This fact has limited most area hippies to hanging out at Au Bon Pain during most of the year, said Franzen with disappointment. He added, however, that "now that the yuppie trend has passed and the economy is teetering a bit, maybe things will change."

No Place Like Home

While most embraced their rare opportunity to gather communally on the Common, many of the day's partipants said they worry that love-ins cannot generate the long-lasting sense of community they once could. Many said they see people putting their normal lives on hold when they come to the love-in, but at the end of the day they return to their regular ways of acting and thinking about the world. They do not retain the sense of "peace, love and happiness" that they felt in the group, the hippies said.

One woman explained that it is necessary to live in a community of people who "truly love each other" in order to establish in practice the ideals discussed at hippy gatherings.

"People do a lot of talking about love, unity, and peace--that's the purpose of [Grateful] Dead shows and love-ins," said 20-year-old Shachar M. Pereira. "But they don't do so much about it."

Pereira said she lives with Ish and others in a community with three houses in Boston and other homes around the world. "It's more of a family than an organization," she said. "We share all things in common."

The Dorchester resident said she came to the love-in last weekend "to see if there is anyone who wanted to come back to the community. It's a place to go where it is real and it is happening," she explained, adding, "It's not an unattainable goal."

Simple Living

Taking a break from his flute playing, 23-year-old Sheba described his own experience squatting in a house on Eliot St. before it burned down last year. "The squat was good for all of us," he said. "It was a happy home."

Their hippie, squatter lifestyle, as Sheba described it, was a simple one: food was provided by leftovers from Square restaurants and was cooked on camping stoves that burned vodka; daily showers were furnished by a near-by water hose.

"It worked better than a lot of the programs," Sheba said, explaining that about two dozen people lived in the house regularly, with twice as many during weekends. "People took care of themselves rather than having people take care of them," Sheba said.

Tough Time for Hippies

Sheba is the artist responsible for the flower peace signs that occassionally appear on the walk in front of Au Bon Pain. However, according to the hippie, it is unlikely that his artwork will appear there anymore, as the restaurant recently ruled the designs to be a public nusiance.

The move on the part of the restaurant seems to be symbolic of a recent anti-hippie trend in the Square, many said.

According to Sheba, hippies have suffered from increased police harassment. In December, Sheba said the police instructed all of the business in the Square to stop giving their leftovers to hippies. Until that time, Sheba said he regularly collected food and distributed on the Common as part of a group called Bread and Jams.