At the last moment, we found ourselves headed to the gala opening of the Sausalito Art Festival this evening. Gala sounded serious, so we asked our friend, Keith, what was the dress. “Oh, casual” and this from a man who, since his retirement from daily work, thinks the shorts without the holes and the Hawaiian shirt that’s less than ten years old is pretty duded up.

Imagine our shock to show up at the gate and see people in tuxes and evening wear. Seems the opening gala is always “Black Tie Optional”. Then imagine our relief to see that the evening’s theme was “The Summer of Love” and there were plenty of people in tie-dye, trailing Indian fabric scarves, headbands and Jimi Hendrix t-shirts. In my batik skirt and with Andy in his Mexican print shirt, we kind of blended as “Corporate Hippies”.

As the evening wound on and the band started to play Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield and other tunes from the 1967 San Francisco music scene, I found myself more fascinated thinking about my relationship to the Sixties than in looking at the art.

Although I was too young to be protesting the Draft or traveling up to Woodstock — in fact, I was too young to even be buying records — Sixties music seems like the music of my childhood. It was what my babysitters were playing. Then when I was old enough to buy my own records, we’d moved to Europe, so I missed Southern Rock, Disco and all the other music of the Seventies. So I’m left feeling kind of like a child of the Sixties, but not really.

Maybe that’s part of why I’m getting into this whole organic vineyard, solar powered, off the grid land development project we’re starting.