, pot-smoking, drug-taking hippies are RUINING this wonderful town,\u201d said a letter to the city from \u201c(Mrs.) Catherine P. Regan\u201d dated June 6, 1968, protesting the Sawdust\u2019s proposal for a tent featuring music and performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your council were to pass this ridiculous proposal\u2026 what is to stop this group from showing at a later date some revolting underground Andy Warhol movies, immoral dances, disgusting sounds, etc. In other words, something completely revolting and undignified??????\u2026Gone now is original concept to my understanding, that the hippie believed in a sacred brother-love. It\u2019s disintegrated into just plain sensual living. I think I could safely wager a bet that very few of these young people know or understand how wonderful and soul-filling a deep, sincere and wonderfully prepared marriage is. I beg of you before God, let\u2019s do something about the whole picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a delightfully entertaining collection of similar missives, though the specific complaints vary slightly:<\/p>

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\u201cThey outnumbered the rest of us,\u201d wrote Jeanne Harlin Hunt, a more mainstream artist, referencing the \u201chippies\u201d who favored the tent idea. \u201cAs a result, they voted favorably for the show including some kind of modern dancing, electronic music, films ect (sic). \u2026 We were amazed and greatly distressed. This type of thing does not harmonize with the art we exhibit. Our art is mostly traditional. Last year we had a few hippies and they distracted us and were criticized. \u2026 One of them displayed a vulgar, huge picture of a nude outside his booth. \u2026 Some of them rattled tambourines and sat around on the ground playing their horrible, monotonous tunes consisting of about four notes repeated over and over, which kept people from coming into our booths and we consequently lost sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople from out of town come in to my gallery every week and they comment unfavorably on the fact that Laguna seems to have been taken over by hippies,\u201d she continued. \u201cThey do nothing but prowl around and congregate in groups and loiter. They all seem to possess dogs and they are not on leashes. \u2026 Laguna is too small a town to have a hippie community. They attract hoards of hitchhikers\u2026.They harbor run away children. Parents from out of town come here looking for their children whom the hippies have gotten on drugs, etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want to be associated with an element like this. \u2026 I cannot imagine trying to sell traditional art with loud electronic music as a background. I cannot stand that kind of so-called music. \u2026 I hope something is done to exterminate the growing hippie community in Laguna.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yikes! The sentiment was rather widely shared, however.<\/p>

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