Living in a camp in the national forest outside Aspen with droves of folks going through Colorado. They found their way to the families and the land outside Aspen and Boulder - stories of a magical festival happening - right there - in the mountains of Colorado! Then back up to Boulder to my STP Family (the most beautiful originals) and we caught wind that there couldn't be a festival in Colorado so it was moved to New York - up around Woodstock. About seven us piled into Vince's wildly painted van - no surprise, we got stopped half a dozen times along the way. Finally made it as far as the countryside outside Toledo, OH when the van needed some repairs. A kindly farmer told us we could park in his driveway and hang around while we fixed it. Well, the local sheriff felt differently - he came around and told us that all but the driver had to hit the road. We broke up into two's and three's and hitched the rest of the way to NYC.
I touched base with good friend from "the ship", Eddie Applespeed (Stephens) while in the lower east side and he and i headed on up Max Yasgur's farm. Well, as you can imagine, there were no words to describe what greeted us there - thousands upon thousands of US! hippies everywhere! we found a nice little spot to set up eddie's tent in a field across the road from the festival and near a sweet little pond. somebody filming stripping to jump in and terrified that my folks would somehow see that! then the day came when the gates were to open and we all gathered by the fence and you know what happened next - down came the fence and we all danced in!!
and then, as much as i loved hanging with my beloved eddie applespeed, i sure wanted to connect with my family. so, when you hear in the announcements from the stage, "wheatgerm, goodwoman (holly) has your medicine that was me. and we found each other! there was roach and wheatgerm (by then, thanks to the draft, calling themselves adam and josh) and janice - alllllright! helped cut up veggies in the hog farm kitchen. stayed to help clean up afterward - you'll see us - only if you know what you're lookin' for! - in the special LIFE mag from woodstock - in the mud and the goop. some great ground scores - i still have a pair of keds i found there!
then back to colorado - someone found a kind soul who was driving that way and off we went. i remember stopping off in cincinnati, i think, at a college and unreal, we were treated like royalty! everyone kept approaching us - in our mud soaked jeans - asking in awe if we had been a woodstock?? i remember one clean cut college guy telling us we were so lucky and how sorry he was he hadn't been there. really? wow! and then on the rest of the way with some dog sitting in my lap giving me flea bites all over my face. but it was better than hitchhiking!
i don't know how long it took us to come back to earth, we were flying so high on the love, the kinship, the good vibes, reconnecting with kids we'd shared parts of our life "on the road" with at some time, the MUSIC. i remember waking up to jimi at one time, "oh, say can you see?". seeing CSNY for the first time! listening to joan baez talk about her husband, david; watching joe cocker do his air guitar, singing along with country joe & the fish, laughing with sha na na, dancing to canned heat. janis, arlo, richie havens, the who, the band . . . . just too many wonderful memories to capture here.
all i can say is that I have been blessed and woodstock is one of those blessings!