 David Whitaker, also known as Diamond Dave, a local icon from the 60s. David, tell us your favorite story from the 60s. Well, I'm going to go back to the 50s because that's when I started. I'm like the half generation before. They're talking about the hippie movement beginning here in 1965, 64, but I go back to the beach generation. That segue between the beats and the hippies. In fact, my definition of hippie was beatnik plus LSD equals hippie. The North Beach was our hate street back then. I came here in 57. That was my summer of love. Their debts and sideways down the ribbon of time. The path that I lived. I first came to South Francisco. I read an article by Kenneth Rexworth of the Nation magazine saying something was happening here. This is February 22nd, 1957. Talked about the poets coming in. They talked about a new Bohemian lifestyle coming up, probably the first since World War II in North Beach. Black Mountain poets, Ginsburg and Karowak. Ginsburg, Karowak. A new generation coming in from the poetry politics. And in those days it has. And so I gave back messages by day. Beatnik by day and night. It was 1957 and I was in 7th Heaven and not many are dark on the overchecker board. Seeds were planted then. That would soon be growing. We didn't really know what was happening through the four-generated beatnik. It can't be Pakarak. It can't be about four generations. Different styles, but it's something in mind. But there were the beats. We were reading poetry. We were getting down. We were beginning to smoke ganja. The first two modern generations were smoking pot and talking about a gig. A bunch of beats were getting together and making history. History was with a handful of people. And I was there. And then I began traveling. Went to Israel for a couple of years. I was at the Beat Hotel. Got to know Karowak and Cassidy and what was happening then. And came back in 1961. And came back to Minneapolis. That's where I got connected with Bob Dylan and turned Bob Dylan on to radical politics. The Bohemian lifestyle. The Fokies. I got to read this Bob. I would have got to use autobiography. Oh, and for glory. I got him stoned for the first time. But you could get a flow that something new was going to be happening. I got back in San Francisco in 1965. I hitchhiked with the mother of my kids. Really, soon to my kids. My mother was something like 39 years old. Got back here in 1965. Went to North Beach. And a guy named Tamu who's now passed under the spirit world. This guy, the spirit world, the other side of the camp. He was about seven feet tall. I don't know if you knew Tamu. He was a drummer. He was a drummer there on the street of Grand. He brought me to 1090 Page Street. Which turned out to find him very soon to be a legendary place. And that was like the first commune. That's where the music was being played. That's where people began to come in. I had known Ken Keezy. And I met the soon to be grateful dad. In fact, Ken Keezy's place in Lahanda, I think earlier that year, 64, then I got in New York City. And I wanted to meet Keezy because I could see something was happening. Then I read one full of the cuckoo's nest and I could feel that a new lineage was coming along. And beginning to hear about LSD. Then those days this is before Ausby. This is before the synthesis of LSD. This is before all that. But in fact, where did it go around? That in fact, everybody had this small group of people who were definitely interested in expanding our minds. We had read all the sucks leads and doors of perception. We knew about Miss Good and began to experiment with POT. And we had heard that we had heard that morning glory seeds, heavenly blue and pearly gate was in fact a natural form of LSD. And just by the sight of it, there's even back in Minneapolis. And we began to, we'd grind it up. We'd grind up and we got a little more of the fastidious we put in caps. We'd take it and wash it down with some beer or something. But in fact it was, it was our first real, the first real trips of LSD was that. And then forgetting of the mind expansion that lead, beatnik plus LSD equals hippie. And the folkies are coming along and we said Bob Dylan off to New York to find Woody Guthrie. He said, I'm going to go see Woody. And the rest of that is history, her history and hipstree. But I got to, and there I was on Haight Street and in 1965, 1090 Page Street. There's a few other houses, communes. There's other kind of bad drugs. Going around and speed was coming in for like the second time. So walking that kind of, walking on that tightrope wire for sure. Looking way down the line with eight years of sobriety. It's pretty amazing that I got off that I went through all of this. But first was a trickle and then a stream and then a river. Then a mighty torrent of human beings out of his Judas Priest. Where did they all come from? And I haven't yet said, I think about how it was, the word came around that the thing to do was to come to San Francisco and get stoned and play music and dance out in the park and how it went from the beats to the hippies. Because the beatniks, we hadn't ever stopped a light a day. When the sun came up, we went down and suddenly there were deaths in the park. The transition somehow went. But it happened, it said, push to the trickle and you'd go out and I had gotten the guilty and all these folks followed me out from Greenwich Village, from Washington Square Park, from this row that we used to go, this row of benches we used to go universally. Junkies were all. Because we were in Chimpanzee, anyway called Junkins Row, we thought we'd never seen two. So I was a little older, I was like 24, 25 