Woodstock was an accident for me, one of those great accidents that happen once in a lifetime and you never forget. Until Friday evening August 15th, 1969 I had never heard of Woodstock and I don’t think most of the other guys I hung out with in the Bunker Hill section of Waterbury CT had either. One of them came up to the local park where we usually met up on Friday nights and said “Who wants to go to Woodstock?” It was about 5pm. I think he had found out about it from some friends at The Taft School where he attended and once he told us what it was about five of us said we wanted to go. We all piled into his old Ford Galaxy 500, one of those big old cars that fit six pretty comfortably and after making some runs home to get for some extra cash and jackets we took off. It was Dave driving, Paul and Hank in the front seat and Mike, Danny, and I in the back. I think we all thought it would be one of those deals where we would drive over to New York state, spend three or four hours listening to the bands and drive the 2 ½ hours back home in the early hours of Saturday. That’s what I thought. Well, we managed to get there with about a gazillion other people and there was no getting out. We got close enough to the site that we could walk to it from where the car was and spent the next three days experiencing the greatest music event of all time. Wow! We took turns going back to the car to get some sleep throughout the weekend. The Galaxy had bench seats so with one in front and one in back two could get some sleep at the same time. I know we were probably hungry, tired, and wet just like everybody else there but all I remember is the great music, the thousands and thousands of kids who were all cool and got along, and how wonderful it was to be a twenty year old guy having the time of my life. As we were leaving I grabbed a muddy old wool army blanket out of the mud. Time passed, I got married and started a family and lost touch with all those guys I went to Woodstock with. I haven’t forgotten them or the great time we had at Woodstock though. I think of that experience often and fondly. I had always been nostalgic about that time and finally on August 15th, 2003 I took a ride back there. Ran into Duke Devlin near the Woodstock Monument and had him snap a picture of me. I STILL HAVE THAT BLANKET. It’s my one physical connection with that time and that place!

I went to Woodstock with my friends, Dave Semjchuk, John O'Hara, John Bragg and his little brother Gregory and a couple of girls who were friends of John B's. I think a couple of guys from New York were there too, friends of J.B's but I'm no longer sure. If they were then their names were Marty and Wolfgang. There were others people we knew as well like Jack McDermott and also Ed Roman the guitar guy who passed away last year. We drove a Beige '69 Toyota Corolla with a black trunk lid(mine), a new white Ford van(from Bragg motors), and O'hara's Chevy sedan. You can see all three vehicles lined up along side each other all by themselves in the Time-Life Woodstock edition photo of the "Press" parking lot. There was no one else parked there! John B gave a "security" guy something to let us park there. The purpose of the photo, I suppose, was to show the lack of interest by the main stream press of the day about the event. Too bad for them, lucky for Scorcese. We met all sorts of cool people who were way out of our league in coolness. Another friend named John Arrigone (I hope i spelled it correctly John) was there as well although we did not go together. He is actually in the film at the telephones waiting to call his Ma. We were incredibly lucky that we had vehicles to sleep in when it rained. They were between the cornfield where the kid got run over by a tractor and the porto-sans so they were just a short walk from everything.....the hill, the stage access road, the Hell's Angels beer can mountain.......it was just great. I remember getting a strong buzz just from breathing the air and before we got there we thought we were wild! We never saw so many people in one place for the same purpose and never did again. We were lucky we got there early and just stumbled into the right spot. We never had to show our tickets to anyone and I still have them.

The fact of the matter is that during my summer break from college at WSU, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, I came up with this great brain storm. I would drive from Wisconsin and drop in and surprise my former East Anchorage Alaska high school girl friend, Susan Estelle Hardin, who was going to school at Vassar. Having worked part of the summer already in and around my WSU campus, I didn't even think that she might have gone home to see her parents for the summer. Needless to say, I was determined to see her.

After driving all day into the western part of the empire state, I spent the night in my 58 Chev and woke early on Wednesday morning the 13th. By mid-morning I came across what appeared to be a line of cars each being checked by a Highway Patrol officer. I asked what was wrong and the officer asked me where I was going. I told him to surprise my girl friend. He obviously didn't believe me and told me I was another of those hippies going to a music concert. I asked him what concert and he told me I knew and that I can't go North up that road he motioned to, as it was already blocked with parked cars. So I asked how far to the next town where there was a gas station. He told me to keep going a couple more miles and I would find it.

I proceeded on and stopped at the gas station. There I asked the pump jockey where the music concert was and he directed me back to the road I was told not to go up by the officer. So I asked if there was another way and that the road was closed because of the backed up cars. He told me that was the best way to go and his brother already left for the concert that morning so he could get a good spot! He suggested that I leave my car there at the gas station and thumb my way to the concert. I took his suggestion. I had a backpack, tent and a jacket in my trunk so I took those with me and set out on foot. I immediately thumbed a ride back to the closed road.

Notice, that I had completely forgot about why I was here in New York in the first place. Quite literally I had gotten side tracked and besides it wasn't like she was expecting me and gosh, I didn't even know if she would still be at the school for the summer, right? So there I was, on a Road Trip, but now on a Detour!

I walked for what seemed like an eternity, but I wasn't alone for long. Little did I know at the time, as our destination drew ever closer, the few fellow travelers grew into a throng and then into a mass of humanity all flowing to where our lives would become changed forever as a part of history! At first I really didn't even know what kind of music concert I was headed for, only in talking with others headed there, did I decide that even though I hadn't bought a ticket, with as many people who were all going and the groups that I recognized I was told would be there, this had to be great.

Within hours of my arrival, I never saw my backpack or tent ever again, much to my chagrin later when the rains came. Never the less, what I experienced over the next week was truly life changing. The sharing, caring, love, peacefulness, euphoria and the genuineness of my fellow mankind was a joy to experience. The very rapture of being moved by the music was exhilarating and painted the colors of the rainbow before my eyes. I most certainly saw or heard most of the acts, some more entrancing than others.

While the festival past all too fast, the more somber moments caused me to ache for a dry place to rest and eat real food once again. Munchies are unbearable when there is nothing to eat or savor. Dry clothes would have been nice, but the mud was easily rinsed in the lake and skinny dipping in the warmth of the sun was a luxury. By Monday, most of the crowd had left, yet I didn't want it to end, so when those of us who were left, were greeted with the Star Spangled Banner, I knew it was time to go back to the world. I was befriended by a farmer on the march back to the highway with a clean shirt and a welcome lunch. I retrieved my 58 Chev right where I parked it 5 days earlier. An experience of a lifetime, that felt like a lifetime of Peace, Music and Joy! May the memory of WoodStock live on forever! Have a Happy and Peace Out!

The summer of 1969 had been really hot and sweaty nothing much was happening around the Bronx, until my rock band, Group Power found out in early August that there was a super concert planned. Woodstock they called it and everyone would be there. The Rolling Stones, The Who, Santana and Jimi Hendrix. More were being added daily.

It was to be somewhere in upstate NY, perfect right in my home state wouldn't have to travel far. Tickets if I remember correctly were about $15. I didn't have it ready in time, so our group leader bought all 4 tickets for us.

We were extremely excited because we were all going, now was the hard part to convince out parents to let us go for three days and two nights. Finally after a lot of badgering that we were all guys and would be alright my parents relented.

That day I prepared 2 doz boiled eggs for the trip to have portable food and a 5 Lb bag of popcorn (really huge) we had from working at the movie theaters changing marquee's.

That Friday in the late afternoon after work we loaded up a U-Haul van from the Bronx and started on our journey to Woodstock.

To Be Continued........

I had my (full, 3 day) ticket a month ahead of time. In fact, we had things planned a month ahead of time, but there were some inadvertant glitches (not the traffic, nor busts, btw) that nearly derailed things. I still have my Saturday & Sunday tix ,laminated in plastic as of 1970. Friday's ticket was tossed into a thicket along 17B, when our attempt to get in that night failed We paused to consider logistics, & I just tossed it into the underbrush. Well, THAT one IS a lost part of history :-) I still thought I would need it - word hadn't yet trickled back to us that the concert was, in fact, free by then.

What was fortunate was the fact that we had made it up there on Friday, before the Thruway had closed down - being in a position to at least hang out & try again early next morn. It may well go down as the slowest traffic jam in history, but, I can say it sure was the most colorful, musical, & festive one too. Thank you, thank you, all you funny DIY car & van artists ; you really brought a lot of smiles to my face.

I have yet to write the whole, wall-to-wall Woodstock story, which I can easily do, & partially have. More like I somewhat ignored the subject over time, until it has become such an important, important symbol, as it is so much needed in these 2011 days, dark, dark atmosphere.

With a life event like this one, tho, I think it's more an "I'll never forget" idea, & many who were there would likely agree! I do have a 3 pg. (postmarked & dated) letter I wrote & sent off to my Sis on Thursday, Aug 21st, recounting a few things I literally didn't recall in overall memory. It's funny to read @ points, but, the real stuff is in there nevertheless. Well, that's a 19 yr old amateur for ya - who's perfect?

After setting out early Sat. morn, then having to park the car & walk along the highway for what felt like some 10 miles/2 hours, we finally walked up the winding approach roads, to view what was one of the most amazing sights I think I will ever see in this life.

I guess many attendees have their "when I first saw that crowd" reactions - I can try to recapture mine.

It was, at first, a victorious, proud kind of feeling of: "Yeaaahhh....I knew it might get this big, was hoping it would get this big" ; the feeling of a (definitely amateur) longhair's relief & triumph at seeing how (unexpectedly!) huge this generational set of ideas had come in a few short years since, say, 1965...how huge that feeling-tone was getting....anyone who was there might will recognize this glow of 'membership' (cost free, too) in something that never had actually happened before, & certainly had never been powered by music & new artforms to that extent.

But as I looked at over the crowd from its backline area, a secondary reaction began to dawn on me, which didn't form into take the form of those happy words in my head. It was a beginnging realization that: "This is no Jim Morrison/Paul Kantner stoned, lyrical, encouragement type of fantasy...this thing - right in front of my own eyes - is REAL, & it has grown so huge, & so quickly, that if this keeps going, it literally CAN take over the world.."

I don't, to this day, consider this impression at all naive. I feel that there was a fork in the human road which could have branched off & succeeded in what people were pushing for, for greater & greater freedom(s), & greater humanity brought out in the whole world.

I was looking at a phenomenon. There really was a Group Mind acting in unison, under the surface. (And the MUSIC...wouw!) An early, Inner version of the internet was moving that crowd.

For those who weren't born yet, or too young @ the time, what that song phase says really was true - that "Something in the Air" was not in the least bit imaginary. This miles-thick psychological atmosphere of newness, freedom-to-come, freedom-finally-arrived optimism was so thick that one could just about taste it, cut it with a knife, bounce it over to other, ordinary kids just like you & anywhere you might go. And we did. And all this in spite of all the opposing negatives goin' on.

Some great psychological wavefront had been moving across the country, & at one heck of a rapid pace...a wave of joy & change that no one will - or could - ever put a price on. It was feeling that rode underneath appearances. I don't think it can be recaptured, either (but I'd love to be proven wrong!) Makes me sad, real, real grief, that those who were around at that time know with (full) feeling what I'm getting at..& that is not to condescend in any way to anyone who wasn't. It's sincere - I wish I could transmit this one all over the place. (A lot of people do, I'd bet) The great grief is what happens when I begin to think that all this will be lost. It's almost worse than losing someone close to you...it's losing something bigger - maybe that IS worse.

We left Sunday morn, just after the Who finished playing...& I did help pass around that brown trash bag to collect some trash. But - 24 hrs w'out sleep? I looked down @ the trash bag on (damp) ground that I had sat on all night, on the upper slope, &, well - no way - home & zzzzzzzz 4 me!

I walked in my house door (folks away on vacation) around 11AM, plunked down my jacket, etc, & put a pillow in front of the stereo. ("unnnhhh..meee...sleeeeep" said the monster). Hit the stereo switch. First song to come on?

"Can't Find My Way Home" by Blind Faith.

PS: Who put Iron Butterfly's "Time of Our Lives" up on the PA System just after 12 noon on Saturday? Boy did that song say it all just then. The Sun came out that aft , too.

Peace & Freedom -

Woodstock Sound-Outs, Van Morrison and No Beans. © Dakini Verona

1969. The year was an infamous one in the history of the era… and it was a very important year in my life.

I had just turned 15 years old and lived in a very rural area of upstate New York. Actually it was only about 100 miles north of New York City (The City) but anything even 10 miles outside of The City was considered Upstate. I didn't seem to fit in with the other kids at school, always an outsider. I could not relate to their violent ways, the small town mentality never appealed to me. I could not wait to grow up and get out of there. I had no social life with the other kids in school. I only had one friend, Carol Sommers. We had a connection which to this day, I do not understand. Maybe it was that we were outsiders to the rest of the kids our age, maybe it was just destiny that we came to be friends. Best friends. Only friends. The other kids were cruel. So cruel in fact, that I have blocked out most of what was going on in my life, just to survive. When I was not with my only friend, Carol, I would lose myself in my music. I can not believe I am confessing to this, but the Monkees were one of my favorite groups.


Worse yet, I once wrote a fan letter to no other than Davey Jones (no, the cad never even acknowledged that a lonely little 13 year old was pouring her heart out to him).

I had been listening to The Beatles for awhile, never got into the Stones (not at that point) and then graduated to Sonny and Cher and Donovan. Somehow, I really do not remember how. I came across one album that changed my life. Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, we are only in it for the money. I had an uncensored copy, which I thought was the most 'far out' thing since The Beatles.

I listened to the album over and over, singing along with the lyrics which were provided on the back cover of the album (something rare in those days). I finally found something I could relate to! I was turned on to the whole scene. I thought Frank was singing to me (little did I know that he was being sarcastic- I was so naive). I did not know how he knew how I felt about my family and all those things around me, but the words of “Mamma, Mamma” were my life. I had a mom and dad that were plastic, would spend their time drinking and smoking and just ignoring the needs of their children. I wanted to find out what this whole Hippie Scene was all about. I knew I belonged.

The locals in Saugerties had mentioned that there were some “weirdoes” in the small township of Woodstock (9 miles due East of my home). I wanted to go see them, to see if what I felt when I heard Frank Zappa would be the same if I met a real hippie in person.

When I first walked into the town circle in Woodstock, I knew I had found home. The faces were friendly. Everyone was smiling. The shops beckoned to me. The streets called my name.

Little did I know why this place was so different than the other little townships. Little did I know that this was THE PLACE that all the city dwellers from Greenwich Village came to get away from the preverbal “rat race”. They brought a taste of their lives with them to this once sleepy little artist colony.

Whenever I could I would find a way to Woodstock to explore the colors and smells of the unique shops – to feel like I truly belonged. Whether it was talking someone older into giving me a ride, or sticking out my thumb and hitching a ride with a stranger. I had to get there… I was addicted to this place, to these people.

There were so many creative forces in this otherwise humble little abode. There were artists and musicians and playwrights and songwriters. Then there were even kids like me, ostracized by the locals and drawn by the magic in the air that could not be explained.

One of the most unique aspects of the town was the creative energy. People just would gather and start a music jam session. It was not uncommon to be sitting in a small little coffee shop sipping your hot beverage, whether it be homemade hot chocolate or simmering hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick swizzle or maybe even drinking the dark thick overpowering espressos that were truly European style. I am not talking about the watery brown liquid that you get at the corner Starbucks. These were true “coffee houses”.... well, anyway, as I was saying; you might be sitting there in the middle of a this coffee house, on a sultry August afternoon and see two albinos walk in, both of them with brilliant white hair trailing down their narrow backs, sunglasses protecting their light-sensitive eyes. They might be carrying guitars. They might be just coming to sit and enjoy the company. But more likely than not, they would pull out their guitars, right there at the large picnic style table and bench. Not even 10 feet from where you were sitting. They would rest one leg on the end of the bench, guitar case open before everyone and pull out that thing and play. And sing. Donovan may have joined in and begun to sing or hum as well as the boy next to you with the mismatched socks and long flowing hair. And then, afterwards, introduce themselves as the Winter Brothers, Johnny and Edgar.

It was at one of these unpretentious impromptu gatherings that I first heard of an upcoming free music festival. It was to be held on some land owned by "The Band" (yes they had a nice little spread they named, just East of town). It was only an open field, but there was chatter of how they would have these “up and coming bands” and maybe some “not-so -up and coming bands” all gather for the fun of it.

Maybe there would be music promoters there, looking for new talent. Maybe there would be someone famous there, just wanting to try out their newest songs – WHO KNEW??? They said they were called the Woodstock Sound-Outs.

Well, it was at one of these Sound-Outs that I was first introduced to illicit drugs. After all, it was the 60's. The summer of love had passed on the West Coast and it seems that New York was a bit behind. Upstate was even further behind. The Hippie Scene on the West Coast had died. Somewhere far away, in the far off Never, Never Land of California.

As I mentioned, the first time I tried drugs was at one of these “festivals”. I had talked my father into dropping me off on the end of a dirt road. He had no idea what his little girl was about to embark upon. There was a makeshift stage set up on the north end of the field and before it were a scattering of tents, like nomads, these people that I had never seen the likes of before, were partying in a way I had never known. They were gathered in small groups around open fires, looking very much like Indians (Native Americans) of the days of old, long hair flowing, innocent wide eyes, and endless grins. I was a brave young girl, wearing my shabby bell bottoms and t-shirt, trying to fit in with this crowd like no other I had seen before.

There was a boy who caught my attention and I somehow was able to muster up enough courage to look at him and smile. That was all the introduction he needed, and the next thing I knew, we were suddenly talking about music and the anticipation of what the night would bring. He invited me to come with him to meet some friends at another circle. We sat down, Indian style, around a small fire. Everyone was laughing and enjoying the night. They were passing around a small metal pipe and inhaling long steady “hits” (as I learned they were called). I had been smoking cigarettes for a few years, but had never smoked marijuana.

My dad had warned me about it and said that he had a room mate back in college, back in the roaring twenties, that was a “reefer addict” and told me how it ruined his friend’s life. I was afraid of smoking marijuana. I told the people at the circle that I had been warned about it and that I did not want to try any. They said “this is not marijuana, this is opium, it won’t hurt you!”.

I took the small pipe in my hand while someone held the lighter up to the end for me, and I drew a long, long breath of smoke. I tried to hold it in my lungs, but it burned and made me feel like I was choking to death. I remember the warm blanket which seemed to slide down around my consciousness. It was a very pleasant feeling, but it was a feeling that I should have shied away from, as I would learn one day.

Later that night I was wandering around with the boy and we were just hanging out listening to the different bands on stage and I was really feeling really “out of it”. The smoke made me kind of float in and out of reality. Words were not making sense; everything made me laugh, even if there was no reason to laugh. I remember us going into a tent to “make out”. I enjoyed the kissing and hugging but was not ready to cross any other lines. After all, I was practically a virgin at this point, only having shared that special part of me with one boy. I was not ready to allow another to get that close to me again. It was painful for me both physically and emotionally. As I said, I was fine with the making out, but he wanted more.

He was upset when I rejected him again. He roughly tossed me aside and bolted out of the tent. I overheard him rudely grunt to his friend “no beans”. I was not sure what he meant, but I felt hurt and used. I pulled myself together and crawled out of the tent, trying to regain my composure. I wandered about the festival.. trying to escape the reality of what I just experienced. It was then that I found myself being drawn to the stage. It was then that I discovered that music was able to give me what I was not getting from the people in the audience. It was the first time I felt alone in a crowd, yet oddly, the music was able to get through to me. To the real me. The inner me. It was the music that held me close and soothed my hurt.

Again, I tried to connect with reality. Again, I tried to fit in to a group that was just sitting around “rapping” as we used to call it.

A not so young man called to me with his eyes. He had a bit of an accent, one that I was not familiar with. I remembered seeing him perform on stage and recalled that I liked his music. I found myself being drawn to him and walked over and sat down where I could be closer to him. He had an aura about him that seemed to be special.

However, when he reached down and put his hand on my thigh, I felt a tingle. At first it was a good tingle, but I was confused as to why he would be so bold to touch me without being invited. I pulled away from him and scooted back. All my inner alarms were sounding. The tingle was no longer a good tingle but instead it was one that I wanted to run from.. as fast as I could. Instead of him backing off when I pulled away, he became indignant and asked belligerently “don’t you know who I am?” To be honest, I did not. And at this point, I could care less! I was a mere child of 15 or so and he was at least 21. I was disgusted at his attempt to seduce me.

“I am Van Morrison you stupid girl… don’t you know that any girl here would do anything for me?” In my mind I was telling myself, “well that is just fine Mr. Morrison, you just go off with anyone else.. cause I was the no beans girl!” I have never been a fan of his since that night.

My father came to pick me up and I gladly ran to the car, feeling a bit odd… my head still spinning a bit.. feeling a bit shake from having to fight off the wolves.. .feeling a bit relieved that I got to go home to a nice warm bed. Yet there was a bit of innocence left in that field that night.. and there was a tear shed as I realized that my parents had not noticed that there was anything wrong. How could they not have noticed that I was not myself.. that I was finding my way to being lost.. that I had taken my first steps down the path of darkness.

