Living a 60s style Californian dream in 1998

It's not easy to do your job when everyone around you is having fun.

I kissed my dad goodbye in Dublin and flew to New York. My best friend from college was with me. We had student work visas and a vague plan to earn enough money to spend the summer in California. We had visions of swimming in the Pacific and walking on the Golden Gate Bridge.

After visiting my cousin in Manhattan, we flew to San Francisco . It was gray and cold. The hostel on Market Street was more than a little depressing, so we ended up with two Irish girls in a small room on the top floor of a house in Berkeley.

The four of us slept on the mat and shared a bathroom with a group of college students. After several sleepless nights, I found a thin foam mattress at a thrift store and took it upstairs.

We fell in love with the city bustling Berkeley and spent as much time as possible in its music stores, bookstores and cafes. It was 1998, but the earthy smell of Nag Champa lingered in the air, as it must have in the days of the hippies.

For a few weeks, I commuted on a BART train to a monotonous telemarketing job in San Francisco. Then came a brief stint at a seedy burger joint near Union Square. In Berkeley, I worked at Blondie's Pizza, which I liked, but none of the jobs paid much, so I kept looking.

A Wednesday afternoon, I spotted a flyer pinned to the window of a yellow building four blocks from Mission Street: a business called Peachy's Puffs was hiring young women to sell cigarettes, candy and other novelties during of events and clubs in the area.

Curiosity and the need for money propelled me through the door and into a seedy office. Along the walls were glamorous photos of women looking like movie stars from previous decades. The job interview was quick and precise. A dark-haired man sitting behind a cluttered desk ordered me to spin.

"You have a pretty cute body!" he said, looking me up and down.

While I was filling out paperwork, he told me to come back Friday in a nice dress, so I could go to the Furthur Festival. I had no idea what this festival was about, but I was in for it. He also asked me to buy new shoes and a flashlight. Then he scribbled an address on a piece of paper and told me to get a street vendor's permit.

When I mentioned the Festival of Furthur to my friends, they were thrilled on my behalf. It was nearly impossible to get tickets to the event, they said, not to mention the high price tag, and the Other Ones, a band made up mostly of surviving members of the Grateful Dead, would headline.

My friends were so excited they planned to take a ride to Mountain View, where the festival was held, and camp outside the gates of the Shoreline Amphitheater, where they could listen to the music for free.< /p>

Friday I was back in the seedy office in San Francisco wearing a pink vintage dress, a knee-length shift dress which cost $15 in Haight-Ashbury. I topped it off with my worn out combat boots as I couldn't bring myself to buy new shoes in the spring. man who hired me. He looked at me with a neutral expression, handed me a heavy tray full of candy, and reluctantly ordered me into the idling van outside.

Nervously, I boarded. Three young women seated in the back wore colorful makeup to go with their shiny, low-cut belly tops, short pleated skirts and platform sandals. They sat up straight, trays on their knees, and looked at my big old boots with disdain. Just before the driver slams the door, a woman in a red flapper dress joins us.

On the long drive to Mountain View, I am asked about the exorbitant prices of sweets. Who would pay $5 for a packet of M&M's? And I was kind of supposed to sell everything on my board or else I wouldn't make any money.

Traffic spiked near the festival site, and I started to get an idea of ​​what was going on. It was a kind of movement, and the movement involved thousands of people of all ages, many of whom were modern-day hippies wearing flowing skirts, sundresses, tie-dye shirts and sandals. There was even a f...