by then. So I was a little older, I was an elderly by then, I guess. But everybody saw all these kids that were just getting into a ziggy, let me mention Keith, Big Chris and Little Chris, kind of the nucleus that would later become the hippie movement, there was a certain part of it all began to flow into San Francisco, kind of following me. And luckily I had acquired the ability to find an empty building, at that time there was a lot of empty flats up here in the Hague, because white people were moving out, because of redevelopment, it was called white flight and they were moving out to the suburbs and people had black people, Afro-American people were coming up from the film or rent was really cheap, you could get a whole flat for $90 or the first squats, we didn't call them squats, then they were called that communes, I learned to find a place, I was probably there, it had been empty for a long time, we climbed through the window and opened the door up and everybody moved in, and this was like 1967, and we go out, 66, we're like 65, 66, and we started seeing other people look like us along here in Beards, where are they coming from, what's going on here? And we'd all go to luncheon and we call it Antoine's, St. Anthony's, and still I'm gonna walk up to North Beach, because North Beach was still kind of the social center, Washington Square, and a place called the, the Hot Dog Palace, and this film filled with speed freaks and bad drugs and all of that, so we're battling with all of this, but going on and people beginning to come for some trickle, then a stream, then a mighty torrent, where are they all coming from? And there we'd be, as you see it, so many of the streets were filled with folks, and it was amazing, because we didn't really know, that song was going around, it was in the top ten, I'm gonna put some, you put some flow, you put some flowers in your hair, and come to San Francisco. So meanwhile, I'm condensing this, and a great deal, there'd be a lot of stories, I could tell, and then, we begin to, then a small group, I'm talking about Peter Berg, Peter Cohen, the diggers, I'm gonna do a poem called 30th Anniversary, this is 67, because we begin to realize that, hey, all these folks are coming in, who's gonna feed them, where are they gonna eat, where we're gonna put up, put up, and we're also beginning to, believe me, more and more politicize and struggle against that war, the, 67, 77, 87, 97, back then, and here's the poem, I came up with, oh God, give me some references, almost solstice, tangers in and hangers out, go and get kid campers, under never come. Here's it today, servant begging soup, and cats is beg, beg, cats is day old bagels, saying, get in a loop, and have some soup. Oh, hippies, veterans of Africa, got in war, the record crew, posse, dead-end refugees, dreadlocks, street survivors, and gaggles of gutter pucks, just off the trains, the best minds of all those generations. Tide, Tide, Wayfarer, and Backpackers, heading for, heading for Oregon, the rainbow gathering, those for whom, 1997, is there, 1967, lay all in hand, my mind's ident, that summer of love, that summer of bud, here at the Digger Freestore, serving free food and draft dodgers, AWOLs fleeing the war, guerrillas come, who may, the free frame of reference, the communication company, saved, sees the underground press, and no joke, lots of good smoke in the Digger slogan, one percent free, returns to the community, screaming away from the American dream, four generations up here on this street, hate street, beatnik, hippie, punk rock, hip-hop, rust, safari, four generations, different styles, put something, summer in mind, transcending all the family dogs, back at the beach, big bands, big names, big deal, but don't forget that, one percent free. People want to read some of the manifestos, see some of the work of the time, what was being written there, what was going on on that street, hate street, go to www.Diggers.org, and you'll see some of the manifestos of the words that are coming out, get some sense of what it is like when there are so many thousands of the people, but the past shakes hands in the future for the now, and here we be free flowing at the money of four generations, different styles, put something, summer in mind, so keep on going, here we be, as you see, whatever seeds are planted then, continue to flourish hip street, her street, and hip street. I'll finish with this short poem, it says, something up, how does it work? Well, think what you need, give what you can, where you can, when you can, however you can, in other words, mundane. What happens then? Strangers become friends, friends become family, family becomes community, and community becomes on the move, that's the movement I've been talking about for four generations, because hey, bottom line, once we were brought together for a reason, and that reason was that we love one another, brought together for a reason, and that reason is that we heal one another, brought together for a reason, and that reason is that we complete one another, brought together for a reason, that reason is we complement one another like what? You didn't yet, left it right up and down, old and young man, and love, rock, and roll, There we'd be, as you see. So that's a little taste for the archives. There's plenty of footnotes, plenty of wisdom. The devil and the angels are in the details, but there he'd be up, but then up there is my legacy. So thanks a lot, folks. Remember, the hole is greater than some of its parts. And we can do more together than any of us can do on our own. So let's get on the same page, get on the bottom. Thank you, my brother.