I left a larger part of myself on the field that night. One that will never be found again. It will be years before I admitted the hurt that was felt. It will be even more years before I realized the damage done by those few words which hit me deep “no beans” was to be the value my worth over the next few years…. No beans meant to me.. no love… how confused I once was.. how sad.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Sound-Outs

http://dakiniverona.blogspot.com/

i was born in England in 1962. my mother was 16 when i was born and i grew up listening to the Beatles, the who and early american mucsicians, it was in my blood early. we moved to canada in 1969 i was 7. i grew up in the 70s and experienced all the drug experimentation of lsd and weed, in my teens. there wasnt alot of love in my family and i was always looking for it. i remember we went camping in lake placid in 71 and next to our camp site were a bunch of cool friendly people singing dancing and talking about and showing love to each other, i was constantly with them as my parents were fighting. they took me in for the week, i heard about woodstock and the music was playing from there bus.. i wanted to go from that point on, i didnt believe it was over . i went thru my teens and adult life addicted to drugs because i didnt feel any love for myself or from anyone else for that matter, i always thought of those hippys in that place in lake placid, and Woodstock. i finaly got clean and found a group of people to love me till i could love myself in a 12 step program. i made it a goal to visit and get the spirit of woodstock, i flew to Miami this summer and bought a motorcycle and proceded north. i hit kennedy space center, daytona beach, washington dc and gettysburg. then i headed for woodstock in bethel ny. i arrived in the catskills and rode thru some of the best country roads i ever rode. i came apon a sign that said bethel ny , the home of woodstock 1969. i proceded to ask where the farm is and after some riding i found the preforming arts center there. then i came upon the woodstock concert site. i parked my bike behind where the stage used to be, i walked around the field and felt the energy that still remains there, i pictured all the movies and people i had seen on that field. i was happy. i went to the momument and talked to some old hippys that were there at a picnic table who told me their experinces of love music rain and mud, but of unconditional love between everyone there. i looked up in the sky and to my horror the dark clouds were coming in, it was gonna rain at woodstock ha ha i couldnt believe it. i parked my bike up by the old entrance under a tree and went inside the museum to ride out the storm. i saw and read everything about the poitical struggles of the time and the festivals purpose , sat in an old bus and watch a video on the kids arriving to the concert of a life time, i saw the clothes people wore and was blown away at the sign woodstock which was at gas station at that time 1969, get your gas here. i then layed down on a been bag and listened to the thunder outside. i watched the full concert on the screen which was awsome especialy santana who was unknown at the time.i didnt want to leave but time was ticking .the sky was clear the sun was goin down. i left woodstock on my motorcycle picturing all the kids leaving and trying to get home in my mind. the rain had stopped and there was a sunset as i rode up 17b, the mist from the valley was in the air as crossed the bridge to the main highway. it was the most peacful ride as no one else was there and i was full of woodstock, at that point i saw a dear cross infront of me, it was a cool trip and im so glad i went. the irony of the trip was that as i went to canada with a canadian pardon for my drug use, little did i know i would never get there as the us border agency put me in allegany county jail in the hole and i was treated as a criminal and abused verbaly by the sherriff on my wing, i felt the unnessacery domination and control of the us government. i understand where your peace marches and riots must of come from. i was greatful to see the united states and woodstock as well as the great people i met along the way. i was not happy with the government as 2 us marshals escorted me back to england. this experience will stay with me forever, especialy jimi hendrix, and his lyrics when i come up against a mountain i chop it down with the back of my hand.. thank you for reading this , i have pics on face book at marco_12stpr@hotmail.com . mark mcdonald. to all those who attended woodstock at the time , i am truly jealous and grateful to have met some of you as you taught me unconditional love . thanks, mark mcdonald

Yes, I was there. I have my original program, but I gave up $18.00 ticket at the gate since I was there early enough that they were still taking tickets! Went with some friends from high school, met some other high school friends, but also met some guys, one of whom was going to college in South Carolina, Clemson, to be exact, who became rather close to me over the next few days. While we wrote to each other from our respective colleges, we stopped writing after I met my college boyfriend. Many years later would love to find him again and be able to wear the incredibly muddy jeans I had to throw away. The rickrack down the length of the pant legs was mud encrusted forever. So drugs, some, sex, some, but no skinny dipping. We were there to go to sleep in the mud with the Who, to wake up in the mud with Jimi, to use the phones, bathrooms, and food of the incredibly nice neighbors (we camped in a cornfield), even though we had clothes and food to last us the entire time. My parents knew where I was but none of us KNEW we were going to be part of something like this! So, the music is still the highlight, but even more was the community, the friendships, the exhilaration, the fatigue. Not one moment of complaining (ok, we forgot to dig a trench around our tent in the rain and the lack of bathroom facilities were bummers), and would I do it again? That's really the question, since you could never, ever plan something like this! You just had to be there.

It was the summer of 1969, my husband found out about the woodstock concert being held in Woodstock NY, I worked at an airline and we lived in Dallas Tx. On the spur of the moment we obtained free tickets (passes) to travel on the airline I worked for (Braniff International) and we put on out best finery and flew off first class to New York. We arrived at night so we needed to find a hotel to stay at..Sucess, after 2 tries,and the next morning we had time to waste before the bus left for the Woodstock area so we cruised Greenwich Village, to our dissapointment everything was closed as it was still before noon.. so off to the bus and the trip to Bethel began.. We arrived close to Bethel but the roads were blocked by people walking to the festival we also had to walk a few miles to get there, upon our arrival we found the main gate busted down so we entered and a lifetime of memories and adventure begin... wonderful music.. thousands of people, (some nude). I had been such a greenback I didnt know there wasnt a Marriott across the street from the festival so we saw we were gonna have to sleep on the ground, I had on a party dress and leather shoes.. (mistake) the rain came, the music started, we starved, and we slept in the woods snuggled together with big smiles on our faces, as I was with the man of my dreams I didnt even notice how wet an cold we were, the leather shoes came off, and i dug a pair of jeans and old shirt out of my back pack and went barefooted.. What a trip, We had to head out Saturday to catch a plan back to dallas for my job and the only way out was to walk and then eventually hitchhike, we were given a ride on the trunk of a car and we hung on for dear life as he spead thru the mountains.... but we made it, and it was a trip of our lifetime.. I will never forget the summer I grew up and saw so many different kinds of people.. no violence.. everyone was happy and glad to share what they had... yes.. I miss the 60's... Betty King

I was only 15 at the time.. and Heidi, (my sister) was 19. I was staying with her for the summer at her house in Buffalo, New York. We were pretty fond of the music at the time, even though we werewn't quite been exposed to the folk scene. When we heard about the free concert from a friend, we packed our bags and headed south. On the way, we picked up some friends in Heidi's van. Heidi ran into Mitchie (her husband now) and had to take him too. We got there thursday afternoon, and set up camp not too far from a group of hippies sitting in a circle singing some happy song that i didn't really know. To tell the truth, Heidi and I mainly went because we knew The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who were going to be there.
On Friday, we waited a really long time, but finally, Richie Havens finally started singing. The rest of the day was pretty cool. We met a lot of cool people. I met this guy, named James. He was tall, with dark brown shaggy hair, and no shirt on, and a cigarette in his mouth. He was really nice and told me his parents didn't want him to come, but he came anyway, and how all he does is play guitar and wish the world was a better place. He told me "Life isn’t worth living unless you’re willing to take some big chances and go for broke." then he gave me this cool peace necklace made with hemp string, and a few beads. He walked off, and I've never seen him since.
The nights were long, and no one got any sleep. The second day, we were hit with a pretty bad storm. It rained all morning, but it cleared up in the afternoon. Del, a guy i had met on the way there, sat down with me and we played guitar for a while, and sang songs, and danced in the rain. People that sat on the big light and sound towers had to get down, and everyone took cover. people made mud slides, and stripped down and washed off in the lake behind the stage.I remember at about 3:00 a.m. Most people were actually asleep,(and covered in mud) but not me. CCR was about to play, and someone yells not too far from me "were with you, john.. don't worry!" and then, they played a great show. I'll never forget that guy. The Grateful dead got shocked a couple of times when they touched their instruments... we could hear a zap every once and a while.
Everyone thought the show was going to end on sunday, but it went on all the way to Monday, because of the long wait on Friday. I remember chanting the F word many times as Country Joe and the fish played their first song. That night, I had realized Heidiwasn't with me, but i found her quickly after i spotted a small fire, and 10 hippies in a circle, dancing, singing, and living carefree. I had wished i could act like that, so I joined them, and I felt so alive!!
The final day, I woke up to the sound of johnny winter, and covered in blankets, and surrounded by beautiful people. I got up, and realized, sadly it was the last day of this amazing journey. we were going to leave, but forgot that Jimi Hendrix hadn't played yet. so we got as close to the stage as we could (not too close, it was really crowded) and enjoyed the amazing one hour left of the concert. We packed up, and headed towards heidi's van, and asked around if anyone needed a ride back to buffalo. It took atleast an hour and a half to get to our car.. and took 3 hours to get out. I cried on the way home, because I was so sad to leave, and hoped that someday i would experience this again. The people there taught me love, and to live free. It was more than just drugs, and what most people think it was today, but it was the fact that this brilliant guy wanted to gather almost half a million people together and create peace and harmony.


THE END

The summer of 69 was a tumultuos time in Washington, D.C.. Nixon was president and the demonstrations were a fairly regular event that attracted crowds that rivaled Woodstock. Georgetown was the place to be if you were a hippie, and the streets were clogged with them,(us!)
Earlier that Summer I camped with Kenny and Stevie at Atlantic City Pop Festival near "Ripple City", a group as close as I can describe, what we call today, anarchists. Ripple City was organizing a march to the festival for the free people to be allowed in for free. And we were.
We heard about Woodstock and there was no doubt we were going. I took the better part of a day to get to Bethel from D.C., pretty good considering there was 3 of us hitching, but those really were the days, my friends! Traffic stopped not far out of town and we parked in a field where we set up for the night. That was Thursday and it was the first of many times that weekend it would rain.
Being a 20 year old and not being well prepared, I had a sleeping bag, but no tent. The car was parked on a hill and I decided to sleep under it. As the rain continued, I started to slide downhill until my head was jammed under the bellhousing.
The next morning we took off for the festival leaving behind my 20 pound wet sleeping bag. It seemed like 20 miles until we got to the site, but looking back, I'm sure it wasn't. When we arrived they were rolling up the fence and it had been decided that at least this weekend, the music was free.
We met some friends who were camped in the press camp right by the gate and that became our base. I remember that food was a scarce commidity, especially as I had no money. After I met a guy whose buddy had been killed by being run over by a tractor, he gave me a bag of "hearts", a type of diet drug used as speed which he'd gotten from his friend swearing he'd never do them again, anyway, food wasn't that important after that... I don't want to sound like a proponent for speed, it's just what happened, and I've never done them since.
Woodstock was the beginning of a long journey that included going to the Colorado Rainbow Gathering, the first Barter Fair here in Washington, learning to live collectively and using this knowledge to live my life.
I'll never forget sitting on a mountain of trash that Monday morning waiting for Jimi to come on and now almost 42 years later looking back at this crossroad in my life and marvelling at how many lives it changed.

Who was Joe Tuck? He was; well, Joe Tuck,-- they, the University, if they had been bent on exhibiting some new face of tolerance, in admitting him it could only have been tolerance for that specific quality of “Tuckness”, as he fit no other categories, reperesented no other demographic-.- Unlike the blacks and myself it seems it didn’t occur to him to either struggle with that fact, mentally, or to question his identity within the greater context. Bottom line, he was poor, and poor has its own politics. If they couldn’t take a joke then ‘f-” ‘em” as he would say. Tuck had come to Cornell in 1968 on a 100% scholarship. He was a wild, wiry Irishman with a curly, Colleen Dewhurst copper red “Jewfro” and a hook of a nose that implied some pending allergy, and a moist pallid complexion as if he had been hidden under a rock most of his life. Apparently his father had been dead for a while or disappeared or at least been hiding under a different rock than he and his mother for a very long time. He had been raised by his mother on Euclid Avenue, a working class neighborhood of Syracuse. In Syracuse, as in much of upstate New York, then, even still to this day, at least in certain areas, workingclass means; not working, but having all intentions of doing so. For him, Cornell was his ticket out of poverty. This was something he did not attempt to hide or dissimulate. He was also unfailingly proud of his background. And why should he not?! Maybe he was poor but he was a writer! Plus, he was at Cornell, he had got the golden ticket. ((Though, I have to say, in my experience writers are notoriously not ticket takers so what Joe (or I for that matter) was doing at Cornell I will never know.))

Of course,- when I say Tuck was a writer, I don’t mean that he ever actually wrote anything, it was just that, well, whatever it is in me that makes me want to write, to scribble this nonsense constantly, that thing was in him too,-and like me, when he kept it bottled up, it seeped out of his pores like Gatorade, in incongruous colors as if to paint in vague but bright blotches an ongoing Herculean inner struggle, this latter, this constant internal struggle, like his scholarship to Cornell was, like a used handkerchief something he was inclined at odd moments to accost you with, to rub it in your face, something that made him different, much as his unitized dust mote slef-propelling red “Jewfro”. He stood ever on the brink of nervous collapse, incipient sneer hiding behind the pallid bushes like a robber ready to ambush you, to grab you by the collar with his thin, pale, effeminate fingers as one might any stranger in a bar, not to rob, but to present a foregone conclusion, a means of finding, a small mercy in some human contact rather than as a means to cultivate, or, start an entire conversation, which would have been just besides the FACT. In other words, Joe was pretty bottled up,- but not in a way that improved over time, like a Cabernet, but then he would be the last to admit (or deny) it.

It didn’t seem like we had planned it. Joe sat there on the couch, shaking his red hair (which, as I have said seemed always to move as a well disciplined unit), disturbing the dust motes in the room in a choreographed stampede, tiny buffalo, silently bemoaning some inscrutable real or imagined wrong, some whofuckincares extinction from this century or the last (whofugincares), just as he always had, just as he always would, bewailing some wrong committed in the name of a mis-perceived irony, some sin directed against the indecent or the decent, --the New Wave, the old wave, the new age or the old wage.
“Want to go to Woodstock?” He said finally snorted, looking up fattening himself at the fact that I had been sitting there with my guitar in hand for the last hour with these pathetic attempts at originality.
“No money.” I replied finally putting my Guild D-50 down very gently, without any expression.
“We can hitchhike.”
“What about food?” I asked.
“Food,-hahh,-“ Joe snorted again, “you have to trust in the great provider, the Dharma, the way,-- the dharma will give us food.” He intoned with his slightly nasal cajoling tone, his teeth slightly bared so I knew he meant it even though I didn’t know exactly what the hell he meant anyway but I knew it had something to do with Kerouac, or somethin’, ergo, serious.
“So,-?”
“OK, then.” But I went in and made a sandwich, in case the Dharma wasn’t accepting my Cornell meal card.
Woodstock, we knew by then already, was not going to be just another concert, it was to be some kind of a ritual. A new rite for the new age. The first 100% bull-shit-less event to christen a 100% bullshit-less generation. So, to be fair, when I said I had no money, I actually lied, I had a quarter, and by now ,a sandwich. But Joe had zippo. Less than zippo,-- no bull, just the Dharma. Joe Tuck. Joe Tuck, dharma bum,-- the Irishman always down on his luck.

“Let’s go, man.” I said, not really expecting much except for a long stint by the side of the road and then a consolation dinner of Aunt Jemima pancakes with granola at Annie P’s house with our heads now both hung low and shaking pseudo-inconsolably. I picked up my guitar case and we walked out onto East State Street and I stuck out my thumb.

Within seconds we were picked up by this manic, squat, kind of heavyset dude in a mauve “T” Shirt, with a Fu Manchu moustache driving a ‘56 Dodge dart, kind of hunched over the wheel with his eyes darting back and forth behind horn rimmed black glasses, nervously muttering to himself and smoking a corn cob pipe full of marijuana. It was as if he had been car service waiting for us. He looked like short, fat, Chinese Jeff Goldblum. “Where ya’ goin?” “Woodstock”. “Me too”. “What’s your name?”, “Larry, Larry from Buffalo”, “I’m Joe and he’s Ken”. “Want a toke?” “- later”. That was it,-- it seemed so easy.

I had spent many hours hitch hiking before. I had hitchhiked with Hugh to Boston University earlier that year and in previous years to a lot of other festivals like the Newport Jazz festival on Rhode Island and the Folk festival. Hitchhiking was never fun. It sounds like it should be an adventure but usually when your feet aren’t aching, you’re usually stuck in the back seat of a barely streetlegal vehicle with someone else’s feet jammed against the side of your head. If you’re lucky their shoes are off and there socks are clean. Three dudes in a Dodge Dart with a working radio. That was paradise. Billy Herndon, you may recall, also had a Fu Manchu moustache, but then again he was the black detective, whatever that was, Yin and Yang, --- I looked up at the blue and red Taoist symbol Arnold Savolainen had painted in acrylic on his window floating over Eddy and State and waved goodbye to Ithaca and all of that and breathed the breath of the road.

The trip down Route 17 was uneventful, almost frighteningly normal. Then at Binghamton we heard the disc jockeys talking about the events on the radio in their normal hyped up echo enhanced bantering tone. In that desolate section of highway between the Downsville or Fishes Eddy exit until you are close to Liberty, it is almost impossible to get good reception on the FM radio. Then suddenly things started moving so incredibly fast that by the time we got to exit 94, Roscoe, we were already out of the loop. When I turned the radio back on it was as if hippies had hijacked every radio station in the country and supplanted the DJs with people who (*from a strictly technical point of view) sounded remarkably normal and unenhanced, if a little excited. There was Arlo Guthrie, “they closed the New York State Thruway man! The New York State Thruway!” he was exulting in his incredulous nasal twang. “Whew,” I said with relief,” lucky we’re on 17 and not the thruway”. “Traffic is dead stopped on Route 17.” “At least we’re moving man. What do they know!” Somehow I didn’t sound very convincing, even to myself.

Then it seemed like the radio started carrying on a conversation with ‘Fu Man Larry -Chu” something along the lines of: Arlo, “Don’t you think you ought to stop for gas man?” (nasal twang) “Don’t need no gas.” Larry says back to the radio. “Oh, yeah” Arlo asks “and what does this car run on exactly, ‘good vibrations’?” And all without a trace of unintended irony. “Ethanol man. Renewable, clean fuel, from corn” says Larry waving the corn cob pipe to illustrate. “You know what you’ve got there son? –(Pause) An Internal Corn Bustin’ engine.” (Fade back to music) Says Arlo and that was it-it was back ridin' 'The City of New Orleans'. As we approached the exit for Monticello and White Lake which was also the exit for Bethel, Arlo was sill singin’ “‘N I don’t want a pickle,-just want to ride my motor-sssscyyyyy-----cle”,--we began to see one car then ten cars, pulled over on the side or parked on the meridian or wherever,-and people just milling around on what had been the normally barren patchy grass of the route 17 divider like it was Central Park or something. “This is far out, man!” Joe was looking around doing that kind of combination amused closed mouth laugh and snarl with increasing frequency, now like a caged animal. Traffic got to be a dead stop and Larry pulled the Dart over and said perfunctorily. “That’s it man.” “OK” I said and got out of the car. “Ya coming?” Joe asked Larry. “I’m just gonna sit here and groove on this scene here for a while.” Larry said pulling out his corn cob pipe from the ashtray. “OK, Whatever Man. Cool” and Joe hauled himself out after me and we set off on the seven mile hike towards theconcert site, with no idea what direction to walk, as it seemed the majority of people were just milling around aimlessly.

I was pretty sure it, the event, was West, in the direction of White Lake, but, which way was that?, follow the dharma man! The dharma just then consisted of hundreds of people kind of milling in a general direction away from the highway so we headed off that way too. As we walked along country lane after country lane it became evident that we were in fact headed the right way. The road began increasingly to resemble those black and white pictures of war refugees you see in magazines, but somehow almost reluctantly bursting from predominantly amber sepia hue into full well lit color, like the movie with William H. Macy, like an old photo, Pleasantville or Oz,-but everyone kind of in tatters, like a circus troop, a voiceless camraderies, all kind of trudging along in the same general direction and then with this Technicolor impasto irrational joy welling up occasionally, popping out also suddenly, unexpectedly. Some were lugging guitars as I was and some just stopped to do impromptu performances by the side of the road, without any explanation or fanfare, seemingly just from force of habit, as if they were performers, addicted to attention and couldn’t shake it. Others seemed like shell shocked campers, imposters caught in the same golden afternoon light, the old DMZ between day and night suddenly reversing itself, going to more light, not less, halfheartedly lugging their belongings, tents, canteens, (bottled water had yet to be invented), and instruments,--but then suddenly there were no imposters among us, or we were all imposters. As we left the backdrop of the blacktop behind, the atmosphere turned welcoming, like we were in some Renaissance festival with jugglers and clowns but Renaissance fares also had yet to be invented. We marched along like some great migration of refugees pushed ahead by the glacier of studied contempt of society for youth and things stubbornly young the terminal moraine deposited on those twisty Sullivan County roads ground to gravel, then dirt. For two hours we trudged, as the excitement grew and the light paradoxically still grew, even in the deepening shadows of evening proving more warm and honeying instead of cool and blue tinged as expected and it hugged us like long lost children and we didn’t say a word, or feel the need to, but, I wondered why l felt I was starting to get hungry. A lot of people had just stopped to picnic by roadside and I cast an envious glance in their direction. The image of Billy Herndon and his angry hipster Alice in Wonderland picnics flashed briefly in my mind. Many people had sat down to rest on the slight embankment alongside the road I realized that these were not exceptionally athletic people to begin with and if they had been in the circus they certainly were more likely to have been the clowns or the guys riding the elephants, not the trapeze artists, and certainly not the jugglers. As we trudged on, mile after mile, of those unending eight miles, eight thousand miles away, we knew, as we constantly knew somehow, boys our exact age were dying in tall elephant grass and rice paddies and snake infested swamps, but suddenly Vietnam and its horror seemed like it was locked behind the increasingly shredded canvas of dread, in another world, another time, --not this one, not this place, not this time, at least for now.

Without any apparent provocation, I suddenly drew up to a halt. I noticed there sitting on the side of the road just in front of me, sitting cross-legged against a tree, a thin olive skinned guy, kind of playing a guitar wearing brown sunglasses with a red and white do-rag, also clearly in his own perfect mikrokosmos. At this point the pastoral aspects had given way to a brimming excitement and it seemed the excitement was tangible enough that there was no reason not to believe that we were trapped in some kind of fairytale and that the laws of time and space were willing to be somewhat playful, if not suspended outright, at least relaxed provided of course the exact right question was asked, as they are wont to do in those stories. “Are you Jimi Hendrix?” I asked, hoping against hope that my quest was over, that we had walked far enough, that we were in fact-’at Woodstock’, that Woodstock consisted on a total of three people total and we could now go home or to the diner. “No man, I’m his twin brother, Roger Hendrix.” Joe kind of snorted and the guy laughed also realizing at that moment that he had inadvertently somehow condemned us to continue walking, but not in a malicious way. The guy was white. I should have guessed. Those were the only words I spoke to a soul for four hours as the light grew progressively more and welcoming and then weaned from the cares of the day directly into rainy black carpeted night.

As I stepped out from the cool marble hallway of TIAA-CREF into, the bright morning and onto Lexington Avenue, I saw something that I had never seen before. All the people on the street were walking in the same direction, --uptown. I already knew why. As I turned to look downtown, the grim reason was apparent in a gash of white smoke painted against the bright September sky,-beautiful and obscene. The other odd thing was that all the athletic women in their business suits, lugging their laptops heading uptown were wearing high heels, not sneakers. No time to change. Some thirty two years later, the Pleasantville bursting picnic of color had been permanently painted over again with gray cement and ash and it was not the normal surface filmy gray of Manhattan but a foreign, gritty, permeating gray. It was all very calm and almost seemed well organized, everyone stepping along at more or less the same pace, heads down, watching the sewer gratings with their high heels, just athletically, not in any panic, just heading uptown, like they might do on any ordinary day, watching the heels of the person in front of them, moving away from the destruction,-- not toward anything, just away, away, like a line of healthy well tailored Dolce Gabbana refugees. If they were from the circus, these would have been the trapeze artists and jugglers. I remember stepping into the crosswalk at 47th street, hey, its just a street and people crossing the street, typical beat up New York asphalt , yellow lines, nothing special, frighteningly normal. But, --all going in the same direction?!

Turn around, Hendrix smokin’scuse me while I kiss the sky’. I quickstepped off toward the Waldorf Astoria. No one was getting out of New York, there tight as a conch cork in a bull’s ass. I might as well be comfortable if they were going to blow up Manhattan. “No rooms. Sorry.” Smile. “I can put you on the waiting list. What’s your name?.” Pause, flung back,- “Roger Hendrix”. No reaction. ‘Fuck you’.

