WKND FEEDBACK

L.A. in ‘67: They really were there

Re “L.A. Felt the Love of ’67 [Aug. 2]:

I am the dancer on the left in the photo of the Trip. At the time, June Fairchild, the other dancer, and I were working at the Trip as the opening act for the Rolling Stones. We were part of a group of dancers featured weekly on a television show called “Hollywood A Go Go.”

At this time in Hollywood, one could dance live to the Doors at the Whiskey, the Stones at the Trip or the Byrds at Ciro’s, all in one evening. There was indeed a lot of love going around. It was a very special time. In my small way, I was very much a part of it all, and it was great fun to see the photograph.

Both June and I went on to act in a few films. I have been a film editor at Paramount Studios for the past 23 years.

Mireille Machu

Los Angeles

We spent our formative years on the Sunset Strip, cruising, flirting, looking for excitement most Friday or Saturday nights throughout 1966 and ’67.

Pandora’s Box was an end-of-the-evening stop, right in that little triangle where Crescent Heights runs into Sunset. It wasn’t a club per se; it really was mostly a coffeehouse with recorded music and teenagers hanging out talking politics, music and drugs. I wasn’t there for the demonstration and subsequent junior Chicago Seven police riot, but we mourned the loss of Pandora’s for quite some time.

Mike Kilgore

Los Angeles

Though the most resonant images certainly came from San Francisco’s Summer of Love -- not Los Angeles’ -- the accompanying soundtrack was undeniably “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” no matter where you were. And so I found it surprising that neither of your articles mentioned a Beatle connection that enhances L.A.’s music lore.

In August that summer, George Harrison was famously photographed touring the Haight-Ashbury district. But George had just spent a week in L.A.’s music scene, renting a house in the canyons where he would write a psychedelic anthem, perfectly true to its time and (our) place. In fact, if you take Lookout Mountain over the hill to Sunset Plaza, you’ll pass right by Blue Jay Way, the location of George’s vacation house, and the title of his contribution to “Magical Mystery Tour.”

In that heady summer of “love”-fueled tensions between kids and cops, even George noticed all the policemen “on the street -- there’s so many there to meet.” A fog upon L.A., indeed.

Laurie Linvill

Sherman Oaks

While some enjoyed 1967 as the summer of love, others experienced it as the summer of hate. My tour of duty as a draftee in the U.S. Army ended on July 21, 1967. Upon arrival at the San Francisco airport, military personnel were greeted with the infamous “pigs” and “baby killer” signs.

I was then transported on a military bus to the Oakland Army Personnel Center to be discharged. As the bus entered the center, the demonstrators outside yelled obscenities and other disparaging remarks. A sergeant gestured back toward the protesters and said: “Welcome home, soldiers; this is what you’ve been fighting for.”

Robert L. Rosebrock

Brentwood