HOMELESS MAN'S BEATING SHAKES UP HIPPIE HAVEN

All we are saying...is give peace a chance...

Ricky Green wandered into this town some months ago, a stranger just a bit stranger than most.

He had shed his middle-class respectability -- a job as a graphic artist in the 'burbs -- strapped a guitar over his shoulder and landed on what he told people was "a spiritual journey."

Bolinas seemed like a good fit.

The unincorporated town of 1,600 on the Pacific coast is Marin County's most blatant throwback to the Summer of Love, a hippie haven that is bent on stopping tourists from spoiling its laid-back groove.

The 33-year-old, prone to age of Aquarius-speak about the moon and the stars, already looked sort of like a local.

As one resident, Bill Boman, put it, "he had this Jimi Hendrix vibe."

But Green never quite meshed with the Bolinas social fabric. The night of June 23 proved how much he remained an outsider in a liberal enclave stubbornly averse to strangers.

Six young people, including two juveniles, are said to have attacked and stabbed Green with a viciousness that is forcing Bolinas to search its soul for meaning.

The other day, fresh out of the hospital, Green was spotted back in town. (He proved elusive, always a step ahead of visitors trying to find him.) Many folks weren't happy to see him.

The attack underscores what advocates for homeless people say is a growing problem across the country: attacks on society's most vulnerable members, almost as sport, especially by young people.

The typical attack involves a mob of youths that beats a homeless person with blunt objects, sometimes setting the person on fire, Stoops said.

Bolinas wears its xenophobia proudly. For decades, a group known as the Bolinas Border Patrol has torn down all signs pointing the way to the enclave from Highway 1. But now, some wonder whether Bolinas' inbred hostility to outsiders exploded the night of Green's attack.

Others are pondering whether the attack means that Bolinas, despite its barefoot youth, loose-roaming dogs and ponytailed, tie-dyed 60-year-olds, is more like the rest of society than it wanted to admit.

That thought is especially jarring. Bolinas fancies itself special. The town keeps a "free box" outside the natural foods store for anyone to donate or pick up clothes or household items. A few years ago, it passed a ballot measure officially declaring itself "a socially acknowledged, nature-loving town" that likes blueberries, bears and skunks. The town saloon has the word "peace" outside, written in seashells.

I really hate hippies.