Listening to the proceedings of the 9/11 commission on the radio yesterday driving around in the Ford Aerostar delivering teeth for Walter and Dental Designs, they were talking to the firemen and policemen who survived the first hours of rescue. After two years it still brought tears to my eyes to listen to them, to hear them tell this story, to see in my mind the earnest faces as they trudged up the stairs about to be sucked into a gray concrete milkshake, then later, when I heard Bernie Kerik and Tommy Von Essen tell the former Secretary of the Navy Lehman to basically ‘shove it up his ass’ when in the committee lunged in, Lehman attacking him and Kerik for the inter-department rivalries that may have hindered the rescue and caused the death of more firemen than was necessary (whatever that meant); and that made me smile. Whether they were wrong or right, it didn’t matter too much,-this was typical New York, ‘hey I’m walking here buddy!’ bravado, it was the same spirit that enabled New York to get us through that horrible day, right or wrong we did our best, if you don’t like it, you can shove it up your ass,---sir. I grabbed the bag of dentures with fierce pride. The radios didn’t work too well, ’tough shit’, this is New York, you try and get a Purchase Order approved. By the time the firefighters got where they were supposed to be, in the North Tower, they were already out of the loop, that was an unfortunate fact. Gnashing of teeth, --somebody else’s teeth (thank god). There was no Arlo Guthrie to tell them with uninflected nasal surprise when they got there, “Hey, the South Tower’s already collapsed man! The South Tower!” in that incredulous nasal twang. Just more static, stuck there between Fish’s Eddy and Liberty. Everyone trudging in the same direction, down and out, then up and up and uptown, and uptown, and up no panic, just walking, two distinct steadily ever increasing streams of people toward and away from the tide of some undefined gray sea. Somehow it felt as if suddenly everyone had realized that they were just utterly powerless, at precisely the same moment, not in a spiritual sense, but in a sitting in the dentist waiting room waiting for your dentures to arrive way when your old set was already in the trash. All you could do is walk, walk away, one foot in front of the other- if you can,-or fly. High heels, and dentures, toward the Waldorf, towards Caldors, towards some great, more organized and stylish gnashing of teeth. High heels rushing to meet some angry, grey shattered ground beyond the DMZ.

The kanji for walking always involves two ideograms or pictures, never a single one; the idea of going, plus, the idea of foot. There is no word for just plain old walking. There is ‘strolling’, ‘fast paced walking’, ‘walking on the edge of a sword’, ‘walking under the eaves’, ‘walking slowly’, ‘walking with feet pointed outwards’, -the exception is “walking under the eaves”, which can be expressed with only one pictogram. There were no buses, no trains running, traffic was dead stopped. There is no pictogram I know of for “walking in two lines covered with gray dust composed of pulverized silicate concrete and body parts”. There is no kanji for “walking down a country lane and meeting Jimi Hendrix’ twin brother, Roger”.

T

Hello,
I've attached a short letter and photo that I sent to David Geffen on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

I never received a reply and I didn't expect one.

The reason being is that people at that level of notoriety and success have one thing that is most valuable to them and that is their privacy.

I called an office of his and told an abbreviated version of my story to the lady who answered the phone and she gave me an email address to send this letter to.

The only way to verify this story is to ask David or Joni Mitchell and chances are good they'll pass on acknowledging it for the above stated reason.

I wanted you to have this because it is a whimsical and romantic piece of that tapestry called the Woodstock experience.

Thank you for being there and creating this website,

-David Hatch

Here’s the letter and it’s story…

August 17,2009
Hello David,

My name is David Hatch and out of respect for your time I will get right to the point.

I believe I was the model for the character “A Child Of God” in the song “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell and I’m writing to you because you were the only other person who was there and would know that this story is true.

I’d thought to write to you several times over the years but it is this year, the 40th anniversary of the event that to me is the last anniversary that will mean anything as we, as a country and as a culture move full tilt toward a future that we can’t predict or imagine.

The TV show “Woodstock, Then and Now” has been playing for the past week and I felt that if I didn’t write now, it would be meaningless if I waited even one more day to do so.

So, if you’ll indulge me, here’s my story.

On that summer day in 1969 I was an eighteen-year-old boy hitchhiking up route 1 through Massachusetts hoping I would be a part of something monumental that was happening so near to where I lived and I didn’t want to miss it.

I remember everything so clearly.

I was wearing a red and white-stripped shirt and blue jeans, I was carrying a cheap electric guitar in its cardboard case and I had a backpack with a few belongings in it and I was on my way.

I was doing pretty good with the rides despite the fact I was on the scenic route where the traffic was light.

In those days, rental cars looked like something from a military motor pool and when one such car stopped to give me a ride, I got nervously in the back seat and said thanks to the driver and his lady passenger.

The car had one of those long bench seats and she turned around and rested her chin on her hands and looked at, and through me in a way that I have never been looked at before or since, I could not hold her gaze and I had to look away.

Her eyes were like comets and it was as if she regarded me with her entire being which filled the car and beyond, and into this most transcendental space, just like in the song, she asked me the simple questions of where was I going and what were my plans.

I told her that I had heard that Jeff Beck was going to be there and that I’d hoped if things were loose enough, I might be able to jam with him back stage.

I was naive and innocent and didn’t know how the world worked in regards to such things but it didn’t hurt anything to daydream.

I told her I was getting out of the city and away from the heat, the churning noise and the stink of cars and busses.

She was genuine and charming and she put me at my ease as we talked about this event and what it meant to us and to the world.

The driver would occasionally add observations and ask questions and the remainder of the ride was quite pleasant and relaxed.

I was dropped off outside of Boston because they had someplace else they had to go.

The truth is, I never made it to Woodstock either.

I had left a day too late.

I got as far as the Boston Commons where the word was that all the roads in were blocked solid with abandoned cars and it was being treated as an emergency situation and that it would have been a hike of untold miles to get to the concert grounds.

I weighed my options and changed my plans.

I had the money I saved from working 16 hour double shifts at the Wonder Bread factory so I asked around and ended up with a chunk of hashish the size, color and consistency of a stack of three Fig Newtons and took a train back to New Haven the next day.

I was in my first apartment and it was a high ceiling Victorian building on the corner of Chapel and Orchard Street in a somewhat uncomfortable part of the city.

Just talking about it now brings back whispers of it and who I was and how I felt then.

The rain that soaked the people at Woodstock fell outside my open windows as I sat snug and dry floating on “one toke” hash listening to Cinnamon Girl, Had to Cry Today and Medicated Goo on an excellent KLH stereo system…I can hear them now…

I dodged a lot of bullets since then, the drugs stopped by ’72 and I never really liked drinking, so alcohol never got its hooks into me and smoking cigarettes just made me feel sick.

I got drafted in ’70 and it took me four consecutive days of interrogation to convince the army psychiatrist I was insane so I literally dodged the bullet of Vietnam and all the nightmares that experience promised.

As I sit here writing this and in the process of reviewing my life just now, I realize I was born into it with the brakes on and never the gas.
To quote Tom Wingo in Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides “ I was waiting for my real life to begin”…I guess I still am…

There’s an epilog to this story that took twenty-eight years to occur.

In ’97 I was working at a restaurant called Louise’s Trattoria, which is on the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Laurel Canyon in Studio City, California and one day around four o’clock when the place was quiet, Joni and three people walked in and I thought I was going to have a heart attack when I recognized her.

The group walked in, looked around and walked back out and went to the Gaucho Grill next door where they were seated outside.

My heart was pounding because I knew I had to say something now because another chance like this would never come again.

I walked up to within ten feet of the table and introduced myself and apologized for my intrusion and told her what I’ve told you but in twenty words or less because what I was doing was in such bad taste and so rude an invasion but I was helpless to not do it.

She listened graciously, nodded and paused and said she didn’t remember and that it had been a very dark time for her.

I stood there squirming and gave a few more details hoping it would help and she repeated what she said so I apologized again and turned to flee when she asked, “what did the driver look like?” and I described you, David.

You wore your hair short so you could comb it back when you were dealing with the corporate world and comb it forward when you were out with your friends.

I used to do the same thing.

You’re probably wondering why I’ve written to you and it’s because my life came into contact with yours and Joni’s for that brief moment in what turned out to be, though we didn’t know it at the time, the beginning of the end of an era and its dream of Greatness.

I wish you the very best,


David M. Hatch

P.S.
My favorite version of her song is on the Shadows and Light live album.
She sings it with such wistful, weary grace.

I never got to Woodstock but a friend of mine did, his story and mine is below
I am 58 now and looking back at my life, the old friends that I have lost and those I have just lost touch with.
I’m from England and in the summer of 69 I was 16 years, still at school my friend Vic and me where in his mother’s garage working on the motor bikes we raced and as usual we had the radio on full blast playing The Beatles, The Stones and Jimi Hendrix.
Vic was a year older than me and his parents had split-up the year before. He lived with his mother in the north of England and his farther who was an English Literature lecturer at the local university moved to the USA to take a post at Western New England College. His father had asked him if he would like to go to stay with him for the summer and I could go as well if I wanted to. He asked me to go with him but I had a choose one or the other I could got to the US or I could work all summer to pay for my bike racing the next season. With hindsight I made the wrong decision I choose to race my bike.
He went over to see his dad the first week of July and made friends with some people over there and they asked him if he would go to a Music and Arts Fair at White Lake New York State. He had a few arguments with his dad and decided to go and had the time of his life. He called me at 3 am when he got back to his dad’s place and me what a great time he had and I should have gone with him.
When he got back home he could not stop talking about the great time he had. He said it was the best music, the best atmosphere and the ladies liked his English accent.
We would go racing over the weekend I was dating Vic’s sister Pat by then and Vic was dating Suzi, We would all travelled in Vic’s camper van with a trailer for the bikes. We had had a good season did a bit of smoking and had a great time but in the second to last race of the season Vic’s bike was taken out by someone else and was killed instantly when he hit a barrier. I never raced or rode a bike again.
I am still married to his sister and I think of my old friend every time I hear a bike but I have one memory of what he said when he came back from Woodstock, He said “that he could die now as he had had the best time of his life”. I only wish I could have been there with him.

HI, I'm age 56. I grew up in a time commonly known today as the explosive generation of the 1960's. Where racial hatred and unrest, deadly riots, along with anti- war protest and the terror of the Ku Klux Klan existed. At time of WoodStock ,I was age 15. I had heard about this concert and a couple years later I bought the soundtrack record album from the movie. Would you believe I still have that 3 record album set along with my younger brothers' copy of it? I went to see the movie and I found this a one of a kind movie. I currently have the the movie WoodStock[directors cut version of it]. I also have the 4 cd album set[25th anniversary edition ]. I highly recommend this 4 cd set. This rock concert is quite historic. In 1969 this concert put rock music on top. I gave a copy of the 4 cd set to this waitress at Denny's Restaurant in Portage, Indiana. this girl now is age 20. She listened to it and loved it. Her parents were quite stunned that she was listening to the music from their generation. This concert had a message then that even today 40 years later that people can not comprehend. The message then was that people can live and exist with each other if they gave it a chance. I tell younger generations of people today that I'm from the Woodstock generation. A co worker and I were listening to the 4 cd set that I have at work and my supervisor heard this music because we had the volume crank up , he was trying to figure out what we were listening to. I told him it is the famous Woodstock concert and I told him what year it was from and I told him well this concert was along time before he were born. I would love to just see the Woodstock museum. I have contacted Turner Classic Movies to see if they would air this movie on tv. It won several academy awards. Alot of work went into putting this concert together. I urge everyone to see this movie Lloyd

A true story: I had just moved to Philadelphia area from New York and met some new friends. Fred told me about a concert coming up in
upstate NY and since I had a car, he wanted to know if I wanted to go with him and two other friends. We actually bought tickets. Fred had just gotten back from CA where he met the chemist who invented MDA and the guy gave him 1,000 (yes, 1,000) hits to pass around on the East Coast. They were small, pinkish pills. One of the other guys, Mike, had two kilos of pot to sell at the festival. Our festival started as soon as we hit the road. With more pot than I had ever seen in the car, we smoked joint after joint until the ashtray of my Pugeot 403B was overflowing with roaches. They were all over the place. We would still smoke 'em with the windows closed so we wouldn't waste any smoke. Since I had just moved to PA, my car's registration status had not yet been updated and the NY inpsection had just expired. We were cruising along on the NY Thruway on Thursday. It was my idea to leave a day early in case of traffic. We had none - absolutely none. We were about the only car on the road. As we lighted about our 50th fatty, my little car got a flat tire. No worries - that's until a NY state trooper passed going in the opposite direction. He saw us and immediately turned around. Uh Oh!!! Out of his car comes a trooper in full regalia. Sunglasses, trooper hat, and an attitude. First thing, he looks around the car and tells me to get out. He looks in the car and almost chokes and tells me my inspection is expired and he's going to take me to town to have my car impounded and searched. First thing I think is do I want to go to Attica or Sing Sing. The trooper tells my friends to change the tire and he tells me to get in his car to go see the judge in town. No handcuffs and I get in the front seat. We drive to town. Somehow keeping my calm I decide I have to do something so I start a conversation with him. Small town life must be great, his car is a technical marvel, etc., etc. We get to the courthouse and the judge is having lunch at his house. He left me in the front seat right next to his shotgun! He gets back in the car and we drive to the judge's house to get my car impounded. Conversation continued along the way and by this time he's calling my Larry and I'm calling him by his first name (left anon.). We're buds, him in his uniform and me with hair going all the way down my back. We drive by the judge's house and he looks the other way and says, "I don't see his car, I guess he's not here. Let's go back to your car, Larry." This is crazy I'm thinking to myself but somehow keep my composure. We get back to the car and the tire is fixed. Thanks guys, but you could have stashed the dope somewhere. Duh! My friends can't believe this guy is my new friend. He says he's going to give me a warning ticket and tells me how to get it expunged when I change my car registration. He asks us if we're going to the Festival and we say yes. Overcome with good feelings for my new friend, I ask him if wants to join us. He actually thinks about it for a second and then says he kind of wants to go but is on duty all weekend. Huh?
We go on to the festival, park right across the street. There were only a few thousand people there on Thursday. Fred and i made ourselves comfortable near the stage and take some MDA and smoke some pot. Each time we turned around, we were taken to a new level and the crowd continued to grow. What great but strange, strange daze.

Larry B

I was 16 in the summer of '69. A bunch of us were working the tobacco fields around Essa township near Angus, Ontario. There were two outdoor concerts coming up one called The Freak Out near Shelburne Ontario and another called this Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in upper New York state. I remember that I loved the line-up of that Woodstock thing but choose The Freak Out because it was only 3o miles away. At the time it was a sound choice and most of my friends choose the same but 3 of my buds headed south. (they were gone for almost a week) I must say I rocked and partied pretty hard at the Freak Out but as Woodstock '69 history continues to grow and Freak Out fades in the fog of time my choice not to head south was the wrong choice. Who knew 50,000 @ Freak Out vs 500,000 @ Woodstock. Did happen to attend Woodstock '99 but that was a different time in a different place that does not compare with the original.

Background:
I was a senior at Cleveland Heights High School. The world was changing from the Ozzie and Harriet, My 3 Son traditional family life. I lived in Cleveland Height, Ohio in an upper middle class family with two brothers and a sister. Mom didn't work. Dad owned his own business. They had 2 cadillacs. I had bought a used yellow mustang convertable the summer before with money I made painting houses.
My contemporaries and I were feeling the change. We still didn't lock our doors at home. But the Viet Nam war and fear of being drafted, psychedlic music from Beatles and Rolling Stones, and free love philosophy had all changed me. I had also discovered marijuana. I liked it better than alcohol. I grew my hair long, changed my clothing to tye dyed shirts, bell bottom pants, etc. No longer Izod and penny loafers.

The trip:
So it was only natural to run away from home to go to Woodstock. I left in my convertable drinking beer and smoking pot all the way. It took 10 hours to get to upstate New York. The time passed quickly with the blaring music that I sang along to as I drove. I was getting really excited about Woodstock. I had been to a few local concerts but this was going to be a whole weekend of music and a city of kids like me from all over the country. What a gas! When I got to tjhe road leading to the Yasgar farm the traffic wasn't moving any more. I drove until I saw ythe end of the line of parked cars on the side of the road and parked mine. I didn't think about where I was going to sleep, what I would eat, didn't bring soap or a toothbrush. I did bring some money and pot. I hadn't even bought a ticket yet. All I could think about was the weekend and music.

Woodstock:
When I arrived it was a mob scene. No one knew if any tickets were left or where to get them. All of a sudden the throng had knocked down the chain link fence and we swarmed into the celebration. I was hot and sweaty and tied my shirt around my waist. suddenly someone passed me a cup of warm orange Koolaide. I drank it and moments later I was hallucinating. So this was what LSD was. From that moment on everything was a blur of pure exstacy. I remember port-a-cans lined in a row and people just peeing on the ground outside cause the lines were too long. People shared their food , drugs, and their bodies. I had sex so many times I was sore. When I was tired I think I slept on the ground.

The music:
Wow!!! The music would have been great anyways. But the drugs supercharged the experience. All the top names where there performing live. Janis Joplin, Iron Butterfly, Joe Coker, Richie Havens, Country Joe and the Fish, Ravi Shanker, Greatful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone (they took us higher), The Who, Jeffeson Airplane, 10 Years After, Jimmie Hendrix, ShaNaNa, and the Moody Blues. Probably some others but thats all I remember. There were several stages and the music was nonstop. Never before and never gain will there be a music extravaganza like this one.

The End:
Many of us stayed until the crowds died down for another 6 hours or so. Then we walked to our cars, tired, dirty, but smiling from ear to ear from the best weekend of our lives. I slept in my car until I could get back ont he road and drove home. I was grounded for a month. But - IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!

I was 15 years old in 1969 and spending the summer as a CIT (counselor-in-training, kinda like a camp counselor's go-fer) at Holiday Ranch Camp, a horseback riding summer camp for girls in South Kortright, NY. There were three other girls my age, all CITs, we spent our days riding horses, waiting tables, going on barefoot hikes in the creek up the mountain, catching snakes, and melting crayons to make those psychedelic melted coke bottles covered in dripped colored wax. We also liked hanging out inside the culvert under the road smoking cigs (practicing to do it without coughing) and drinking our first cans of Pabst given to us by the "hunky" maintenance man that lived on the property. We'd all lay out under the stars all night ostensibly to watch the meteor showers, but really so we could watch the guy and his wife and friends all swim naked in the camp pool at night. Obviously, it was a summer of discovery.

One day we were listening to the radio and heard all about this fantastic Woodstock concert happening in White Lake, only about 50 miles away. Well that started all the plotting and planning. We were thinking we would just take "Aunt Kelly" and "Uncle Joe's" Ford Falcon and drive there. Kelly & Joe were the elderly couple who owned and ran the camp. That's what they told the campers to call them. But we soon realized it would be tricky to get the key from the house (if we even knew where they kept it), and...none of us had drivers licenses or even knew how to drive. We were all from either Long Island or Connecticut, had no clue where White Lake was. We thought it was about ten miles away, but in what direction? We heard on the radio that "the New York State Thruway's closed". We figured in our 15 year old brains that it meant ALL the roads in the area were jammed. Well, maybe they were. And then we thought, "Aha! We'll just saddle up four horses and ride there!" We could ride through fields and mountain trails if we had to. Then reality hit. We had no clue which way to go, and if we did, Kelly and Joe would surely call the police about the stolen horses (never mind, the missing campers), or worse yet...our parents! It was killing us that we considered ourselves part of the hippy culture, but we were trapped here like doofy kids. It was so frustrating that we were so close, yet so far from where we wanted to be, physically and mentally.

And so, we resigned ourselves to listening to the news of the concert that was the "center of the universe", and the "dawning of the Age of Aquarius" on the transistor radio, smoking and drinking ourselves silly in the culvert, and flirting with the married, but handsome young handyman. The music from the concert still brings back memories and feelings of being in the last days of carefree innocence and on the brink of hipness.

I read about this "Three days of music and peace" concert while in Harvard Square one day and thought it would be the perfect gift for my first anniversary! We were 20 yrs old.

I was so excited when the tickets arrived!

As we set out on our VW Bug, we were packed up and off in ample time to go to Woodstock a few states away. I was planning on meeting my brother there who had left a few days earlier.

It seemed that as soon as reached Connecticut, every other car was headed to Woodstock! Happy faces and two-finger peace signs peeking through open car windows accompanied by "hey mans" were everywhere! Remember, there was no air conditioning in our cars in those days and it was the dead of summer.

The closer you travelled, the thicker the traffic, the louder car radios got and there was more interaction and chatter among Woodstock goers along the highway. That undoubtedly started to build the excitement and was the first realization that this was going to be big.

As we arrived in Woodstock, I remember turning on this street, lined with large old houses. It was the road to the Woodstock Concert entrance.

Once there, we were told that we could go no further and the gates were closed! They said, that we would have to wait until some people left before we could be let in, tickets or not. We were basically stuck on this road. So, like everyone else, we hunkered down right then and there. I guess we were about a mile away from the concert at that point and the concert sounds were muffled by the mobs around us.

By nightfall we all unpacked, set up camp and cooked out on the front lawns of those big old houses. All of us having our own mini Woodstock right then and there. We made friends and had a party until it was time to close the flaps of our pup tents. Those of us that were lucky enough to have a tent or sleeping bag, that is!

I remember the sound of the rain and waking up first thing in the morning with a very wet pair of legs hanging outside the tent! I had been camped on a hillside lawn and slid out of the tent. Me and a few hundred others. I also remember that the neighborhood people bringing us water, letting us use restrooms, and being rather congenial. Despite the circumstances.

Morning coffee under the pitter patter of that continual drizzle brought along more chatter and the vision of the hoards of muddy disheveled people exiting the concert. All saying "Man, it's a mud bath in there". And as time went on it was apparent that it was near impossible to get in and impossible to get out.

We never got in.

Sadly, we headed home disappointed to have missed the concert but grateful to have been spared being stuck in some nightmare. We must have had an adventure or two along the way, but nothing sticks in my mind. Nothing as memorable as the prior days events, anyway!

My brother, a musician, arrived home a week later. He had been stuck inside the concert! He and his buddies arrived three days earlier than the concert's opening day. They did not have tickets nor ever have to buy them. They were parked in front of the stage , alongside those who also arrived early. He was there a week or more and had the time of his life!

If one of us had to make it inside, I was always happy it was him. The music was instrumental in his life.

My brother is not with us anymore, but he lives on in the Woodstock movie, and forever in my heart!

I have since lost track of the tickets and the husband. But I have never lost the memory of my three days of love, peace and no music!

In 1969, I was too young to know very much about the Woodstock festival. I had heard a little bit about it after the fact, but didn't pay much attention to it. By the time the movie came out, I knew more about it; that Janis Joplin played and Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner. Years later, the movie was playing at a local drive-in and a few friends and I tried to go see it but some of us were not 18 yet and they were checking ID. I never did get to see it until this year, the whole movie is available on youtube. And last August, with the 40th anniversary of the event, both The History Channel and Discovery Channel had specials on the event. They talked to many attendees including the couple on front of the Woodstock Album. They talked about why they went and how they felt at the time. Many attendees went without the permission of their parents. No one talked about what happened when they got home three days later. What did their mom say when they walked in the door? So here is a fictional account of what might have happened.

Brian stopped the car right before Kate's parent's driveway. He put the car in park and looked at her. "are you ready?"

Kate's parents had forbid her from going. Brians's mom wasn't too happy about it either. For Brian, it wasn't no big thing because it was just him and her. No dad to back her up telling him he couldn't go. So he just told his mom "I'm going." This was too big to miss so at 3am, Kate snuck out of the house and Brian was there waiting.

