Nine Nude Hippies Arrested: Found Huddled Around Bonfire

The headline on a story in a Ventura County daily newspaper in April 1968 was intriguing, although not particularly threatening: “Nine Nude Hippies Arrested: Found Huddled Around Bonfire”

Readers, of course, wanted to know more. What was happening in our staid and peaceable county? Could it be that San Francisco’s “Peace, Make Love Not War” slogans had crash-landed in Ventura County?

The news story contained a few sparse details. There was a 1952 rickety-looking gray-green-painted school bus, which, for reasons unknown, was being driven by a bearded man with piercing eyes, who identified himself as Charles Manson… read more >