That;s right! I didn't go even after a barage of requests from my friends fo about a month or 2 before. I had just turned 20. I was over my head in the Woodstock generation but still didn't go. I could say I'd seen a lot of those bands, many twice, already. I still told my friends no. It wasn't because I was taking a lot of LSD for about the last year and most of the popular mind expanding drugs. Rewind a few months to March, and that's when I got my draft notice. I was supposed to be inducted in early July, but joined the Navy on a 120 day delay, so I would be inducted untill September 16th. Had a couple of class miscommunications which resulted in Fs. So I was 9 credits behind a full time load. I truly didn't know you could get drafted for that. So I chickened out on prison and Canada. The first draft Lottery wasn't until December of '69. Guess I got too active in the Community College revolution. But at least girls could were jeans and pants to school now. Only skirts 3 inches below the knee were allowed before that. We tried a set of smaller demands first before trying the VietNam Police Action. I never got to that part though. So I had a little over 3 weeks left at the time Woodstock took place. What a time to go. Everything was over. My girlfriend and me, my freedom to pursue an education. I wanted more "alone" time with my girlfriend, so she was able to fabricate a 4 day "get away" story. All her friends went to Woodstock also, but they got into a bit of trouble as their fabrication was only good for one night and the got stuck there for 3. Sounds perfect for woodstock, but We drove to the Newport Jazz festival in Rhode Island, spent 4 nights in a motel, ate in restaurants and enjoyed the beach. I would not be seeing her for a long time and we had been together for about a year and we were in love.
I got the cassette tape of woodstock while I was in the Navy and later the Woodstock 2 Tape, and later saw the movie. I was glad to see the culture come together like that for the world to see. The culture was widespread, but it had happened fast within a year, and the parents and government did not realize until then just how big it was. I remember Thanksgiving was approaching the previous year and my parents gave me the ultimatum, cut your hair or leave. I grabbed my books, through them in a bag and left. On the flip side it re-assured us and gave us more confidence. Being in the military before I finally heard woodstock, Country Joes fixin to die rag relieved my concerns that the anti war message of the culture was not lost. Jimmy Hendrix re-enforced that relief when he ended it with the war torn star spangled banner. The rest was fantastic. I had been wrong. It was not completely over. There was a guy who had been at woodstock on my destroyer. The woodstock generation music stayed with me and most of the ship's crew for the next few years.
Had I not been drafted I definitly would have been at Woodstock. I guess at that time in history the draft was more disruptive in some of our lives than even a lot of the Woodstock generation could imagine.