Now, Kate shook her head. "Not really. And I really don't want to walk up there alone. Could you walk up with me?"

Brian sighed He had not kidnaped her or even talked her into going, but her mother would certainly blame him because he had the ride. She would probably be teed off at him. He had no idea what to expect and therefore, had no idea what to say. Fortunatly, it was just after 3pm so he dad wouldn't be home. "I don't know what I can say or do, babe."

"just-just be there. Maybe say how you took care of me, made sure I was safe and all that."

"And that's going to overshadow the fact that I took you away for three days?"

"Brian!"

"OK, let's go." He put the car in drive and pulled up the driveway. As they were opening up their car doors, the front door of the house was pushed open and Mrs Hill came rushing out. "Katy? Kart?"

And right behind her was Kate's dad. "Is that son-of-a-bitch with her" He came charging out. "Get out of here you no good-"

"Dad, stop it. What are you doing home?"

"What am I doing home?" I knew you would be coming home today! I wanted to make damn sure I was here when you arrived."

Kate's mom walked up to her. "Oh my god, look at you. You-you're a mess! How could you? How could you do this to me?"

Meanwhile,her dad was moving toward Brian who was right near his car door. He could jump in if he had to. "you get out of here! and don't ever come back here again."

Kate was screaming, "Stop it dad! stop!" Kate's dad went on. "you and my daughter are through!"

Brian thought it was time to get in the car.

"You better get back in that car. I'll kick your ass you no good long haired bum!"

Brian put his car in reverse and was about to drive off. He wasn't prepared for her father being home. But he thought of Kate saying for him to just explain how he took care of her, and that was actually true. And now, by taking off, he would be abanding her. He stopped and put trhe car in park. Now, Kate's dad was yelling at her. "you are not going to see that man again. You two are through."

Kate yelled back. "You can't break us up! We're both 18."

"You are still my daughter and you are still living in my house."

Brian got out of the car and yelled out,"haaaaaaaaey!!!!"

Everyone went silent.

"Kate is alright! She needs a serious shower but she is OK. I made sure of that."

"I thought I told you to get outta here!"

"Listen man." Brian paused, thinking of what to say next. "I know what we did was heavy."

"What you did was wrong."

Kate said "dad, it wasn't just him. We both decided to go."

He quickly turned around. "I'll talk to you later about what you did."

Kate started walking toward her dad. "There was nothing wrong with what we did, dad. You're just teed off because I did something you didn't agree with. Me and Brian had an awsome time. It was the best three days of my life. And so many people. So many groovy people all gathered in one place. It was unreal."

Kate's mom walked right up up to her. "Well I'm glad it was the best three days of your life, Kate. Because it was the worst three days of my life.

Now kate went silent.

"You are my only child. Our only child. Without you, me and your dad are nothing."

"Mom, I didn't run away. And Brian didn't kidnap me."

"Anything could have happened. I didn't know what this Woodstock thing was. A bunch of out of control hippies getting together, for all I knew."

But it was nothing like that, mom. Everybody was mello. There were no fights, nobody getting into trouble. It really was three days of peace, love and music."

Brian said "but there is no possible way your mom and dad could have known that,babe. Even we didn't know it was going to be so together." With not being on the attack by Kate's father, Brian had cooled down a little, and was struck when Kate's mom said "without you, me and your dad are nothing." He was actually seeing their side. He hadn't seen himself sticking up for them, but he just had.

Kate looked like she had just been slapped in the face. "Brian, if you're taking their side jsut to-"

"No, I'm not taking their side. But I see their side. I told you in the car, to them, I took you away for three days. And it was the best three days of my life, too." He looked at her parents. "And I brought her back. And she's together."

"So what are you saying?"

Brian thought he could see a slight smirk on Mr Hill's face. But maybe it was just his imagination. He thought for a second on what to say to Kate. "I'm saying maybe we shouldn't have snuck out at 3am. I mean, we've been out here shouting at each other for the past few minutes about us going. Maybe we should have done this before we left."

"They would have stopped us. They would have stopped me."

"I don't know man, we were pretty determined."

Mr Hill said "no, she's right. I would have stopped her.

Brian shrugged. OK, maybe. Anyway, I've got to go." He had had enough of this confrontation. He had done his part. He had brought back Kate to his parents, walked up with her and argued with the both of them.

"Unless," said Mr Hill.

Brian stopped.

"unless you would have sold it to us."

"Sold it?"

"Yeah. been a man. Stood up to us like you did today and explain why this was so important to you and how you were going make sure Kate was OK." He shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Yeah, maybe." Brian hated to admit it, but this guy was making more and more sense. But there was nothing more for him to say to him today.

"Hey Brian." It was Mrs Hill. She had taken a few steps toward the house like she was done with the conversation. But apparently not. "How do you think your mother's going to react when she sees you?"

Brian smiled, thinking of that. He shrugged."I don't know Mrs Hill. I'm thinking when she sees me she'll be just as freaked out as you were."

"You wanna come in and get cleaned up? Kind of soften the blow?"

"Oh, I don't know. I-"

"Come on," she said, waving her hand toward the house. "You're not scared of my husband, are you?"

"He should be," said Mr. Hill. But it was not the same tone of voice when he had told him to get out here.

"And another thing. When's the last time you two had something to eat?"

That got a visible reaction from Kate. They had left Woodstock and drove straight home. Another mistake. "I gotta admit, I'm pretty damn hungry. "Now Mr Hill started walking toward the house. "Come on in then. You can call your mom and and tell her you're ok. Then, I want to hear all about this concert."

We were living in Michigan in August of 1969. I was 23 in January that year and my husband, Bob was 24. Bob worked on the fender line for Chrysler. He came home from work on the 16th of August and asked me if I would like to go with him to a festival in upper state New York.

At first I said yes, then resonsibility set in. Our son, Michael had just turned 1 year old on August 15th and at that time, all I could think of was what a drag it would have been changing diapers-Ugh!(I was quite modest too). We also had another young one of 2 1/2 years to look after and so, I began picturing running myself ragged after these two people, (make that three, counting my husband). All three, getting into all kinds of mischief! In public! I don't think so! Second reason: Skipping work at Chrysler could have dire consequences and possibly cause him to lose his job.

As Bob had been in Artillery in Viet Nam for a year and had only been back since '67, he was still in the groove of toking, to which he most dutifully reported was the in-thing being done in "Nam" at the time. So, I told him that I didn't think that was a good enough excuse for going to another state, sitting around in a cornfield with a bunch of wild men, and just waiting for the police to arrive, raid the place, and escort him and the likes of him, off to the clink, while the kids and I were subjected to a lot of nudity, foul language, and excellent music.

After Bob laid out all the details of this journey to me, (I thought about how I had never been to New York), I dolefully declined his offer. It just didn't seem to be the most relevant thing to do at the time. I felt bad for the longest time about turning him down but, felt more so for him than me. Then I heard it was a peaceful festival. I was surprised and very proud of everyone who had attended Woodstock '69 and had some second thoughts that maybe we should have gone after all. Anyway, Bob never displayed his disappointment but, I knew that deep down in his heart he really wanted to go.

In 1970, the vinyl Woodstock album came out. I wouldn't be surprised if my husband, Bob, was the first one in the store the day it was released. He was a big "Santana" fan and loved to listen to him over and over again. He was probably the first in line to buy the "Santana" album too! We would sit and listen for hours to every song on that album until we wore out the cover! One of my favorite songs on the vinyl album back then was Janis Joplin's song, "Mercedes Benz". Much later, the Woodstock CD boxed set would come out and then the Woodstock '69 movie. I purchased those as well.

Of course, as do most folks, I have many more favorites I like to brag about too. From Country Joe McDonald and his song, "The Fish Cheer"
aka, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag", (Bob really like that a lot), to
Santana's "Soul Sacrifice", and Jim Hendrix playing his version of
"The Star Spangled Banner", which was awesomely done at
woodstock '69.

As time went on, I began to see my missed opportunity, not having attended the Woodstock Fest. Today I would give most anything if I could go back in time...to be there and share that part of history with my generation at Woodstock. Those of you who made it to Woodstock have a Golden Mecca Memory.

Our generation had a dream...about a world filled with much peace and love. Woodstock '69 was part of that dream fulfilled. PEACE

Woodstock '69 was a fun time in it hey-day and a lot of us just don't want it to go away. Even the folks who didn't have the opportunity to attend the Festival have enjoyed the after moments, listening to the music as long ago as vinyl records which, as we know now, were later converted to music CDs and DVDs for viewing, as the Festival took place on August 15, 16, 17, and 18, over 40 years ago in 1969.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to compose a little something
"outside the box", and add a few excerpts from some of the songs played at Woodstock '69. Then, have a fictitious character (or is he), narrate the Festival, adding his own comments on a day to day basis. I hope you have as much fun reading it, as I did writing it...and as we say...
PEACE


WOODSTOCK CLOUD '69

DAY 1 AUGUST 15 FRIDAY

I'm walkin' down a country road
In Bethel, New York State
I see a giant "PEACE" sign posted
high upon a gate

There's shindig music straight ahead
I tripped on a cornfield fence and bled
I just got lost in WOODSTOCK

I looked at the cat sittin' next to me
with the bandana on his head
"What's with all those copters, man
why's everyone in bed?"

"Traffic Uptight at Hippie Fest"
that's what the headlines read
They closed the New York thruway
They're comin' in copters instead!

Drifting now, I'm on a cloud
Can't stop now the music's loud
I just got lost in Woodstock

"FREEDOM"

"Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child
a long way from home"
"Sometimes, I feel like I'm almost gone
a long long long way way from my home"...
Played and sun by RITCHIE HAVENS

"COMING TO LA"

"Coming in to Los Angeles
bringing in a couple of keys
Don't touch my bags if you please
MR Customs Man"...
Sung by ARLO GUTHRIE

I hear a song about "JOE HILL"
a man sent on a quest

"And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes
says Joe Hill "What they can never kill"
went on to organize"

"From San Diego up to Maine
in every mine and mill
Where working men defend their rights
It's there you'll find Joe Hill"...
sung by JOAN BAEZ

"WE SHALL OVERCOME"

"Deep in my heart I do believe
we shall overcome someday
we'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand someday"

"Oh Deep in my heart"

"We shall live in peace someday
We shall all be free someday
We are not afraid today
We shall overcome someday"...
Sung by JOAN BAEZ

DAY 2 AUGUST 16 SATURDAY

Now, COUNTRY JOE led the way
to get our message sent
And speak our minds about the war
to reach our president

He wrote this song 'bout Viet Nam
he named it "THE FISH CHEER"
"I-FEEL-I'M-FIXIN'-TO-DIE RAG"
for everyone to hear

"Come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Same needs your help again
Got himself in a terrible jam
way down yonder in Viet Nam"

"Put down your books and Pick up a gun
We're gonna have a whole lot of fun"...

"And it's 123, what are we fightin' for
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
next stop is Viet Nam"...

"And it's 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates
Well...there ain't no time to wonder why
whoopee, we're all gonn die!"

"Now, come on Wall Street don't be slow
why man this is war-a-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made
supplying the army with the tools of the trade"

"Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb
they drop it on the Viet Cong!"

"And it's 123, what are we fighting for
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
next stop is Viet Nam"

"And it's 5,6 7, open up the pearly gates
Well...ain't no time to wonder why
whoopee! We're all gonna die!"

"Now, come on generals, let's move fast
your big chance is here at last
Now, you can go out and get those Reds
cus, the only good comy is one that's dead!"

"And it's 1,2,3, what are we fighting for
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
next stop is Viet Nam"

"And it's 5,6 7, open up the pearly gates
Well, there ain't no time to wonder why
whoopee we're all gonna die!"

"Now, come on mothers throughout the land
pack yhour boys off to Viet Nam
C'mon fathers, don't hesitate
send your sons off before it's too late
Be the first one on your block
to have your boy come home in a box!"

"And it's 1,2,3, what are we fighting for
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn...
next stop is Viet Nam

And it's 5,6,7, open up the pearly gates
Well, I ain't got time to wonder why
whoopee! We're all gonna die!"
Song written and sung by COUNTRY JOE Mc DONALD

ANNOUNCEMENT by WAVY GRAVY

"What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for Four Hundred Thousand"

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENT...

"And this message is for City Magee...I understand your wife is having a baby. Congratulations!"

THEY JUST ANNOUNCED THE CONCERT'S FREE
"THAT THE PEOPLE ARE WORTH MORE THAN A DOLLAR COULD EVER BE!"

Here's Max Yasgur, who owns this land
who, took the stage to say
"I think yo people proved to the world
that you have found a way"

"To come together here today
half a million strong
To share this groovy music
and peacefully get along!"

"And I thank you for it"


"SOUL SACRIFICE"

SANTANA made my day!
That music's a sensational creation!
Remember the standing ovation!
Played by CARLOS SANTANA with
MICHAEL SHRIEVE on the drums

Wow....that was music to my ears
The best of the best
So good I shed tears!


"GOING UP THE COUNTRY"

Says he plans on "going where the water tastes like wine"
"Jump right in the water and
stay drumk there all the time"...
Played and sung by CANNED HEAT


"WORK ME LORD"

"Work me Lord Work me Lord
please, don't ever leave me
I feel so useless down here
with no one to love"

"Though, I've looked everywhere
and I can't find anybody to love
to feel my care"...
Sung by JANIS JOPLIN


"I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER"

"Shaka-laka-laka
Boom shaka-laka-laka
C'mon light my fire
Want to take you higher"...
Played by SLY & THE FAMILY STONE

"SEE ME FEEL ME"

"See me feel me touch me heal me
See me feel me touch me heal me"...

"Listening to you I get the music
gazing at you I get the heat
Following you I'd climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet"...

"Right behind you I see the motions
on you I see the glory
From you I get opinions
from you I get the story"...
Sung and Played by THE WHO

"SUMMERTIME BLUES"

About a cat who doesn't want war
and is still to young to vote
Doesn't wanna work late
Wants to use his dad's car
but, no gun he want to tote!

"I'm gonna' raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler
About a workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar
Every time I call my baby and try to get a date
My boss says, "no dice son, you gotta' work late"

"Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do
But, there ain't no cure for the Summertime blues...
Sung and Played by THE WHO

Man, did you see that over there?
Townsend threw his guitar in the air!
Hey...it's OK...someone will find it
and put it in a museum somewhere


"UNCLE SAMS BLUES"

A real fine tribute to our countrymen
who want to made a stand...
and sang by none other than
THE JEFFERSON AIRPLANE BAND

"You got my questionnaire baby
You know I'm headed off for war
Well now I'm gonna' do some fighting
Well no one know what for"...
Sung a d Played by THE JEFFERSON AIRPLANE


DAY 3 AUGUST 17 SUNDAY


Here comes "Morning Maniac Music"
Described by GRACIE SLICK
She woke me up with "Good morning, people"
MAN...what a chick!


"DO YOU NEED ANYBODY BLUES"

"What would you do if I sang out of tune
would you stand up and walk out on me
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
and I'll try not to sing out of key"...
Sung by JOE COCKER

Original Title: "With a little Help from My Friends"
Song written by LENNON AND McCARTNEY
Song made for and sung by RINGO STARR


"RAIN RAIN GO AWAY, COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY"


Like, MAN! IT's raining!
My hot dog's drowning
Don't feel high
just feel like frowning
Muddy people everywhere
skinny-dippin' if you dare

Some cats said the clouds were seeded
when they saw a plane
Then shortly after we heard thunder
then down came tons of rain

"THE RAIN CHANT DANCE"

We played tin cans and bongo drums
to chant the rain away
and nearly got a rain check when
the bands couldn't play

I'M SITTIN' IN THE MUD, MAN!

Then, the ground got mighty muddy
so, we had some Woodstock fun
And slid around in mud-soaked grass
while some folks toked on some


ENCORE...ENCORE

I'ts COUNTRY JOE & THE FISH
doing an Encore to the Viet Nam, "Fish Cheer" again!
Joe's "GIVE ME AN F"...chant, just may be
A milestone to bringing the war to an end
Written and Sung by COUNTRY JOE McDONALD

"I'M GOIN' HOME"

"Oh baby baby I'm coming home
baby baby I'm coming home
Tell me Mama baby I'm coming home"...

"Gonna see my baby, see my baby fine
Gonna take my baby, wanna take my baby mine
Gonna take my woman treats me real fine"...
Sung and Played by TEN YEARS AFTER


THEY'RE PROBABLY WORRIED ABOUT ME...

Anybody got some change...
Gotta call home today
Before they think I'm really strange!

My mother probl'y thinks I'm dead
My father thinks I've lost my head
My sister she just call me "Freak"
And I'll be damned if my shoes don't squeak!

Must've been all that RAIN!


DAY 4 AUGUST 18 MONDAY


"SUITE" JUDY BLUE EYES"

"Chestnut brown canary
Ruby-throated sparrow
Sing a song...Don't be long
Thrill me to the marrow"...
Sung and Played by CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG

"LONG TIME GONE"

"It's been a long time coming
It's going to be a long time gone
Appears to be a long time
Yes, a long long long time
before the dawn...
Sung and Played by CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG

"COST OF FREEDOM"

"I think about a hundred years ago,
how my fathers' bled
I think I see a valley
covered with bones of blue"

"All the brave soldiers
that cannot get older
been askin' after you"

"Hear the past a callin'
from Armageddon's side
When everyone's talkin'
and no one's listenin'
how can we decide"...
Sung and Played by CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG


AT 9:00 AM MONDAY MORNING, DAY 4
THERE WERE STILL 80,000 PEOPLE REMAINING at WOODSTOCK


I haven't left with most of the rest
I've purposely stayed behind
So, I could catch the best of the Fest
Jimi, music...a one-of-a-kind

"THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER"
Played Solo by JIMI HENDRIX

Jimi's music made me feel high
So, "Ecuse me, while I kiss the sky!"
What ever his music did to me
I thing that cat "put a spell on me!"


*THE WOODSTOCK GENERATION*

3 DAYS
of PEACE
& MUSIC


*THE FIRST AQUARIAN EXPOSITON*

My family had just moved to New York and I got a summer job working in a car parts dealer. I was 19. My new friend Ron asked me if I wanted to go to a rock concert upstate. I asked "who's playing? ", and after about 8 names, I said "sure, how much are the tickets?" He said "well, it's 3 days, and it's $6 a day, so $18.00." I said "where the hell am I going to get THAT KIND OF MONEY !!!" You have to understand that back in 1969, you could get tickets to Madison Square Garden or Nassau Coliseum, for only 5 bucks! Anyway, we got our tickets and planned our adventure.

Ron's parents had a Volkswagon Camper Bus and we packed it full of steaks, beer, ice and supplies. I decided to decorate it with flowers, peace signs and our names painted over the cab with tempra paints (which by the way, don't fully wash off later!) We got up there fairly early Friday and got pretty close before the traffic stopped. On the way, kids were yelling to us saying, "Hi Ron, hey George !" I kept asking Ron if he knew those people, and it took us a while before we realized we had painted our names over the cab! Got a good spot in a field, next to the road and followed the road to the site.

When we came up over a hill and I first saw the site, it stopped me in my tracks. Before us was a natural bowl shaped field, that was covered with kids, as far as the eyes could see. I got scared and knew that if there were any riots, (remember, this was 1969.) or any problems, these kids could do anything they wanted. There were almost no police, (or ticket takers) and we went up to the left side and worked our way in to the crowd. I had never been in a group this large, but it wasn't long before I sensed the "vibe" and knew things were going to work out.

Beside the overwhelming positive feelings we shared, there were some moments that stand out. One was while laying in the field Saturday night, the National Guard Helicopters were constantly flying in overhead, ferrying in performers, doctors and flying out medical cases or personnel. When the choppers got over the crowd, they'd turn on these huge spotlights. In a giant circle of silver, you could see maybe a couple thousand kids, illuminated, all flashing the Peace sign skyward. We knew these were our friends, brothers and neighbors, just trying to help, and recognized, we'd rather have them home, than in Vietnam.

The film covers the concert pretty well with the exception of one thing. The SMELL !! Imagine a cow pasture being trampled after torrential rains. Yet despite all the hardships and the weather, the overwhelming atmosphere was one of solidarity and peace. We were afraid it could be canceled any time and knew we were part of something bigger than us. We behaved great. Imagine putting 500,000 ADULTS together in the mud, give them any thing they wanted, to smoke or drink, for 3 days, and TELL ME you won't have more than 2 accidental deaths!

The magic of Woodstock was not the music,it was the kids. It restored my faith in my generation, and I knew those 500,000 plus kids would grow up as peaceful citizens with compassion and understanding of community.

When I got home I grew my beard, and haven't shaved it off in 40 years. When I read the letters of people who "wished they were there" and kids who want to know, "what was it like", I tell them, when you are in a dire situation, and you care more about the well being, safety and happiness of OTHERS, than you do YOURSELF, That's what it felt like to be at Woodstock.

Went back to the original site for the 2009 Heroes of Woodstock, (with my original tickets in hand) and saw those same feelings of love and peace, trying to be shared with grandchildren of the Woodstock generation. I hope they can feel it. I'll never forget it. Thanks for listening. And oh yeah.......Peace.

