Stories From Woodstock 1969
11:48:41 AM 08.16.09
My 40 Years Since Woodstock
I was working my way through college in the summer of '69. A friend and I, we played together in a rock band, planned to drive up to Woodstock in my jalopy, a 1950 Plymouth sedan. I wasn't sure the car would make it, but we never found out because he decided not to go at the last minute and so I went in to work instead (I was working the graveyard shift at an ice house - a cool place to work in the hot summertime.)
Well, I've regretted not going to Woodstock ever since. I had long hair in those days, I only did grass and hash, never the hard stuff, but I loved the music and I loved the feeling of the late 60s. I haven't lost faith in Woodstock Nation values, even though it's been tough to be optimistic these past 40 years. I bounced around working a number of different jobs during the 70s and 80s but I could never buy into the greed and selfishness that became the American way. Finally I just gave up. and haven't worked in 20 years. Lucky for me I have a great life partner and so I'm well cared for.
Debussy called Wagner's music "a beautiful sunset that has been mistaken for a sunrise." Likewise, Woodstock was the high point, we thought, of a lovely sunrise of beauty, optimism, peace, and love...the "dawning of the age of aquarius," that ultimately turned out to be a sunset. We have the music and the memories from that time...but the Woodstock dream of peace and music is just that...only a dream.
Well, I've regretted not going to Woodstock ever since. I had long hair in those days, I only did grass and hash, never the hard stuff, but I loved the music and I loved the feeling of the late 60s. I haven't lost faith in Woodstock Nation values, even though it's been tough to be optimistic these past 40 years. I bounced around working a number of different jobs during the 70s and 80s but I could never buy into the greed and selfishness that became the American way. Finally I just gave up. and haven't worked in 20 years. Lucky for me I have a great life partner and so I'm well cared for.
Debussy called Wagner's music "a beautiful sunset that has been mistaken for a sunrise." Likewise, Woodstock was the high point, we thought, of a lovely sunrise of beauty, optimism, peace, and love...the "dawning of the age of aquarius," that ultimately turned out to be a sunset. We have the music and the memories from that time...but the Woodstock dream of peace and music is just that...only a dream.
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2 CommentsAlert to the government - it was not the LSD, it was the senseless war and murdering draft. It wasn't the Communist behind the Hippie Culture - It was All your Vietnam veterans returning from the experience. They were always there in a back room at every college protest telling us "we must stop this war sickness" when we were wavering and scared and having doubts. Since we were 14 or 15, the older kids comming back (Vets) would tell us, "Do whatever you can to get our of it, it will mess up your mind forever".
You so-called Hippie Culture wannabe folks that had abusive remarks for returning Vets should be very ashamed of your un-Hippie like remarks. Country Joe and Jimmy Hendrix were both Vets.
This brain dead America, not our Hippie America, had a large part on erasing this outlaw element from it's military industrial complex machine sort of country. Music was increasingly commercialized and meaningless while our own music was censured. You had to order a CD from Germany to get the words "we work all day making up nickel bags", instead of , "We work all day making up burlap bags".
It seemed to me commercializing the music helped keep the youth streetfighting and violent, and that was good for building their military through aggressive recruiting (The draft being outsourced to private mercenary armies). Encouraging or doing nothing about poverty also helps military recruiting greatly.The government is so terrified of this peace and music that they feared greatly that a draft would resurge the hippy culture beyond imagination.
A lot of people don't know that draft registration was ended on a sex discrimination law around 1975. Mister Reagan quietly re-instated it in the 80s, and nobody said a word. So much for our justice system and News media.
Reagan wanted us all go back to the 50s so all the youth could be like them, perfect in every way. Busch #2 regressed us farther back toward the 50s than ever before.
You can almost time the decline of the Woodstock generation to the end of the VietNam Police Action. I told my son that "we all had to get jobs and support a family and we really don't know what happened to it" (we all turned 30:).
So on our government and military, they are like the Wizard of OZ. A scared little man behind a curtain. All these foreign tours are about 3 things. Building and combat experiencing our troops and testing our weapons in actual combat situations. Of course there's a lot of money to be made supplying the army with the tools of the trade, not to mention orchestrated homeland security. All the rest is just bullshit cleverly pushing the psychological buttons of the people.
So on the Woodstock generation (not the event) I would venture that maybe it was love itself, which most of us agree doesn't last forever, but more like 2 weeks to 2 years. After that we have to rely on our memories of it to keep going on. We experienced peaceful neigborhoods for a several years in the late sixties and early seventies and now all we have are the memories. I am sure that love will never stop happening among humans, So maybe the Woodstock generation likewise, will never stop happening. I don't think though, like love, that it will last much longer than 30 years, at least not anytime soon, given human nature.
The freedoms that the Hippie culture spawned are still with us today. Women can wear pants to public colleges and even miniskirts if they are in the mood. There are many others, but I can't think of any right now except possibly movies. However the government has convinced youth that OK, sex and nudity is good, but war is good too.
So all I'm left with is a line from a song - the early begining of the Hippie Culture - "When will we ever learn".
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