My trek to Woodstock follows the words to a great David Crosby song, it’s been a long time comin and it’s goin' to be a long time gone. I was a month shy of my 17th birthday, looking forward to being a senior in high school when the concert began. A week earlier I was making plans with three of my friends. I couldn’t believe I was going. I knew in my heart that my mother was going to come up with some reason why I couldn’t go and as sure as God makes little green apples she grounded me for the rest of the summer. For the next 38 years, until her death, no matter where I was, as the anniversary of Woodstock approached I would remind my mother of my grounding. I have collected every type of Woodstock memorabilia there was over the years. T-shirts I can’t fit in anymore, posters, albums, 8-tracks (can I still say that), cassettes, CD’s and DVD’s. Woodstock was my music, Jimi, Sly, Grace Slick, Alvin Lee, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The Band, The Dead, The Who, The Fish. I lived and breathed Woodstock in absentia. A couple of years later, I was on my way to Hunter Mountain to go skiing and decided to stop in Woodstock, NY. What the hell, I’m in the middle of this one horse town walking around asking everyone who walked by, how do I get to Yasgur’s farm. Finally someone pointed and said, it’s about 50 miles that way. He said Woodstock was in Bethel, NY, dummy. I said thanks, so much for that one. As the years and big anniversaries came and went there was always an excuse not to go. For several years I taught skiing at Kutcher’s and got to ski for free at all the local areas. I can’t tell you how many times I drove past Hurds road driving up and down route 17B looking for a bar and didn’t think to make the turn. Well, two and half years ago I had quad bypass heart surgery and afterwards starting realizing how short life really is. My high school, West Islip, NY started planning our 40th for the summer of 2010 a year and a half ahead of time. I started looking up people from the past and finding out they were long gone. I said to my wife of 23 years, hey my bucket list includes going to the original Woodstock site and I’d like to go to the 40th Woodstock reunion and she said sure. Remember that mother thing I was talking about earlier, I don’t count my eggs until there on my fork going into my mouth. We were planning all summer to camp out in Shohola Falls, northeast PA off route 6 about 30 miles from the Bethel Woods Art Center and finally got there on August 6th , 2009. On Thursday, August 13th, I reminded my wife about Woodstock and she reiterated that I could still go. After lunch I said I’m not taking any chances, I’m going to Bethel to get my tickets for the concert and museum, do you want tickets too, she said yes. I left, route 6 north to 434 west to the New York border, becomes route 55, north for 17 miles and make a left on 17B. As I’m approaching route 17B, White Lake on my right, my heart starts flittering, I’m only going 40 miles an hour. I can’t believe I’m going to have a heart attack. I pull over and get a bottle of water out of the cooler and relax. On the road again, hey that’s Willie, I make a left on 17B. I see Hector’s Last Chance on the left and decide to pull in to refresh myself. Hector’s as I later learned is and was a popular camp site for the Woodstock nation. There where a couple of trailers and several tents already set up and there were a few people splitting wood for the gigantic fire pit. As I was getting back into my van a group of 50 to 60 year old 60’s dressed people were passing a joint and said you leaving already, you just got here. At that point time stopped, I got a massive chill and slowly spun around taking everything in. I instantly felt 16 again and said your right, I have finally arrived, I’m at Woodstock. As many have said, including Michael Lang, Woodstock is not a place; it’s a state of mind. I was here in body and mind. I told my new friends that I needed to go to Yasgur’s Farm to get my tickets for Saturday. Ok, I didn’t say Yasgur’s out load, but it sounded good. Well, I got my tickets, saw Duke Devlin a Woodstock fixture for the last 40 years, went to the monument and walked around the Great Lawn and stage area, picturing 500,000 people sitting there. I didn’t take any pictures; I’ll do that when I come back with my wife. I got in my van and drove back to Hector’s to have a beer and take it all in. Saturday morning, I arrived back at Hector’s early to take pictures, buy t-shirts and get Joanne Hague to sign a copy of her book. There were trailers and tents as far as the eye can see. We arrived at Bethel at 1:00 pm to visited the museum, which is a must see for anyone who wants to relive the 60’s and got in line for the concert around 2:00 pm. The gates weren’t going to open until 3:00 pm and there were already a couple of thousand in line. I remembered when we first came in, that security had golf carts to assist the handicapped. My wife needs a crutch to get around and it’s a long walk from the gate to the concert pavilion. So after standing in line for 40 minutes, my wife held our space and I hunted down security. They said come on and drove us right to the pavilion 20 minutes before the gates opened. We had ring side seats. It was the largest collection of original bands that played at the original Woodstock since Woodstock. The concert was outrageous, with past greats jamming with other bands and playing a large selection of Woodstock music. Canned Heat doing "Going Up the Country", guest singer “Superfly” a Janis Joplin clone, singing with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Cathy Richardson of Jefferson Starship sounding like Grace Slick, and also singing Joe Cocker’s “I get by with a little help from my friends”. The great Country Joe McDonald was the acting Chip Monck and asked for an “F” every time he had the mike and eventually sang the “Fish Chant”. I constantly looked at the crowd behind me, convincing myself that this was Woodstock and not a reunion until I remembered that Woodstock is a state of mind, and then I was fine. I plan on visiting the monument site and Hector’s every year as long as I’m able and reminisce with others of the ever growing Woodstock nation.

Peace,
Gene

I was 7 years old in the summer of '69. I already loved the music of that era. I was in Northwest Indiana at that time living by Lake Michigan. If anyone was going to Woodstock I would have gone with them.

What amazes me is getting 500,000 people in one spot for 3 days and it was a peaceful assembly! Try that today and see how the public would behave.

I'm all for peace and love and not war. We need intervening as a nation to show us what peace and love is all about.

I have a 19 year old friend and he's a hippie. He wasn't even born yet but he was already a hippie. Our desire is to paint up a van and travel all over spreading our message of peace and love.

Peace man, far out and make love not war!

As I am swept through the lush overgrown farmland surrounding New Hope Pennsylvania, I can't help but reflect upon Woodstock New York where I spent a great part of my youth. Indeed I am one of the 500,000 who attended the Woodstock Festival held in Bethel in the summer of 1969. That event literally changed my life. I had a motorcycle back then also. I rode it to the festival where I got stuck in traffic. A girl hopped onto the back of my machine. She has remained my wife for thirty-nine years.

As a grandfather, it truly amazes me how many people young and old identify with this event, which took place nearly forty years ago. I believe it is because Woodstock has become the cultural and spiritual icon in the collective consciousness of America. Sitting in the mud way back then I had no idea that life would have taken me this far, and I would be living in this current reality.

The picture of my current V Star is the wallpaper on my computer at work. It often evokes comments, and the subject of the sixties and Woodstock often arises as a result of it. I marvel as the eyes of the young and old sparkle when I mention I was there. Most people get a sense of wonder and awe and feel in some remote way a connection, which is spiritual and uplifting. People often tell me that they knew someone that was there, or that they wanted to go and couldn't, or that their parents would have killed them if they did. Others apologize that they didn't make it. Sadly the young often time lament that they were born at the wrong time.

Why this intense longing to belong and identify with this event? I believe it is because Woodstock represents the moral conscience of America, a cultural psychological and spiritual focal point, and a vortex. As an icon of America's unyielding youthful exuberance, fierce independent expression, and social and political justice, it serves to transport us into a moral realm where we are able to take an objective look at all that was wrong and right with our society and nation then and now.

The Woodstock experience helps us to rise above the political chaos and confusion of present day domestic and international realities, and to get in touch with our collective conscience and moral fiber. Since the institutions, which have risen out of the ashes of the sixties, yet fall short of their moral imperatives, we as Americans turn inward to rekindle the spirit, which Woodstock instills in our hearts. We have raised the epic event to the stature of myth and embraced the positive values, which it has come to represent.

Many of us who came into direct contact with the light of Woodstock were galvanized in the mud together, and carried the light with us in our hearts as we rejoined the masses. We took our divergent and respective paths as we integrated with society. Yet sadly, many of us have let the embers cool. We have become disillusioned with the political and social economic realties of modern living and in may cases have actually embraced much of what we had once despised.

Yet all is not lost. It's not too late. It's time to wake up! The social ills of present day America need to be challenged as never before. What kind of world will we leave our great grandchildren if we do nothing and mire in our lethargy? Pressing environmental issues threaten our very existence as a species. Internal domestic inequalities, misplaced values, and excesses threaten our stability as a viable culture. We need to get back in touch with our core values, which made us cry out in protest, and we need to take action! Woodstock veterans - we need to lead the way! We have the potential to once more become the leaven of our society. We need to ignite the spark to once again blow the lid off this nation!

The present situation calls to mind a book written some time ago by Beverly Potter entitled "The Way of The Ronin". In her book Professor Potter likens the social upheaval in feudal Japan after the arrival of Marco Polo and the introduction of Western culture to modern times.

Up to Marco's arrival there was a feudal system and a structured social hierarchy in Japan (much like pre - sixties America). One of these classes in that society adversely affected by the changing social order was the Samurai warrior, who defended the royal chieftains. They were also skilled in science, art and the marital arts. With the advance of western ideas this entire segment of society suddenly found them selves displaced. Only two choices remained: one was ritual disembowelment (not very appealing) or the other was to become Ronin or outlaw. As Ronin, many thousands of these displaced knights, infiltrated the countryside and became doctors, artists, farmers, philosophers and the like. Yet they never lost their special powers, which they practiced in secret. Whenever the need arose (because the established institutions became corrupt or otherwise could not defend the common man), they came out of seclusion, practiced their ancient art and saved the day. That same day is dawning in America. There is resurgence, and there is a cry for the return of the Woodstock Ronin, Who can lead us out of the mess we are in! If you are anything like myself, the mud of Woodstock still squishes between your toes.

The young should not be saddened that they were not at Woodstock. If anything they should realize the tremendous power they possess in numbers. They should connect with the goals, aspirations and hope of all generations. They should organize, and they should demand a better world, which they and their children could inherit. It is within their grasp, but time is running out. Today they would have the advantage of the cooperation of an older generation, which we didn't have forty years ago. United we can form a political and socioeconomic force never before seen in America. Young and old could work together for the common good. First we must once more come together as brothers and sisters on the local level. On the world stage it is imperative that we stop alienating fellow nations, and become a participant in the inevitable one world society necessary for preservation of the planet.

It is up to the Woodstock Ronins to rise up, come out of seclusion, and lead the way. Everything is in place. Carpe diem!

Christopher Cole

Author of

The Closer's Song

In Joni Mitchel’s lyrical homage to Woodstock, her words "and we’ve got to get ourselves back in the garden" do not mean falling into a static dead letter pile of unvital statistics, but an actual and eternal metaphor for freedom and true humanism. An awakened human whose mandala is enriched and nourished by the textures of art, music, spirit, love and passion. "Drugs, Sex, and Rock and Roll" were and are the anthem that needs not be distorted by the historic revisionists that want to eliminate the message of the 60's. For us that have stayed sober to its meaning, we know that the flag we wave stands for the same traditional values that have represented the finest aspects of all higher cultures throughout thousands of years of time including Indian, Pagan, Greek, and the many, many Goddess and other earth friendly indigenous tribes and individuals.
Woodstock is our tribe and the Aquarian Festival our own Mecca. A pilgrimage that continues with how we chose to act, react, think, and feel.
At the time of the concert I was 17 and living in North Carolina. Along with 3 other friends we drove up just in time to be stuck in the mammoth traffic jam surrounding the site, but excited with the energy to walk the several miles to Max Yasgar’s farm among the other growing numbers of brothers and sisters heading for our magnificent family reunion. The first realization of different realities ahead was the crowd telepathy which prevailed on such a grand level. People were showing huge empathy with each other as well as in sharing whatever they could for accommodation. As we crossed the line designating the concert to be free, a fresh breath of responsibility shed off the veil of commodity exchange based relationships and in return there manifested true love and respect for each other and the community that we were a part of.
As to my adventures at the concert, what experiences I do recall are similar to many other testimonies. Totally impressed by the bass player to Mountain, learning how to spell the "F" word by Country Joe, sleeping through most of the Dead set (even though many of the younger fans now would welcome stoning me alive for it), but waking up to see the Who drill their way through Tommy, Sly Stone’s family exuberance, and Grace Slick make us all feel at home with her greeting of "Good Morning People." I shared the heroic experience of most in being able to stay awake for the 3 days of magic to witness the amazing finale of Jimi playing as the crowds slowly headed onward.
A couple of months ago I went up to Wavy Gravy at a rock poster exhibition in San Francisco where I thanked him for turning my life around in so many ways. During an especially tortuous moment at the festival when the storms had ravaged our energies and the whispers of Nixon’s helicopters dropping poisoned candy bars as tainted "care packages", the Hog Farm Commune was serving free food at its makeshift kitchen area. It was the first time I experienced granola and a health food attitude that opened up a better way of living for me. Other excursions into the forest behind the concert area were even more examples of political, spiritual, and artistic groups setting up information booths, educational outreaches, workshops, etc.
Another part of the full experience of Woodstock not covered too well in the movie was the way the Yasgar family took advantage of the plight of the masses caught in the storm. Max’s speech about how great the crowd of young people was, is quite inspirational and sincere. But as soon as the area was washed out by the rains, his wife was setting up a water hose to fill up people’s containers with tap water at 50 cents a bottle. Good old Yankee ingenuity.
At one point I felt illuminated to share the idea that we could pass around a huge box and if everyone there donated whatever money they could spare, we could have enough millions of dollars to buy the adjacent land and create our own "Woodstock Nation". I dropped the idea after a few tokes and the reaction of enough people that I approached who told me that it was a silly notion since "the whole world would soon be like Woodstock". Who in their right minds indeed would not want to live a life of peace, love, and happiness?
So that brings me full circle in asking myself what did happen. Why did CSNY mean so much when they said "almost cut my hair" and "teach your children well?" Not wanting to violate the rights we learned to free ____expression, I do not wish to condemn or judge anyone else in my opinion. Perhaps my perceptions are painted by my own life strokes and do not fit into the script of other paths in life. What I do know though is that I felt a commitment and sacred trust with the many that had gathered at Woodstock to never compromise the values that we were sharing that day. For me it has been a wonderful journey of being as true to the lifestyle then as today. Okay so my beard is now white and I can’t see the song titles on the cds too clearly, but I sure am glad to be listening still to Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Havens and the rest of the troubadours of truth. And what is even more delightful is sharing the music with my children as well. Just like a work of art in a museum, a masterpiece remains timeless and is appreciated forever. Those days and the music the Muses inspired were not just shallow entertainment of the moment to fade among the fads of time, but to be respected and enjoyed as true blessings from above.
Just as with the "Woodstock" movie that we have seen several times, what a joy last night to watch the "Song Remains The Same" with our daughters and to be air guitaring and head shaking as vigorously as ever. Unfortunenly a dark cloud came across too many of the people that at that time were at Woodstock or were influenced by it. Concern for others and the planet became a passing fad. Fear of not being able to pay credit card bills for useless junk rather than live out of the system, home school the children, still sit on the back fence of the farm playing music and singing with friends. Fear of this and fear of that have turned too many of our generation into today’s sheeple. I feel that if one still has a breath left, they can look in the mirror then close your eyes and remember what it felt to be alive at Woodstock. Take a stand. Don’t be a hippy-crite but a "born again hippie" my friend. It’s your one and only life so do it right for your sakes and for your children’s. Sit down and tell them the truth about those times. Tell them about how mushrooms can lead to inspiration as well as delicious pasta sauce. How good it feels to give and share rather than drop bombs and steal. Tell them what they can gain by hearing those interesting musical clues in the good songs we know so well. Tell them why it’s fine to let your hair drop freely down your back, wear old clothes and live close to nature and not be trapped by the 9-5 rat race. Oral tradition is an important need to be passed down through the generations. All you need to know was and is right there in Woodstock. I would cherish the opportunity to relive every moment of those days and feel it to be as true to who I am then as to who I am now.
Awhile back I had the honor to meet Swami Satchidananda, the Indian holy man who demonstrated to the crowd on stage between a set change how to do yogic breathing. I jokingly told him that I had thought him to be a rock musician at the concert. Whereupon this saintly old man picked up a couple of rocks from the ground and kept banging them together while hopping around and singing "it’s true I was and am a rock musician still". And indeed the Spirit does live on.
Peace, Love, and Justice
George Douvris

http://www.woodstockpreservation.org/Essays/TheSpriritDoesLiveOn.htm

Unfortunately, I was only born in October of 1969; too late to attend the original. As luck would have it, a friend of mine who was a hippie and lived @ height ashbury back in "67," decided to take me to the original Woodstock site a week or so before my 40th B-day this past year.

When we got there, I had walked around the site but could not get in the museum. It was closed. My friend and I started a conversation with a man who I could see was an old hippie and it turns out that he belonged to the Hog farm back in the day. Till this day he keeps in touch with his friend Wavy Gravy. The man who we spoke to is Duke and he showed us a blown up picture of the festival and pointed out where he was in that photo. He left the Hog farm in 1969 due to being offered a job on the Dairy farm while at the festival. Duke said he never went back after that.

That's my Woodstock story. As far as these Woodstock reunions; there will never ever be another Festival like the original. You just can't do it all over again, exactly.

That Summer of '69 myself and some buddies headed out from Southern California for the East Coast and a plan to go to the Woodstock concert with actual tickets in hand.

One noteworthy stop on the way was the Grand Canyon where we actually hiked down to the bottom of the canyon and back up in one day.

The rest of the cross country trip was a blur and upon reaching Dutchess County I was dropped off to visit family and my friends headed further east.

That opening Friday, the approach to the concert venue was backed up and I remember abandoning my cousin who wouldn't leave his vehicle and treked the rest of the way. I never did find out what happened to him and this 50th I'm inquiring.

Opening of the concert is as clear as day with Richie Havens and the rest of the concert has become clearer in reviewing this excellent site. For most of the concert I lost all contact with family members but did befriend a young lady who actually stayed in contact with me many years later and I fully expect to hear from her some time soon. A soulmate if you can have more than one.

Greatest experience even with the rain and all. Lost everything including my shirt and my brothers Army issue sleeping bag which he has never forgotten.

I made it to Sunday night somehow hoped a bus and made it back to Poughkeepsie

Back to the West Coast and wouldn't you know it, the Yin and the Yang, I was at Altamont which I guess we are not noting.

http://robdrum.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=3883892%3ABlogPost%3A125

Reaction Paper/Woodstock
Robert Marcus
Hudson County Community College
Spring 2009
Mus 101: Introduction to Music
Dr. Kaminski

This paper will be reporting on my response to the movie Woodstock (1970). This Warner Brothers release was directed by Michael Wadleigh and produced by Bob Maurice. Editing for this film is a cineastes dream, done by the team of Martin Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker, Stan Warnow, Yeu-Bun Lee, and Jere Huggins. This team was nominated for an Academy Award for film editing. The film received a nomination for best sound and won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The original film featured the performances of twenty five performers ranging from protest folk singers to the progressive electric rock bands of the era. I would opine that the stars of this film are the five hundred thousand plus music aficionados in the crowd, myself included!
Since I attended the 1969 Woodstock Aquarian Exposition as a fifteen year old high school student my reaction comes with a personal perspective. I was an aspiring drummer myself, studying with Andrew Cyrille, and dividing my time at the Fillmore East, Club Corso, and the Village Vanguard. I was deeply entrenched in the counter culture movement of the tumultuous sixties. The music was revolutionizing society in the sixties. There was the free speech movement evolving at The University of California Berkeley campus, civil rights, and at the forefront of the movement in 1969 was the desire to end the military action of the United States in Viet-Nam. The promoters of this history making event, the artists, and the audience were all on the same page with regard to these controversial issues that were dividing the country.

As I was riding to the festival I had no idea that I would be witness to, and participate in this unique sociological phenomenon. As this remarkable development was transpiring, the eyes of the whole world were upon us. We were setting out to change the world, and we were quite an altruistic, enthusiastic crowd.
The onset of the film shows the crew putting up the stage, and dealing with various logistical issues in putting together this mammoth event. They showed the rain storm we endured, and how we changed a negative into a positive, frolicking in the mud! A reaction I have now is that despite the food shortages, overcrowded conditions, medical emergencies, and of course the mud, was that there was a serene aura of calm, and we made it through the three days, with no burning, looting, or crime. I was proud to say I attended, as the whole world watched us in awe.
At the beginning of the documentary folk singer and Woodstock resident Richie Havens performs his anti war song Handsome Johnny. Other folk artists performing were Joan Baez and Woody Guthrie’s son Arlo. This crowd was vehemently opposed to the Viet-Nam War. Also performing Country Joe and The Fish from San Francisco. Their I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag was an anti war anthem in the sixties. Other groups from the San Francisco bay area scene, which was my greatest love, was Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, The Santana Blues Band (as they were known as then), Janis Joplin, and former San Francisco Deejay and record producer for Autumn Records Sly with his Family Stone. From the New York City

Area, besides Richie Havens, there was John Sebastian and a 1950’s style oldies band named Sha Na Na. Hailing from Denver Colorado was the boogie- blues band Canned Heat featuring Bob the Bear Hite on lead vocals. The Who from Great Britain performed excerpts from their innovative rock opera Tommy. England additionally was represented by Joe Cocker and The Grease Band and Ten Years After featuring Alvin Lee on guitar.

Dealing with playing in such a huge venue proved, to be a problem for some groups, along with various chemicals floating around, and sound problems, but despite this there were many special moments in my opinion. One magical moment was watching Crosby, Stills ,Nash and Young perform. In David Crosby’s, own words “they were scared shitless!!”This was maybe the second time they had played out ever. Along with Blind Faith who did not play at Woodstock, but did indeed play at Hyde Park in London England around that time, they were the prototype “super group” which was an aggregation of players coming from other groups to play together. David Crosby was from the Los Angeles based group the Byrds. Steven Stills and Neil Young were from Los Angeles based group Buffalo Springfield, and hailing from the English group, the Hollies were Graham Nash. They settled in the hotbed of musical creativity, the San Francisco Bay Area, and are still playing together today.
I had seen every band at the festival, and closing was the late great Jimi Hendrix. Jimi was opting for a new sound with more of an emphasis on a funk- jazz

sound. His rendition of the Star Spangled Banner remains a legend today and is documented on the film. When I reflect on Jimi Hendrix, whom in my personal opinion, I mention in the same breath as Louis Armstrong, Igor Stravinsky, Frank Zappa, Edgar Varese, and Charles Yardbird Parker, I have the same thoughts of when I reviewed the movie Bird. Would Bird had expanded his horizons and played with Miles in his electric era? What if Jimi was alive today would all three collaborate? In fact Bird and Jimi have a common denominator in the person of Miles Davis. Jimi already was collaborating, with the late Newark born Blue Note recording artist, organist Larry Young. At this point in time, the ever innovative Miles Davis was embarking on a quest, changing his music to a funky electric sound. Miles and Jimi were going to get together as Miles respected Jimi’s musicianship. At a great loss to music and humanity, Jimi passed away too soon. I can only dream about, what lyrics Jimi also a great lyricist heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, would have wrote in this collaboration. Miles Davis, who did not attend many funerals, did indeed attend Jimi’s funeral. Miles then played with guitar virtuoso John McLaughlin who played with The Mahavishnu Orchestra, on the breakthrough masterpiece entitled Bitches Brew. There must be some great bands playing in heaven!!!

My final reaction to this film, that saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy, is that this film depicted a special one of a kind special event in history. This event that occurred forty years ago this August will certainly never be replicated.

I lived in Upstate New York during the 1960's and '70's.
My family was getting ready to move to Monroe, New York from Suffern (NY).
Monroe is near one of the main highways (17W) that lead to the promised land of music.
I remember seeing the cars and vans with hippies, girls, guitars and peace signs on their way to Bethel where the three days of music was being held.
I was only 12 years old at the time, but a lover of Rock and Roll.
Being a kid, my favorite group was the Monkees, but I was aware of the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis and most of the others who would play at Woodstock.
It was a great time to grow up in.
Society was going through changes that were never seen before.
Instead of listening to those in charge, we asked why and then said why not.
We became the new generation of Americans that John F. Kennedy spoke about in 1961.
We were loving it.
We were free.
We had fun and yes, we made mistakes, but the world was turned upside down.
We wanted more.
Women rose up.
So did blacks.
We dared say no to war.
Deep inside, we all knew we were right.
The music kept it all going.
This was the Woodstock people were looking for and found.
Then it became a real happening in a small town in New York.
I felt the impact years later when I would visit the site.
The people still come.
They never forgot what happened there.
Those born too late for Woodstock still feel as though they were there.
It was more than an event.
It touched our lives and became a part of it.
It was three days (really four) of peace, music, love and whatever you wanted it to be.
Those few days have lasted a long time, because Woodstock is still in our hearts.
Peace.

George Vreeland Hill

I and my fellow musician-friends drove up in a VW bus (of COURSE!).

Our first feelings of real exhilaration were when once we drove out of New Jersey (from Morristown), got on the New York Thruway, and saw that most of the other cars to either side of ours were filled with hippies, also heading on up to Woodstock. So many smiles and waves back and forth! None of us yet knew what utter joy awaited all of us.

We arrived very early on Friday, so were fortunate enough to be able to park on the main road just before the little town of Bethel. Then we walked, carrying our blankets, our food, our dope, our binoculars, whatever else. This thin road, flanked by parked cars, was filled with other happy hippies.

When we reached the corner, before turning right to the main road (and final stretch), we saw a little grocery store to our left. We decided to stock up even more. When we got inside, the shelves were already nearing the bare state because so many before us had thought the same way.

Then, as we turned right to now head up to the entrance gate, a lovely old couple came out of their house (I believe it was the first one on the right, so at the intersection,) and they hooked up their garden hose and gestured to us to come onto their massive front lawn to drink water from their hose. We had expected the possibility of hostility from the neighborhood folks – instead, we were greeted with genuine warmth and love… and giving. A fine beginning to what ended up being the times of our lives for the next four wonderful days.

Just as we were about to pull out our $18.00 tickets, someone called out that the gate and fence were coming down, and admission was now free! Wow! Some of us are lucky enough to have peace symbols made from that fencing.

And now we entered the official concert area. To our right, there was this lonnnnng row of Port-O-Sans, already nearing overflow. There was the Hog Farm encampment. And ahead of us and mostly to our left were, closest, the stage, and then the pasture’s natural bowl, already filling with many thousands of people.

We were lucky enough to park ourselves dead center, about halfway back from the stage, and there’s where we remained for the entire time, other than to make bathroom or bathing trips.

I remember meeting up with another girl who was looking for a place to pee, so we teamed up, and hiked through hundreds of people, then got into a lush woodsy area, where we found a surprisingly isolated and private spot to pee. Then we walked over to the lake, took off our clothes, and went into the water to clean up. Nice.

My guys and I didn’t miss ANY of the performances. We were there FOR the music. And for me, personally, it was my first break from a few years of peacefully protesting that damn Vietnam war, and working some on the Civil Rights Movement (going down South with my folks to help make changes, and drinking from the “For Coloreds Only” water fountains, and using the outhouses instead of the gas station bathrooms, which were for whites only), pushing for women’s rights, etc. There had been three mind-numbing assassinations, and just so much horror going on. Oh, and I had been brutally raped, impregnated, then given a legal late-term abortion earlier that year. It was time to just plain GET AWAY FROM IT ALL for a few days!

Also, ‘til then, I’d been rather shy (I was the kid in junior and high school whom everyone picked on) and leery of most people.

So here I was, at Woodstock, surrounded by 500,000 beautiful people, and I felt comfortable and safe and at peace and cared about and just on a natural high (for real).

I can’t name too many particular high points, because I was high and EVERYTHING was a high point, but I definitely remember when that helicopter started approaching from the south, and some of us began to feel a bit of paranoia, because it appeared to be a military helicopter. And when the helicopter finally flew above us, and just hovered, I admit to a moment or two of blind fear. Then the cargo doors opened, and out dropped thousands and thousands of DAISIES!!!!! Daisies! What a glorious moment!

Okay, okay, other high points… Jimi Hendrix at dawn… the man in white robes, just after the storm, who didn’t have a speck of mud or raindrops on him, who shuffled his way past us… Tim Hardin… the beautiful tall woman with the rainbow Afro… Canned Heat… watching the young, oh-so-cute cute Martin Scorsese (decades later, again seeing him at a Robert Altman memorial)… The Who (and Tommy!)… the bathing lake… Richie Havens… the generosity of everyone sharing everything… the homegrown pot… Sly and the Family Stone, who really got all of us on our feet… the good, good doctors and nurses… Grateful Dead… the Hog Farm… darling, darling, darling Max Yasgur… Santana…the walls of notes… sweet Melanie… Blood, Sweat and Tears… the uplifting no-rain chant… wonderful Arlo Guthrie… the knock-out Janis Joplin… the letter I wrote to someone onstage, which we watched being passed down person by person all the way to the stage and into the hands of my friend… Bert Sommer… the mud-sliders… Country Joe (and The Fish)… the breastfeeding mothers… Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young)… the cute guy (from Pittsburg, maybe?) who stepped on a shard of glass and everyone who ran to help him out…Ravi Shankar…the LSD and mescaline just handed out…Johnny and Edgar Winter… the very end, when the pasture was covered with blankets and left-behinds, and those who stayed to help clean up…Ten Years After (having just seen them at Fillmore East)… the sharing of blankets and tarps during the rainstorm… The Paul Butterfield Blues Band… the goodness all around me… The Band… the fantastic announcement of the birth of a baby… my mother’s blanket left behind…

I loved seeing so many babies and young children there, as it should be. After all, we were now a city unto ourselves. I lost almost all my remaining inhibitions at Woodstock.

The rain was just another part of being at Woodstock. So what if the Port-O-Sans couldn’t be used; Mother Nature had lots of available places, too. No fights. No arguments. No rudeness. No envy. Nothing bad happened, mostly because no one wanted anything bad TO happen.

We didn’t leave Woodstock until well into late afternoon on Monday, and it was with a feeling of sadness and already-budding nostalgia, but also overwhelming elation that we’d just been part of musical history.

When I got home to Morristown, my parents were having another one of their ecumenical meetings in our little house, so I was greeted with mixed reactions. But one of my parents’ friends, an Episcopal priest (who always knew I was an atheist) got up, and came over and gave me another one of his grand, massive, love-filled hugs, even though I was still covered with dried mud.

For two nights, I slept in my Woodstock jeans, on the floor of my bedroom. I could not part with either my jeans or especially that magical mud. I went so far as to finally go into our lovely garden in the backyard, where I undressed, and then hosed off my clothes so that all that Woodstock mud would go into our garden, to be there forever.

To this day, I can still cry about my life-changing (perhaps even life-saving) experiences at Woodstock, and I hope with all my heart that, as long as my brain functions, I never forget any of my wondrous time with that music, those people, the images, and the love and peace I truly felt envelop me.

Woodstock, you are very much a part of me, and I thank you for happening.

Love and peace,

Susie V Kaufman

Santa Clarita, California

11 August 2009

40 Years Later

I’m an “Underground Music” columnist my job is to find obscure bands and review them, bring them to the masses. But, Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. No band that appeared at Woodstock is underground. But as a music columnist, I would be remiss in not writing about this historic event.

Woodstock started with an idea and a desire for profit. It started with an ad: “Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions.” Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld were brought together by that one sentence, and Woodstock was born.


I said that Woodstock wasn’t “underground” that’s not entirely accurate. Woodstock was an “underground” idea, it was bringing together people in an “underground” lifestyle: hippie’s. Three days of peace and music. There is something about music that brings peace. Here was an event with, and while the exact number isn’t known it is estimated to be in the six figure range, very little incidents taking place.

With all the news coverage on this event I started to think, “How did four days and 32 acts define an era?” The answer was simple. Music. Music defines us. When we want to heal we get together and we bring music, “We Are The World”, “Live Aid”, “Don’t They Know Its Christmas?”. Think about this, when you have a gathering, when you attend a party, there’s always music. When you’re sad, when you’re happy, when you want to connect, when you want to remember there is a song for each of those occasions. When you don’t know what to say, you reach for a lyric.

While I write this I can hear music, someone outside is playing music and I can hear people singing along, talking, laughing. Music is the story behind so many of our stories. I’m begining to feel jealous, and sad. In this day and age, this “buckle up for safety” money, money, money generation we could never have an event like Woodstock. First not enough talent, no way would 32 acts put aside their egos (and while they have for Live Aid or for the Princess Diana Memorial they do it for the PR). There is no venue that screams freedom. Where should we hold this? Quicken Loans Arena, Ford Field, Comerica Park? Be sure to order it on pay-per view and check in for the Gatorade recap. Lastly and most importantly we couldn’t have a Woodstock because no one cares enough.



Woodstock was people coming together for peace and love. Peace for this planet that they inhabit and wanted to take responsibility for. Love, love of music, love of each other, love of the world, love of peace, love of humanity. There is no humanity anymore. While this coverage brings Woodstock to the foreground, and everyone thinks its “cool” no one is talking about what Woodstock meant. It meant change. It meant coming together and making a difference. That’s why Woodstock was important. It wasn’t the bands, although they were amazing, this was the top talent of the time, and the birth of many others (Crosby, Stills, and Nash were on stage for the second time at Woodstock).

Anniversaries are a time to think, a time to reflect. 40 years ago was “The Summer of Love”, all I can think is when did we enter the winter of our discontent? When did we forget about the music? Doesn’t anyone remember laughter?



2009 copyright Nicole Breanne

I'm the type of person who thought the 19 minute Greatful Dead song "Shine your Love Light" was not only good but unbelievable. Seems that most others thought it was horrible. Point is, everyone's different.

I was watching the previously unreleased songs on the Woodstock 40th DVD. I realized I needed a Jefferson Airplane CD, as all I had from them was a LP titled "The Worst of the Jefferson Airplane". I was going to buy "volunteers", but saw that the Woodstock Airplane 2 CD set had Volunteers on it, along with a Woodstock 1 and 2 live performances. Volunteers had a 6 minute version of "Woodenships". The Woodstock 2 CD had a 20 minute 54 second version of "Woodenships".

For me, "Woodenships", sums up all my Woodstock feelings. The 20 minute version seems to go beyond the imagination. I never realized Gracie Slick had such a powerful voice.

The picture is from 1977. Nobody told us out here in the Wilderness of Washington State that Woodstock '69 was a Sunset of the Hippie Culture. We were still living it.

West Fest... not exactly Woodstock since it was only a day event rather then 3, but man was there love,peace, and music everywhere. I found out about West Fest on woodstockstory like 4 months before Oct and could not wait. I told 3 of my buddies about the event and said it was something we should definitely not miss out on. We reserved a hotel Oct. 24-26 about a month before, that was a difficult task finding a cheap hotel for 4 broke college students. Oct 24th came quick, we packed all our stuff up in the honda and took off, only a 3hr drive to Frisco so not too bad for a drive.

We arrive in Frisco find our hotel and take a breather, we smoked some cannabis we brought with us since we didn't want to pay for any at the show...Hell Woodstock 40th anniversary we figured bringing some pot would be fine. We get stoned walk the fishermans wharf, get a clamchowder bread bowl, get more stoned on the beach then head back to the hotel since it's getting close to 2 and figure we should get at least a couple hours of sleep. We go to sleep knowing we are going to this festival but were not exactly sure how we are going to get there because we wanted to get stoned/wasted/high and we didn't want to worry about having to drive back all tore back.

We wake up eat some donuts we got the night before so we could get some food in our stomach and try to figure out how we should get to the park. We think about taking a taxi and decide to smoke some pot on the balcony of the hotel and figure a game plan out, well this lady comes out of the room next to us and starts to chat with us. She ask us if we are going to the show and we tell her yes were trying to get a taxi right now to get there, she tells us not to worry the 4 us can go with her and her friend but we have to get sit in the back of the truck. Great deal we just saved some money getting to the concert, we help them load the truck up and we take off. We get to the show and they tell us if they are there after the show they will give us a ride back to the hotel. Great.

We walk to the path to the field and we see the West Stage, we just missed the purple haze performance but that was alright we where there and ready to have a day that we will remember forever. We start off by walking to the front of the stage and smoke the joint we just rolled, marijuana smell hasn't quite hit the air yet the crowds just start getting there. We decide to walk back a little further from the stage so we could make camp and sit down for a bit. The day was beautiful, the atmosphere was wonderful, it was what one could call a perfect day. We sit down smoke some pot exchange words with a few people and decide to make way to east stage to see what that was all about. Stands where a little over priced on food, and beer was expensive. East stage was good, not so packed and all the stands selling things were around so we glanced at a few then decide to make way back to west and set up base for the day.

We arrive back at west stage and sit in the middle of the crowd so we could be surrounded by people. We sat there for the rest of the show, we smoked, drank some booze we brought with us and sang to the songs that where playing. Beautiful women dancing in the crowds with there hands swaying over there head was a beautiful site, the hippie movement was such a wonderful thing, so beautiful. We are at this event knowing we can get any drug and then the time came, we were offered lsd. I haven't taken it before but my buddies have so it was all game from there. We made the purchase and began our second trip. Two of my buddies consuming 3 hits, while I ate 2, man what a gorgeous thing. This piece of paper was something else, the crowd got bright and the colors where rocking, the music was blaring and so crisp, It was perfect.

You know how the original Woodstock people say if you where at woodstock you really don't remember it. Well West Fest was like that to me. I was stoned with my best friends while half the others in the crowd where and having a great time. There was no worries, nothing bad was going to happen. The event was something else, but 3 days of it would have been great. This day I will remember forever.

being 14 and in the pop culture of the suburbs it is rare for a 14 year old like me to be into the music i am. i grown up with the sounds of classic and psychedelic rock my mom was pregnant with me at Woodstock 94 i was also at Woodstock 99 where i met county Joe. all my life Ive been to the numerous tri state area shows and at amazing venues like msg the becon theater Nikon theater on the beach and the very small and amazing westbury theater known for its many ratdog concerts and that's where i met country joe for the second time it was at the heroes of Woodstock concerts we went without tickets like we do every time we don't have tickets because it seems every time we go to a show we get in.but geting back to the heroes of Woodstock show. so we are there at the door listening and at intermission country joe comes out to smoke my mom freaks tells him about the last time they met and how the sighed shirt he gave her was ruined and how even though my mom had money they would not let her get in so he brings us into the vip section and sighed a replica f the green yellow and red heroes of Woodstock shirt he was whereing

HUMAN CONDITION

Salubrious slime thinly coated
Through foul excrement trudgingly devoted
Insatiable tube through which passes
Endless sludge the culture of the masses

Sightless organ fragile membrane directing
Against hard darkness unrelenting
Outwardly propelled by anterior sensation
Mindless head devoid of imagination

To the elite a magnificent transcendence
Majestic metamorphosis denied the classes
With darkened vision and eternal dependence
Upon base sensation and womb like existence

From the heavens golden rays in flight
A besprinkled generation glimmered in the light
Assembled at the White Lake in all their might
The wings of hope rose with smoke into the air
Only to be dashed upon the rocks of despair

Christopher Cole

Three long score have I stumbled forward in vain

Weighed down by indifference and mediocrity

Adrift in the glare of self pity and inactivity

A mechanical being devoid of sympathy

Squinting in the bright light of drudgery and gain

Pushing forward to avoid the task masters disdain

Adjusting here some grease there no big deal

Powering the load like some cog in the wheel

With rounded teeth chipped from the strain

A precision component with a heart of steel

No room for tears no room to feel

Wakened from this nightmare I put the paradigm to rest

Twisting this reality inside out I try my best

To return to the living and Love before it is too late

And smile again and try to relate

Only to realize the mud of Woodstock still squishes between my toes.

Christopher Cole

On the first of “four days of peace, love and music,” we packed ourselves into a Dodge Dart and drove from New Paltz to Bethel. OK, somewhere NEAR Bethel -- we got to within nine miles of the festival. After an immobile hour or two, my Dart-borne companions were ready to turn back.

Not about to miss this historical event, I climbed out, hoisted a sleeping bag onto my shoulder, and started walking past the endless line of stopped cars. After walking FOREVER in the August heat -- when I was perhaps half-way to the festival site -- heaven smiled on this weary traveler. It began to rain -- no mere sprinkle, but a hippie-soaking downpour.

Imagine the scene: thousands upon thousands of wet, tired, hippies (many with wet tired dogs) along a twenty-mile long parking lot. Somewhere in the middle of this fragrant jamboree, a tall skinny guy, wearing white bell-bottoms, a shiny magenta rayon shirt (with puffy sleeves—good lord, what was I thinking?), trudged along, somewhat stooped under the weight of a water-logged sleeping bag.

Did that pony-tailed guy give up? No freakin’ way!

Not then, at least -- the next morning was a different story.

I had spent the night cuddling up against someone I should NEVER have been with, in that very wet sleeping bag. Did I mention that it was lined with some cheesy yellow-dyed flannel -- and that, at the first sign of moisture, it released that yellow dye all over the enclosed hippies? Did I mention that the sleeping bag was, itself, half submerged in the re-hydrated fecal matter of generations of Max Yasgur’s dairy cows?

Enough was enough. I shuffled back down that same highway, and -- when I reached some traffic that was moving -- hitched a ride to New Paltz.

The white bell-bottoms, stained by god-knows-what-all was living in the mud of peace, love and music, were never white again. No amount of bleach was to have any effect on them. I had to dye them a nearly fluorescent shade of magenta.

What can I say—It was 1969, and it seemed like a good thing to do at the time.

How does it feel to be filmed without you knowing?

To find yourself up on the screen "glowing" in the dark, as it were, along with countless thousands of other "freaks" (as Arlo Guthrie so lovingly put it...)?

This happened to yours truly, Jesse Slokum, busker4freedom. I was filmed responding to Richie Havens encouraging us all to "Clap Your Hands" in the middle of his ever-stirring FREEDOM Medley. It was his "umpteenth" encore at the end of a heroic opening set on Friday, August 15, 1969. In the movie of the festival, it is his second song. He's the first performer on the stage. Since the movie is a documentary, the set doesn't occur until about 32 minutes into the Director's Cut version I have.

I stood up a moment before he sang those 3 words that would change my life forever. I like to "take in the 360" when I'm at a big public event. So, after joining the folks you see around me, it was natural I'd turn around to look at faces as far as you could see on a hillside. It hadn't yet rained, and everybody was in a "LET'S GET TOGETHER" mood (like in the Dino Valenti song of the same name).

So, when Richie invited our participation in his ad-lib performance, all I had to do was to begin clapping my hands as I turned around. A camera guy on stage used my back for a zoom up focus, then panned wide as people stood up along with me. By the time I'm facing the stage, I'm simply one fellow clapping that funky groove along with what seemed like the whole world at that time.

I love the way this audience footage was edited so deftly into the footage of Richie making his FREEDOM Medley up. When the film cuts back to Havens on stage, he sings a fragment of an old hymn he learned as a child in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood:

"I got a telephone in my bosom...I can call Him up when I need him" (...it's a hymn, he's singing about what I refer to as I tell the story in person by pointing a thumb up towards the sky...)

"I can call up my brother, my sister, my mother, my father."

AND so he still does, as he continues to sing this SHOW-STOPPER of all showstoppers in concert.

When the movie came out in late March, 1970, strangers began to stop me on the street where I lived at that time, in Bloomington, Indiana. What continues to amaze me completely is that the first fellow who did that was able to connect the way I was strolling down Kirkwood Avenue with those few seconds he saw in a movie.

Talk about being "IN THE EYE!"

It took until January 26, 1991 to cross paths with Mister Havens. We were at the FIRST Persian Gulf "war" demo on the Ellipse in Washington, DC, when I finally got to tell the man that I was that guy in the film. Richie got me in a humongous bear hug after saying, "YOU'RE THE GUY THAT POPS UP IN THE AUDIENCE!"

You can see the one picture of us that exists by going to http://www.myspace.com/diogenesdelarue

A full account of this story can be found at http://www.jesseslokum.com/woodstock69

I decided to go to woodstock 99 because my grandfather before me was there in 69 and told me that if i missed woodstock i would miss being a part of history. so me and eight friends decided to make the trip up from boston and go to the festival. we got a fleet of tents and and all the food mushrooms and lsd we could get our hands on and we left. on the second day before the riots i was trying to take a shit in the outhouse when i saw a topless woman running around on acid. she was running around screaming i love this place and the outhouses backed up so there was a giant pool of piss and shit in fornt of one of the portapottys. she jumped in the pool and was rolling around in it.her boygriend was running around the perimeter of the pool screaming honey thats shit got out of there. he could not get her out and she was splashing it in her hair screaming I LOVE WOODSTOCK. finally her boyfriend got tired of it and went in after her she playfully pulled him down into it and iv never seen someone throw up as much as that man i have lots more so let me know if u like this one PCE LOVE

Woodstock was an accident for me, one of those great accidents that happen once in a lifetime and you never forget. Until Friday evening August 15th, 1969 I had never heard of Woodstock and I don’t think most of the other guys I hung out with in the Bunker Hill section of Waterbury CT had either.
One of them came up to the local park where we usually met up on Friday nights and said “Who wants to go to Woodstock?” It was about 5pm. I think he had found out about it from some friends at The Taft School where he attended and once he told us what it was about five of us said we wanted to go. We all piled into his old Ford Galaxy 500, one of those big old cars that fit six pretty comfortably and after making some runs home to get for some extra cash and jackets we took off.
It was Dave driving, Paul and Hank in the front seat and Mike, Danny, and I in the back. I think we all thought it would be one of those deals where we would drive over to New York state, spend three or four hours listening to the bands and drive the 2 ? hours back home in the early hours of Saturday. That’s what I thought. Well, we managed to get there with about a gazillion other people and there was no getting out. We got close enough to the site that we could walk to it from where the car was and spent the next three days experiencing the greatest music event of all time. Wow!
We took turns going back to the car to get some sleep throughout the weekend. The Galaxy had bench seats so with one in front and one in back two could get some sleep at the same time. I know we were probably hungry, tired, and wet just like everybody else there but all I remember is the great music, the thousands and thousands of kids who were all cool and got along, and how wonderful it was to be a twenty year old guy having the time of my life.
Time passed, I got married and started a family and lost touch with all those guys I went to Woodstock with. I haven’t forgotten them or the great time we had at Woodstock though. I think of that experience often and fondly.

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.

Woodstock 25th anniversary Aug 1994: During the summer of 1994, my husband talked me into going to Woodstock 94. I would have preferred Disneyland, but he said it was a once in a life experience and the kids were free. So we bought our $135 a piece tickets and took off driving from Nebraska with two of his friends and our 3 children ages 1, 2 and 5. We arrived in New York 3 days before the concert because we wanted to set up camp early and they were letting people in early. We had to park in a makeshift parking lot in a field 25 miles from the concert and take a Woodstock bus to the site. The parking lot was alive with activity. Tents were being set up right next to the cars and people were honking horns, screaming, playing music and having fun socializing with each other. People were selling balloons filled with nitrous gas to get high on. We had brought light ropes to sell and make some extra money so my husband and 5 year old daughter went car to car selling them. It was late when we finally dragged all our stuff (tent, food, clothes, diapers, camera, and stroller painted with hippy colors) and kids to the bus to ride to Woodstock. Another party was going on in the bus. We arrived and our tickets and bags were checked quickly. We set up camp in the nearest field from the entrance and slept well. We awoke to the noise of many more people arriving as the gates were crashed and it became a free for all and we were right in the path. So we moved our campsite a mile in on the side of the mountain. To keep the kids from being lost, they each wore bright tie-dyes and a fanny pack with a jump rope attached and then tied to my husband’s belt. Needless to say, we were quite a site and photographers took a lot of pictures of our menagerie. Along the way, we passed makeshift outdoor facilities–a large 25” by 25” wood frame with many sinks and showers attached. Eventually this is where mud people originated and got cleaned up. By the time we were set up, it was a sea of tents, all very close together. We had the largest tent and easy to spot, which helped us quickly find our way back from the port-a potties. People were playing bongos in their tents and this went on day and night the whole time we were there. My husband and his friends took the kids to the first concert, Sheryl Crow. There were three stages set up and the next day we walked everywhere checking out the different bands and extras. I had never seen so many people in one place in my life. Tents were everywhere, many of them with signs selling different kinds of drugs. People were walking around naked, and the mud people were created from the wet ground around the wash areas. Our friend Dave was attacked by mud people and became one himself for a day. The food was expensive, so I am glad we brought our own. Eventually the food tents ran out of food too. The forecast for the next day was for rain, so I packed up me and the kids and we started our long trek to the front gates through 400,000 people. Along the way we passed by the mud slide and by guys trying to get any girl within earshot to lift their shirt. I was glad to be out of there. My husband and friends stayed two more days, living off of peanut butter and crackers. I picked up the muddy trio by the parking lot where I had parked. It had become a mud hole and cars had to be towed from it for $200 each by tractors, so I had got out just in time. We happily made our way home with unforgettable memories.

I was 10 years old when Woodstock Happened.
I grew up hearing about it and I read articals on it.Saw the movie when it came out on video.
I aways felt that even though I wasn't there.That it had touched my life.The message they were trying to get through.
That peace and Love was the answer.

When I hear today people bad mouth the whole 60's movement as bunch of stupid nieve young people high on drugs,rebelling against the system and their parents moral values.
I remember a artical were a reporter asked a young hippie at Woodstock what he thought the concert was about.
The young hippie replied; Peace and Love man!
Then the reporter asked the young hippie ;What do you think love means.
This young guy simply replied;Every man is my Brother, every woman my sister and every child is mine. That's what Love is man!
The reporter later replied that he was blown away by that young mans answer..
Peace and Love is the answer.
It just got lost in all the drugs and kaos.
The system capitalized on it ,to kill the message.
Write it off as just abunch of young kids high on drugs .
Its a shame.
Because now look where were at.
Living in a Corperate controled Police state.

Peace +Love =Freedom.

Saturday 08/15/2009 I finally when back to Woodstock or (Bethel Woods) after 40 years. I have to admit I was amazed to see how they changed the place. A new music center, a museum, all the food and drinks money can buy. I never thought that that party....... weekend would affect so many people. A tear came into my eyes when I saw the stage area and the location wear we spent most our time, watching and listening. Out of the five people I knew, 2 of them disappeared and 2 passed away.

A lot of people there today talked today about what they viewed in the movies. You just had to of been there to experience it. All I have to say is THANK YOU to whoever was the Governor at that time and the great State Police who enjoyed it as much as I. I guess they were shown very early THE WORLD NEEDED A GOOD TIME. It would gotten truly ugly if force would have been used. I have stories that I will not share today.

The music was great. I did not have to view the bands because we were fortunate to be apart of the Fillmore East customers. I have to admit I had to see Janis Joplin perform, front row. They were all great. The band that got the party started Friday evening was CCR. As far as you could see everybody stood up and started dancing in there place. Thanks to Dylan for opening his house to the entertainers.

Finally THANK YOU to that elderly couple on Route# 17B who open their house to everyone who needed to use their facilities. The people I meet were great. Rick

I was raised on the west coast during the 60's and I was on that coast when Woodstock happened. But "The Woodstock Generation" sure fit us...we lived and breathed it. I wish I could have been there, but since I wasn't, I had the next best thing...I was in a rock band in The Bay Area and we cut our teeth playing every small festival, bar, and happening we could get to. We found ourselves on the same bill as Canned Heat (2x), The People (2x), The Chocolate Watchband, Rest, Rejoice, Syndicate of Sound, and on and on. We spent our off time going to The Fillmore, Winterland, etc, and I must have watched The Woodstock Movie dozens of times. We really enjoyed playing our music and living the life. Today, I'm 55 years old and have a band here on the east coast and we do our gigs as a hobby now, picking the right place and time...and we have even toured Liverpool, England twice in the last 4 years and have played the famous Cavern Club 4 times. Woodstock and Rock and Roll - what else is there!

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.

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!

1969 - did not go quiet as decades before had disappeared into the lost memories of history buffs. “Woodstock“, “Hippy“, “The Summer Of Love“, “Haight and Asbury” will remain with thoughts of daisies slid into the business end of the rifle barrel, “Make Love Not War”! Love-beads swinging wildly about the necks of bell bottom clad, long haired kids crying out for Peace and Equality, a message still too often unheard. Voices now muffled by years unheard. Pictures like memories lost or hidden away. But the music goes on never to be silenced. WOODSTOCK forever to remain the voice of a generation.

Yes there was a lot of sex, probably way to many drugs, but it is the peace and the love that has carried me through to this my 60th summer. It is the Peace and Love that will be my legacy. Through the pain that is too often reality it is the peace and love in the beat that goes on . . .

I was a rock promoter in Toronto at the time and very well known in the business. I got a call at my office in July from a Michael Lang, inviting us to come to his festival the following month. There were a lot of festivals that summer and I didn't think anything of it at the time. Then on the Friday of Woodstock I was driving up Yonge St. in Toronto with three co-workers when we heard about the festival on the radio and realized we had been invited to it the month before. We all looked at each other and said, "we gotta go." So we just headed there and of course arrived at a N Y State thruway rest stop about 50 miles away from the festival about 2 am where all traffic was stopped and about a thousand or more people just like us were hanging out partying and listening to the broadcasts on the radio.
So being promoters we knew there would he choppers going in and out of somewhere getting the acts and supplies in. I called the N Y State Police and told them I was a roadie for one of the acts, don't remember which, and needed directions to the airport where the choppers were flying from.
The guy asked for my location and then proceeded to direct us back on the thruway the other way to the next exit and then literally gave us a mapquest version of directions on back roads to the Monticello Airport where we arrived about 4am. My receptionist who was with us was too scared to go any further and as she and another friend had gotten VERY close in the car ride down, they decided to get a motel room nearby and watch the festival on TV. So that left two of us, myself and Hugh Curry, a top FM DJ in Toronto to try and get on a helicopter. We approached the guy dealing with them and he just flat out told us to piss off, that no one was getting on a chopper unless they were an act or support staff. Then a cab pulls up and a guy gets out and starts yelling that he has Jimi Hendrix's guitar and that he needs to get on a chopper right away. The chopper guy tells him the same thing, that he isn't getting in on a chopper until Sunday evening since Jimi is closing the show and right now it is only Saturday morning barely. So Hugh and I start chatting him up, his name was Eric Barret and he was a really loud little English guy but quite affable. Next thing we know some guy in a greasy baseball cap and overalls who seemed to be chewing something, sidles up to us and says in a real hillbilly accent, "You boys wanna go that big hippy show?"
We looked at him and then he says, "Fifty bucks...(pause) each." So Eric pulls out some money and says OK and Hugh and I look at each other and figure what the Hell we came this far. So we three get into this guys station wagon and off he goes down the dark country road. Within about a hundred yards he all of a sudden jerks the wheel and drives straight into the woods. We all scream and grab for things to hold on to but soon realize as we crash into branches and things flashing off the windshield that the car is in some ruts and appears to be going along fine through the woods. We drive for a while and then emerge into a field where the ruts seem to be as well and after a few minutes we see this guy is heading towards more woods at about 20 miles an hour. We all start screaming for him to slow down but he just starts laughing and the next thing we know we are crashing into the next woods and the same thing, branches flying off the windshield but we are getting through. The car emerges once again into a field and we go for a few minutes until after cresting a slight rise we drop down right into the backstage area of the festival. Hugh and I look at each other like "unbelievable'. The car pulls to a stop, security people rush over and Eric jumps out screaming, "Eric Barrett, I've got Jimi's guitar, where's me laminates and me trailer?" So security pulls out laminates and we say, "We're with him." and they give us all laminates and direct us to the food tent and him to a trailer. We were in, backstage, with all access laminates. Whew.
So many crazy things happened. Amongst them Janis kicking me off the stage when she came out to perform and found her guitar player, (my friend John Till from Toronto) and I smoking a joint behind the amps. She had to turn around and saw us and came sceaming over yelling, "Who the fuck are you? What are you doing with my guitar player? Get the fuck off my stage." At which point security pulled me away and told me to cool it while she was on.
I was whacked on shrooms at one point and after Sly's set I walked almost off the stage (50 feet high) into the darkness but a stage crew guy, one of many the wonderful Chip Monk had hired for just such a reason, alertly saw me wobbling towards the edge and literally grabbed me under the arm as I stepped out into the void. Lifesaver. Thank you man whoever you were.
I was standing right beside Abbie Hoffman when he decided to run over and grab the mic and start yelling "What are we gonna do about John Sinclair?" during the set by The Who. Townsend ran up and clobbered him unconscious with his guitar, roadies dragged him off and the set continued.
So we stayed for Jimi and were on stage for the National Anthem but soon enough it was over and we stood there backstage wondering aloud, "Where's that guy with the station wagon." Of course he was nowhere to be seen, but up on a rise of farmland about 100 yads away was a National Guarad helicopter with its rotors slowly turning and a uniformed kid standing next to it. I motioned for Hugh to follow me and quickly we made our way over to the chopper. I came right up to the guy and said, "We're with the promoters and we need to get to Monticello airport right away. Can you take us?" he looks at us and says, "Get in." he loads us in and up we go, over the festival, over the adjacent farms strewn with trash and still many cars and soon we swoosh down onto the taramac at the Monitcello airport where our two friends are standing in the cold by Hugh's car. They see us get out of the chopper and freak. We share our story with them and all pile into the car and drive back to Toronto. Whew. What a weekend. Never been anthing like it since. :) Johnny Brower..
PS We brought John & Yoko and Eric Clapton and The Plastic Ono Band to Toronto the next month and it was great but there was and never will be ANYTHING like Woodstock 69. xoxoxo
You can hear me tell this story on youtube if you just do a search under my name or Woodstock Story, PEACE OUT

Atlantic City Rock Festival
Test driving my newly-purchased-with-babysitting-money, first-car, 1963 Ford Falcon station wagon, my friend Jenny and I, both 17, had driven from Cleveland, Ohio to the Atlantic City Rock Festival in July, 1969. I had never before seen either a mountain or an ocean.
Atlantic City exceeded all my expectations; calm, high, fun-loving people being absorbed into their environment. I discovered the juiciest, most flavorful peaches and I learned to drink water (instead of milk, juice, pop).
Meanwhile, Woodstock was very heavily marketed that weekend: The prevalent Atlantic City theme was, "if you enjoyed this, go to the Woodstock Rock Festival".

Woodstock
I was determined! After returning home, I rounded up a different friend, 17, and my brother, 16, to accompany me. We sent away for our three-day tickets.

We were so excited that we left Cleveland on Monday in order to arrive on Tuesday. We were able to park the car within the farm somewhere. We set up our campsite adjacent to the car.

We had no tents or sleeping bags, maybe we made bedrolls. I think we built a few campfires and tried cooking on them. None of us had primitive-camped or even traveled outside of Ohio before that month. However, we arrived early enough to be comfortable in our new environment by the time the masses of people hit.

The construction seemed to be never-ending (and it never did end) with its persistent hammering.
I feel guilty saying this now, but ... Meanwhile, we were picking up hints through some sort of a network (those of us who had been there for a few days already) that we might be able to get in without tickets if we followed this one fenceline. We knew there was no way the fence would be finished by noon on Friday.
Sure enough! We each sold our tickets at the gates and then entered the festival in roundabout ways. Whether or not we made any profits, I don't remember.

Although my brother and I had gone different directions in the crowds, we each bought some acid and dropped it. Neither of us had ever taken it before. I had no expectations.

There were so, so many people. The vast meadow was tightly packed with thousands and thousands of people sitting and milling around wearing clean, brightly-colored, summer clothes for a hot, bright, summer day. Mostly sitting on grass or blankets, some were standing and traversing the crowds when Ritchie Havens began. The milling movement through the crowds reminded me of images of blood flowing through capillaries like I had studied in biology class.
I sat down with some strangers on their blankets and was absorbed by the music.
Occasionally, I forgot how to swallow. Although I am not an anxious person, this concerned me, so I thought it out carefully. If I could swallow as a newborn, I could swallow now. I just had to put liquid to my mouth and it would go down automatically.
It worked. I calmly asked my neighbors for drinks of their water. The water went in my mouth and down my throat the way it was supposed to, no problem. I knew I was OK and I just needed to continue merging with the music. I didn't move from that spot until the trip was long over.

Saturday afternoon, the PA system announced that the acid was bad. Anyone who took the acid should come to the medical tent. I went. I told them about my taking it the day before. They asked me how I was now. I was fine. End of discussion.

We had been sleeping in the car and on the ground before Friday. Now the bands played in the background all night long, I tried sleeping on the roof of my car Friday night, "under the stars". It didn't work, I was awakened by the music and a heavy drizzle and went into the car. I think I slept inside my car the next few nights.

I wanted to go skinny-dipping like so many others around me. Amusingly, I was too embarrassed that my brother might wander my direction and see me.

I walked through the woods often. There were some arts and crafts booths, but I never bought anything. It was in the woods that I ran into a neighbor. We drove him more than halfway back to Cleveland.

All of those brightly colored summer clothes were muddy brown by Sunday. Everyone was rolling, playing, and sliding in the mud. But the music continued.

We had been using the Port-a-Potties. Either Saturday or Sunday, they were full and gross, only inches from the seats! After that, I went to the bathroom in the cornfields.

Once it was announced that this was a disaster area, I knew that I had to eat as much as I could. Who knew when I might eat again? I ate oatmeal(?) from a soup kitchen at Hog Farm. National Guard helicopters were dropping food (hard-boiled eggs? sandwiches? I don't remember for sure.). I ate.

With heavy rains falling, some guy and I found a large, dry, red tarp that had been abandoned when the heavy showers started. Almost everyone had evacuated this particular hill, where he and I laughed and huddled together listening to the music. Peaking out of our makeshift tent, we discovered that we were surrounded by large quantities of disgusting trash.
But on closer examination, this abandoned trash included a lot of still packaged foodstuffs. Continually sitting, we slid our tent all around and up and down the slimy, muddy-brown hill, amoeba-style, enveloping whatever unopened or partially opened foodstuffs we could get. I remember a bag of oranges, specifically. While everyone else starved, we probably gained weight that weekend.

The fog-like misty clouds of pot smoke reached up to about my chest, at least. They were most visible on Saturday before the hard rains.
NYCPD staffed the festival. The police were stuck and as much a part of the crowds as the rest of us. On a couple of occasions, I saw officers offering a match or lighter to someone needing to light a joint. They were always helpful, supportive, and pleasant to me.

Leaving, we picked up some hitchhikers headed to LaGuardia Airport. Seven of us cramped my car as we headed to NYC. We heard rumors that people were being busted for the pot residue on their clothes and cars. And my car was obviously coated in the now infamous, brown, slimy mud.
Three different NYC cops stopped us. With each stop, we became more paranoid that our luck was running out. Each cop was kinder and more helpful than the next. They wanted to know everything we could tell them about Woodstock. One told us how to shower for cheap (or free, I don't remember) at the YMCA. One allowed us to continue sleeping illegally in, under, and around the car on the Coney Island bridge.

I knew about checking gasoline, oil, and radiator fluid. I had never heard of transmission fluid. My transmission died in the Pennsylvania mountains. We monopolized a small town's Howard Johnson's lobby until my friend's parents came to pick us up at about 4 am Wednesday morning.
After we got home, we learned that my mother had called the New York State governor. She insisted that he rescue her two children from this disaster area. Thankfully, that didn't happen.
Oh well.

It was early August 1969 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when me and my friend Carlos Muriel saw an add in Rolling Stone magazine..."3 days of Peace and Music". After looking at the list of groups that were playing we both looked at each other and said "We have to go!". But I was 15 and he was 17, just a couple of high school kids still living at home. We had no clue as how to do it...
But we came up with an plan. We convinced our parents of sending us to a "music camp" in New York. I am not sure how gullible really they were and what lead them to say yes, but they did. So along with 2 other friends, Carlos Carle and Jose Luis, off we went, landing in NYC without a clue as to where Bethel was or how to get there.
We asked the first long-haired "freak" we saw if he knew about this festival..."Of course, I am going there this afternoon myself". So he got us to Port Authority, where we boarded a bus full of starry-eyed hippies, off to this unknown event that would change the world.
And the rest is history...
I believe we were the only ones to go from the island. Two of them, Carlos Muriel (Gian Singh) and Jose Luis, are no longer with us. I have not heard of Carlos Carle in over 30 years. But I have never forgotten those 3 days and what they meant to me. To top if off, Carlos Muriel and I are in the movie, in the crowd scene after Sha Na Na...something for our grandkids to have and remember.
Peace and love,
Gurudass Khalsa (aka Jose Romero)

In early August of 1969 I was really looking forward to Woodstock. I had seen the posters around New York City. I asked around and found a couple of guys from Westfield, NJ who were driving up on Wednesday, two days before the official start of the festival. My friend Richard and me lived in Elizabeth NJ. We all drove up in a Volvo.
When we arrived on Wednesday there was already a substantial crowd, at least several thousand people. All Richard and I took with us were our sleeping bags and the clothes on our back. No tickets, no money. Our group camped up on a grassy hill near a stand of pine trees about 1/4 mile north of the main stage, opposite the main spectator area.
Early Wednesday evening Richard and I went for a walk around the festival grounds. We sauntered down the hill, then along the road that passed just back of the stage. At this point, the deluge of people had not yet arrived, cars were still able to move along the road. We hopped on the back trunk of a car to move down the road. Richard and I soon hooked up with some people, including a guy named Sunshine from Philadelphia. We shared a joint and talked about Tim Hardin and his addiction to heroin. Soon Richard and I managed to connect with some acid.
A little later in the evening, back at out campsite, the acid came on. We sat around a small campfire and talked about the non-ordinary and the occult. Our conversation got scary. We quieted down and went off to our sleeping bags. That first night we slept amongst some pine woods, just back of where the Volvo was parked. It rained and we got wet. Richard and I slept near a camp of ten or twelve musicians from Georgia and the deep south.
The next morning was Thursday. After getting out of our soggy sleeping bags, we hung the bags up on trees in an attempt to dry them. Then Richard and I walked towards the stage area. We bummed around along the road behind the stage. We would stick our thumbs out for rides, or just hop on the hoods or trunks of passing cars. I remember seeing Abbie Hoffman around, then Hugh Romney (now Wavy Gravy). Just for fun, I decided to ride a few miles into town. More and more people were arriving. and I rejoiced at seeing all the people showing up. Already traffic was backed up for many miles.
Friday was the official start of the concert. Sometime in the afternoon I sat behind lines of people in the audience, just enjoying the music. By this time the gates had come down and it was a free festival. Richard and I hadn't expected to pay anything anyway. We didn't have any money at all, and had to hustle even our food. Somehow we expected everything to be free and provided for.
I remember seeing Swami Satchitananda blessing the festival, and saying that nowhere, outside of India, had such a large crowd assembled. I wandered around the audience, then took a seat about a hundred people back from the stage and watched the show. I remember seeing Richie Havens, then later, Melanie, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez. I didn’t stay in my seat long, I moved around a lot.
Friday night it rained. In the morning our sleeping bags were soaked. Being already high from a few tabs of acid here and there, Richard and I went to the lake for a swim. It was exhilarating and great fun to swim nude with all the friendly people. After a swim and some cleaning with Dr. Bronner’s soap, I was refreshed and ready for a full day of fun. I strolled around near the stage. Before long the music started again. I saw Country Joe, John Sebastian and Santana.
Along the road, behind the stage, people were walking around with handfuls of acid, just passing tabs around for free. At one point an announcement came from the stage, not to take the green or the blue, but I had already taken several and I felt just fine.
Saturday night I sat on top of a car parked on the road which ran behind the stage. It was a beautiful spot if you didn't mind not seeing the performers in front. The stage was accessed by the performers with a small foot bridge than spanned across the road. Looking to my right, I could see the bright lights of the stage and performers stomping around. The music was loud and clear. There was a tremendous energy in the air.
I sat on the car, tripping, and watched all sorts of characters in play. Some were walking along the road and some were hanging out, moving to the music or just being weird. Somehow it seemed a drunk from the New York bowery was there, waving hands and directing traffic. Traffic was hordes of people with a few crawling cars, also a few supply trucks. I stayed for hours on the car, enjoying the view. So many interesting people. As Credence Clearwater played, a guy in drag gyrated and swayed, with an occasional shriek of delight exclaiming that this was just like California. Following Credence Clearwater was Janis Joplin. Then Sly and the Family Stone. As they played I headed back to my campsite. Sly played “I want to take you higher, as everyone light up candles or matches. Thousand of little lights everywhere.
Some hours later I headed back to the stage area. Moving into the audience I saw The Who perform the Tommy rock opera. In the pre-dawn light I felt waves of ecstasy moving through my body and brain as I thrilled to strains of Amazing Journey. At dawn, the final act was Jefferson Airplane. I moved off the field in the morning light, having stayed up all night. I waited in the hog-farm line for some breakfast.
Early in the afternoon I discovered a special area in the wooded area to the right of the stage. Paths through the woods were marked with signs such as High Way, and Groovy Way. One commune set-up on the path with thousands of tabs of brightly colored acid piled high into a pyramid. Headshops were set up, tables on 4 sides with assorted wares like portable water pipes, papers and assorted trip gear. People sat in little groups along the path sharing drugs in a communal, giving spirit – passing joints, bottles of wine with several tabs of acid dissolved, hash-pipes, and other forms of dope. One could just stroll up to a group and join in. People were sharing everything.
As I was sitting, already high on multiple doses of acid a guy came up to me with a bag containing what he described as mescaline coated with psilocin powder. It looked like dirt. I asked him how much I should take and he said take what you want. I ate a couple of chunks.
The pranksters had built a little playground out of wood. Here was a rope swing, monkey bars, and a chicken coop on stilts. When it began to rain, I met a girl and swung on the rope swing with her.
Already tripping when I entered the woods, I began ingesting all kinds of dope. I joined group after group with Richard. I took many swigs of acid laced wine, dropped many tabs of acid. When I wanted some THC, I asked someone along the path, and was without hesitation directed to a guy standing a hundred feet away. He had some blue caps and wanted $4 each for them. When we told him we didn't have any money, he ended up giving them away for free.
Richard and I walked with careful, deliberate steps along the trail. We were fully stoned. At one point we left the woods and looked out from the edge across the huge field of people at the stage area. Richard put his finger in his mouth with a confused expression, as he did when thinking deeply, and expressed concern that we were getting too high. Perhaps we had taken too much acid. I was confident that we were fine. I reassured him, telling him not to worry, we had transcended having to be concerned. I was on the right track. Just go higher and higher. I was beyond fear.
I was feeling incredibly ecstatic, waves of bliss coursing through my body. Every cell in my body exploded in bliss. I felt that I was on a heavenly plane of experience, I felt tuned into multiple dimensions simultaneously. Every desire was satisfied, there was want for nothing.
The energy amongst the people was building. People were giving abundantly to one another. When the rain started I was too high to care.
As evening came on, I became tired, having been up for several days. I looked for a place to crash and slept through the night into the next morning. Someone came by and said that Hendrix was going to play but I was too tired.
When I awoke, most people were gone. The landscape was a sea of mud and trash. I had to find a way home and found someone going to North Jersey.

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgurs farm
I'm going to join in a rock n roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an get my soul free
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And many souls were set free, to change the face and times of America and indeed the world forever. Our generation took the demands that society had put upon us and threw it back to them, sometimes gently and something with defiance. We were not like the generations of the past, we were the baby boomers. And make a boom we did!~! The youth of today, our children and grand children enjoy those freedoms we inspired. Yet maybe it has come to them too easy as I don't know why they were not marching in the streets while our country was being ruined these past years. Maybe they take it all for granted and that is not really their faults I guess. Surely there are thousands of stories of getting to Woodstock and getting home. The real story is being there and being part of that happening. There has been nothing like it in history and I doubt there every will be again. Our motto: Peace, Love and Happiness, but peace we did not have, few people even know the real meaning of Love and Happiness comes from within each of us. It was a the turbulence of the times that united a generation. Todays youth are not so united. We don't have peace, still the meaning of love escapes most and happiness still comes from within.. We were so fortunate to have been born a boomer. We ROCK! God Bless Us One and ALL! I won't make this Woodstock physically but a part of my heart and soul stays in the soil on which it all happened~~ Just 40 years ago~~~

Hello Everyone!
My first experience at Woodstock was in '95, the last year it was on the original site. It was very beautiful, I even brought my 1year old son. Since then we've been going every year; my son is now 15years old and still loves going very year, he has many friends who go too.
It was moved to Roy and Jeryls, (where Yasgurs farm is still standing) in '96, they opened up their land and hearts to share a beautiful moment in time, this year will be the first we're not going, do to finances, we're going to try to go next year for sure
One year, (2006) it was actually on my property, not to far from Yasgurs, due to the town prohibited it from happening that year, people ended up all over, campgrounds in the area, Hectors, and my place, I had about 150people camping all over my backyard
The most beautiful thing about it was that it actually landed on my b-day, it felt like the most beautiful present I've ever gotten, this was a year never to forget ever, other years either, due to all the beautiful people who go every year to this special festival that changed the world.
I feel they will never stop this festival from happening, due to the fact that they will always find a peiece of land in the area to have this festival, no matter what the towns people say or think, it should be happening, its part of history
If they can have Revolutionary and Civil War reenactments happening every year around the country, why cant they have this reunion happen as well, its part of history just as much as anything else, yes it was different, but different is good, its educational as well.
I could write tons more, but that would take an actual book, which I plan to do some day soon, with all my experiences at Woodstock Festivals, if there are other people who go every year as well, they should think about doing this also, because its part of them, part of history, and educational too.
For anyone whos going this summer for the 40th, have a great time, dont forget to share some of your pics with us, we would love to see the beautiful people who all went
Have a great weekend!

As for me, I was 22 and my best friend Bonnie and I had left NJ to head to California in early summer of '69.
Once there we found out about the Woodstock Festival. So we hopped back in our VW minivan and hit the road back to NY!
We got there early enough in the week to get into the site, and parked the bus on some local guys property for the weekend.
set up a base camp near the HOG FARM and headed into our future.
in the words of our beloved ARLO GUTHRIE, "MAN, ALOTTA FREAKS!"
it was ~FaR oUt~!

The world has never been the same and neither have we!
We wanted things to change.

I remember sitting in the field waiting for the bands to start
and someone started making peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches
and we'd take a bite and pass it on. food was getting rare,
and the stands that were set up were such a hassle to get to cause you had to walk over so many people,
it was hardly worth tryin. when you got up there the line was killer anyway, so we just all shared food!

I have many stories of that weekend.
fell in love a thousand times with guys who would walk by and we'd lock eye contact and keep walking.
it was constant connecting. walking by and touching or looking deep at each others eyes and moving onto the next person to share with as they walked by.
There was a purity of the spirit there. a genuine sharing of soul. my life changed there, I quit smoking cigarettes on an acid trip,
we paid $5 to a farmer with a tractor to tow our van out of the mud after Woodstock ended, and we made it into the movie!
right after SHA NA NA and before Joe Cocker!
we're doing YOGA with Tom Law, I'm the one with the headband on!

This is us in the Woodstock movie. i'm in the yellow top just as the video begins!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHyMlKkMrpU

Bonnie is still my best friend and she and I return to the site everytime i'm back to NY.


My biggest story on Woodstock is that I was admiring a girl there
for days thinking she was so cool.
(In the movie, she has on the fringed halter and short skirt
that's dancing wildly with Fantuzzi, the guy with the big hair waving his arms around).
Anyway, I thought she was the coolest and at one point,
she entered into a camp I was at.
I offered her one of my Kool cigarettes.
She said 'I don't smoke cigarettes'.
I thought 'WOW! I want to be more cool like her'.
I was on acid at the time and it really made an impact!
So...that's when I quit smoking!!!
On an acid trip at Woodstock!

I live in India...and when Woodstock happened I was 12 years old. So no I didn't get to witness the real thing. However, I saw the film 7 times. I play and sing Woodstock (CSNY) and Arlo's 'Coming into Los Angeles....I discovered Joe Cocker, Santana, Ritchie Haven, 10 Years after and Sly and the Family Stone (They impacted me the most)

My Woodstock story doesn't end with watching the film. I am currently a Disc Jockey (India's only dedicated host for Classic Rock and the Blues) My performing handle is BLACKJACK! When Artie Kornfeld (YES Artie Kornfeld) was planning to host WOODSTOCK in India we hooked up.

The whole concept of Woodstock has inspired me to host shows that promote talent...which is my cause...but I also follow the FREE SHOW concept learned on the efficacy of it from Artie's WOODSTOCK.

As I write this I am currently hosting an online show on www.myopusradio.com the FULL THROTTLE channel and I am doing a 60 minute tribute to Woodstock and Artie Kornfeld is going to be doing a Q&A LIVE from NY where I believe je is now...So from India and where I am WOODSTOCK is as real as it could be and more so...I thank Artie and the WOODSTOCK GENERATION for reaching out to me and encouraging me to keep doing what I do best...Be the standard bearer of music that is the cornerstone of all music...Classic Rock & the Blues in India....

I WISH YOU ALL PEACE, LOVE and HARMONY

part 1

...after getting to Woodstock Friday morning, we walked to the field which was only a couple miles further on. I had the idea to tape the event with a small tape recorder and caught the opening acts when I realized there was no way to catch the entire event so I tried conserving the few tapes i had brought. A high point was Bert Sommer's version of "America" on Friday night when a light plane dropped out of the sky and buzzed the field. As the roar faded off into the night, Bert's voice came over the stage and hillside and the lyrics "they've all come to look for America" took on a completely different impact as I looked around at the campfires and people who, like myself at 20 years old, were getting an upclose view of a New American Dream. Of course, some nice, pink encapsulated mescaline had some impact on my interpretation of the events unfolding and the tape, of which I had not made a copy, was lost years later but is still out there somewhere. ..quality was poor but it nailed the first day's activity and if anyone reading this has it, take care of it...it's an original.

part 2

...so, it's now Saturday and I spent the night back in the trunk of my buddy George's Ford Falcon, which was remarkably roomy. We made our way back to the field on the muddy paths and ran into a couple guys who had put in their time for the past few days but were pulling up stakes and attempting to head out. They tossed us a tin of tuna and a bottle of Bali-Hai saying that if we were staying we would need it. We shared a joint and they were gone...George, who also was called Bear, and I stayed for the activities on Saturday which, for some reason, I don't remember much about while I continued to record whatever I could. Bear's sandals broke in the early afternoon and his feet swelled up and he couldn'twalk much anymore so with mixed feelings we packed up and started to find a way out. The only road open was Rte 17 South to Penn. and then East along the Delaware River and somehow back to Conn. George's feet became walkable in a few days and I recovered from a liver infection due to bad water that weekend but the real kicker came about 2 years later. I was driving E on 84 in Conn just out of Danbury when I saw I hitcher. He looked like he could use a lift and I had nothing in particular to do so I pulled over. He got in and as we started talking, I kept feeling that we had met before. When our conversation turned to Woodstock and he said that he had been there too, I asked him if he left on Sat. morning. when he said yes and asked why. I asked him if when he split, did he give away a tin of tuna fish and a bottle of wine to a couple of other people. He again said he did but why did I ask. I told him that he gave that tuna fish and Bali-Hai to me on that Sat. morning in the mud and rain of Woodstock. This of course caused him to spark up something for the road and I ended up driving him all the way to his destination with more stories of Woodstock being told all the way....those kind of odds are the strings that keep the Legend alive......k

We were two girls from a small town in California , my best friend Janet and I were both 20 had been to San Francisco at the Haight/ Ashbury in February of 69 to check it out , but our main reason for going to San Francisco was to visit one of our class mates who was almost killed in the Viet Nam, he had finally been transferred to the Presidio Hospital. At that time we had never been far from home . Now hearing about Woodstock we decided we needed a new big adventure.. Wow what an adventure it was. We giggles and discussed going to Woodstock, at first it was just a pipe dream but I said, Let's go!! OMG. We started figuring out how we could do it..Janet worked for oil company and made good money! She pretty much financed the trip.. Thanks Jan! We started out on the 9 th of August(40 years ago today), we knew we could stay in Arkansas with relatives .(when we pulled in there in the middle of the night , they woke to us sleeping in the beetle, they thought us crazy of course all except my one old darling Aunt Sybil.. I think she would have come with us if she could. She was excited with us. )I had a VW beetle, Janet had one of those Opal Cadets! we decided on the VW and we both saved money for gas. The fact that the VW would break a clutch cable or blow an engine on a regular basis did not deter us. We set off against the strong opposition of our mothers and Janet's dad was just livid! . Giggling and singing off we went. I had and still have long straight blond hair and Janet had long curly brown hair, We took a bag full of jerky and dried fruit and nuts at the insistence of mother. It was a life saver! We hit the road.. we slept in the beetle and laughed about how uncomfortable we were.. I don't remember where it was but we were wanting a bath so we parked and went to this hotel , we went down into a door that held the air conditioner and put on your bikinis and went to the pool like we were guests.. Refreshed we started off again. We talked to some guys and a gal That were on their way at a gas station,,Jim ,Kathy and Roger were their names,, I don't know why I remembered that.. gas was 25 cents a gallon and under .They gave us a joint as we did not have drugs and did not use them often either and so gave them some homemade jerky . The VW gave out just as I figured it would ,,so we pulled it off the road as far as we could and started hitching, Jan was a bit freaked but that was just Jan. I figured I would never see it again. Getting a ride right away from this Mexican family .. Oh that was so funny.. they had kids and Chihuahua's all over the car and we would hardly fit in.. they did not speak English so we all just smiled and laughed . We were stoned and so it was extra funny.. They took us as far as they could and we started hitching again.. Got another ride from a group of kids in a VW van..I remember they were from San Fran and the roof of the van was upholstered in a wild floral fabric. You know I only remember one of the guys names as it was Guy and he as gorgeous, green eyes, with long hair that fell in ringlets and curly eyelashes ! We hit the traffic.. omg.. could not go any further so we all walked and eventually parted.. Jan and I walked for hours . I had never in my life seen so many people. It was exciting and frightening at the same time. There was talking and commotions everywhere..dancing,drugs,laughing and singing..Us two small town girls must have had that deer in the headlights look in our glazed eyes. I remember looking at Janet and she was just looking around sort of in shock..LOL. It made us start to laugh uncontrollably.. It broke the spell and we were fine from there on in.... We still had some of food and thank Mother for that...I wore a skirt I have made from a piece of gauze I had tie dyed.. and had an off the shoulder top on..Jan had jeans and bell bottom pants with a tie shirt and vest. We hit the water to freshen up clothes and all..
We wondered around until we were so tired we found a piece of ground to sit down on .. . People were everywhere.. My eyes were actually tired from looking at so much and so many things.. tee hee.. When the music finally started it was like we were in a dream.. Here are all these people here to gather..to see and hear music.. and what music it was! The rain.. Oh that was God's joke to see how well his children could endure a bucket of water dumped on them.. to tell you the truth the rain sucked! Thanks a lot God! We did not worry about getting home..we did not worry about anything.. . Janet and I are still close friend and when we talk.. we still sing .. With a Little Help from My Friends.. and If You're Going to San Francisco...It was an adventure of a life time for two small town girls. We have relived it and shared the experience over and over.. Don't even ask how we got home..but thank you and God Bless you Daddy for coming to our rescue.. and having a AAA card! Janet just survived breast cancer .. and to think back and look back on all the wonderful memories.,thank you Janet for all the years of fun and laughter. Woodstock being was such a gift to us all. Thank you Michael Lang!!

I submitted a story to Rolling Stone upon my return from the 1969 event..if memory serves, my story was one of the ones that got published along with others who attended. I thought or was hoping it would be cause I thought "my" story was different...my story was cool !

Anyway, now 40yrs later, I will not be able to recall every little detail but share with you what I remember.

Probably like a lot of other teenagers, I lied. I was 15. Told my parents I would be with my brother the WHOLE time I was at Woodstock..up in White Lake, NY. I went with my best friend Alfie...who knows what he told his parents. We bought tickets for the 3 day event. Then (of course some 40yrs later the details are a tad purple hazy) Alfie and I found ourselves in Albert Grossman's office in NYC (he was Janis Joplin's manager)....somehow we found out that his secretary (she & my brother were seeing each other at the time) was taking a bus up to Woodstock and my brother was to pick her up. Needing a ride ourselves, we found out which bus she was taking and we bought tickets for the same bus. Aaaaaaaaaaaah you should have seen my brother's face when he saw Alfie & I get off the bus after this gal did. HA HA... We, were not expected !

Ooooops...I'm sorry...I think right about now I should have mentioned that my brother, Maury Baker, was Janis Joplin's drummer at that time. He did several concerts with her, played on "I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again, Mama" LP, did some TV shows, and played at Woodstock with Janis !

Alfie & I stayed in a house that Joplin's band rented for a couple of nights...The first night was cool. Here we were (14/15 respectively) hangin' with Janis's band... The next night, we all went to a party at another house. Creedence Clearwater, Janis & her band, and others (can't remember everybody) were there. Everybody was taking what were called "Peace pills"...the air was thick and pungent from weed.... I sat there amazed as I watched Janis Joplin lay back on a couch and proceed to knock off a good % of the whiskey bottle she wasn holding in one shot ! Eventually we wandered out to the garage where my brother was seated at a keyboard playing...I got behind the drums (I too am a drummer) and we started playing... When Janis walked into the garage, I did my best to keep on playin' as if she wasn't there...but I think I froze once she started singing. I was 15. I remember when it was time to leave the party. Alfie & I were to get a ride back to where we were staying. I walked out of the house first. Saw 2 station wagons parked next to each other and just chose one to get into. I sat there "alone" in the car.. Others started coming out of the house and getting into the car next to the one I was sitting in. I could have SWORN they were all getting into the car I was in...I swore I felt the car sway as people got in, I heard them talking, laughing...felt car doors shut...it was as if my car was filling up. All of a sudden I heard my friend Alfie say...HEY J, we're in this car over here........ I was never so embarrassed. That was the 1st and last time I ever took this "peace pill". The next day all the players left for the festival site in White Lake. Alfie and I hitched... We had to walk part of the way due to so many cars on the road. Eventually when we got up to the gate, we saw it was torn down...a million people strong we heard so it was then declared a free concert Man ! Far out !

Once at the festival, it was pretty amazing. A sea of people everywhere you looked.. We walked around...met tons of people...hung out with some of them...many were kind of enough to share food..some food we were able to buy. One night we hung out in somebody's VW van smoking something...while right outside of the van, a cop was skinny dipping, holster hanging on a tree branch ! Imagine...that many people behaving so well whereby nobody stole stuff from neighbors, nobody hurt anybody...everybody shared whatever they had...I think there was one death and one birth during those 3 amazing daze...not bad for that number of folks eh ?

After 40yrs, many of the details are fuzzy but I do remember it rained pretty hard one day...and my purple bell bottoms got pretty filthy, muddy as were my sandels and the feet that were in them... I remember what an ordeal it was to visit the "porto potty" . Loooooong lines after walking pretty far...and how you had to roll UP your jeans as high as you could get em, before you could even think about pulling them down. Most of those potties were pretty nasty.... I also remember scrambling around, asking folks if they could spare any TP too.

I remember standing backstage...often arms length from some of rock's greatest musicians and wishing I had remembered to bring a camera... sigh.. I saw Gracie Slick and other Airplane members, Sly Stone, CSNY, Santana & his band, Jimi, and many others just standing there backstage. Our jaws were wide open ! This was the most incredible experience for an adult, and for a teenager, simply unbelievable !

After Janis played, the band took off to a nearby Holiday Inn. I started to panic a bit thinking how the hell are Alfie & I going to get home, back to Manhattan...We had no money, but somehow I was able to call the Holiday Inn and spoke to my brother. He said if you can get yo'ass here by tomorrow morning, there's room in the car for you and Alfie. He also said if we had I.D. he might be able to arrange for us to get a ride via helicopter just out of the crowds and somewhere where we could then get a bus to the hotel. We had no I.D. I don't think..however what we were able to do was hitch a ride in Blood, Sweat, & Tears equipment truck. There we were, in the back of a large truck, that was pitch black and filled with equipment, hitching a ride to this hotel. I think my brother thought we'd never find our way out of there...the roads out of the festival were blocked in so many places....thousands of people walking everywhere...thousands of abandoned cars parked on both sides of the road..for miles & miles that's all you saw.

Probably much to my brother's surprise (after all we were probably viewed as a pain in the ass..having your kid sister and friend tagging along) that same evening the phone in his room rang. "Where are you" he asked ? In the lobby I said....... Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, okay come on up. Once in his room, he asked where we were staying for the night since he wasn't leaving until the next day. We have no where to stay I said....so with that my brother managed to find another band member or musician who obviously didn't mind 2 teenagers camping out in their room for the night...after all my brother was not alone. ;-)

All I can say is this was truly an amazing experience.... The memories are permanently embedded. I still have my program, my unused ticket, my backstage pass, and some of the coolest memories any kid ever had.

I have some vivid memories, if not fragmentated, of my Woodstock adventure, Including driving my "57" Chevy Belair to Woodstock, with my brother Garry, his girlfriend Laverne and two neighbors, Tom and Steve.

All of us were from Levittown Pennsylvania, just outside of Philly. The traffic jam in the Mountains lasted most of the night, in a drizzle. But the next morning revealed an amazing city of people all across the landscape. I walked to the stage that Saturday and caught part of Santana before I went on a walking tour of this Woodstock city, basically in awe, since I had come from an Irish Catholic middle class background.

At one point I almost passed out when I came across about a dozen naked swimmers in a mountain creek. I also was stunned to witness a NY State trooper directing traffic at a country intersection. Just off the road was a man with very long hair selling large bags of Marijuana. Neither the Hippy or the trooper seemed concerned with the other. I had never even smoked marijuana.

I met two 19 year old ladies from Canda. We went into the town of White Lake and into a crowded general store. I called home to let my Mom know every thing was cool. Mom told me to get out of there quickly cause the news said Woodstock was a distaster area. I looked about at all the smiling happy young people and told Mom that everything was fine and not to worry.

At another point I drove across a farmer's field to take a short cut and got stuck in the mud. A farmer used his tractor to pull me out for five dollars. Later that night I dropped orange sunshine LSD with one of my Canadian lady friends. We lay on a country road that only had pedistrians and the people walking to the stage stepped over us but not on us. It all seemed in slow motion and I remember saying to the people, go ahead and walk all over us.

Sat. night the stars came out and the milky way splashed over head. Then a heavy down pour happnend and we found shelter in someone's car around a single burning candle. Early Sunday morning it was cloudy but we could still hear the sounds of Jefferson Airplane spilling acrross the Mountain countryside.

I stayed awake that week-end for three days, (with the aid of "Mother's little helper") only sleeping Sunday night. I actually thought at the time that the spirit of Woodstock would sweep across America.

When in the summer of 1979 my home town, Leviitown, Pa. was the site of the first USA gas riots ( that I experienced first hand) I realized that the Woodstock World that I envisioned was not meant to be. Still to this day, at times I feel like a "Woodstock Warrior".

"We are star dust we are golden."


Keith John Sampson

I was the product of a broken home and was living with my grandparents in upstate New York -unhappily since I was a Brooklyn boy- during the middle and late 60’s. As many children of divorced parents I was angry, and acted out as much as I could. But, the music was changing and I was changing with it. I went from Elvis and the 4 seasons to the Vanilla Fudge and Santana.

When I used to visit my cousins in Brooklyn during visits to see my dad, I got to hear their record collections. I was exposed to The Beatles and The Stones, The Beach Boys and The Animals when I was there, and more visits helped me find Paul Butterfield, the Who, the Yardbirds and others.

While living upstate I somehow found my way down to the city with a friend (sneaking out as I was only 13- something I did quite often) and we went to the Filmore East.

This may have changed my life.

I found my way there on many more occasions and got to see the Allman Brothers, The Grateful Dead, Mountain, Quicksilver, and many, many others over time. This was how I really discovered the great musicians.

Live was a whole new ballgame, and I got to see them make their magic. I was addicted to seeing these guys live. I can remember seeing the Grateful Dead after only hearing the song “Truckin”; I had no idea about their crazy jams. I saw Hendrix at the garden early on, and he was awesome, but going to the Filmore was magical for me.

I became obsessed with getting to every event I could, spending my 13th and 14th years exploring the music the best I could, and in turn finding my connection to my generation. I joined a band and schoolwork became less important than partying and making music. I lived for the music.

I ran away on several occasions, mostly convincing friends or girlfriends to adventure with me to the city, but I always got brought back to Newburgh. After one too many times I went back to Brooklyn to live with my dad -new school, new friends, new band…. But now closer to where the live music was happening.

I would go to the city with friends and catch groups like The Jefferson Airplane in Central Park. We experimented with drugs as everyone was doing. But the connection to all the others of my generation was through the music and we all pursued it as much as we could.

FM radio was our info network and was where we heard the calling…

Rumors began circulating that a “mega concert” was going to take place in upstate New York in a place called Woodstock. We all knew that Woodstock was where Dylan and the Band were living, and all these great other musicians were there all the time as well. The name conjured up an image of a musical mecca…

We listened to our info network and waited for updates…..

As we were approaching the summer of 69, war protests, free concerts, Vietnam on TV, was the backdrop. Rumors became more prevalent and bigger names were being thrown around--like even the Beatles may be there….

We learned that the promoters were not able to have the concert in Woodstock at all, but instead had to actually make the site in Wallkill. Interestingly enough, Wallkill was about 5 miles from my grandparent’s house in Newburgh. These are the same grandparents I ran away from a few times before….However the prospect of missing this concert would make me really do some serious groveling if I had to…I really thought about moving back in with my grandparents in Newburgh…and actually started the process of telling my dad I would rather live there. My brother and I (he always went along with me) convinced my dad it was best for all of us and next thing I know—boom—I am in Newburgh waiting for the concert of my life. There was some kind of crazy force making me want to be there…

Now my biggest problem was that every summer I spent on my uncle’s resort in the Catskills, in a place called Monticello. We owned a resort and restaurant called Spaner’s. Our restaurant was popular for its authentic Italian cuisine cooked by my very own grandmother…

I started working there in 66 as a helper to my uncle. He had me learning everything, plumbing, painting, tree trimming—you name it. I was his sidekick and did everything from clean the pool to stock the bar… I would spend the money I earned on records, now buying my own, and exploring everything I could find that was not pop…

The resort was a place where I was molded very much. You could see the transformation of my youth through the juke box summer to summer… Frank, Bobby Darin - Jan and Dean, the Monkees, the 4 seasons - early Beatles and Stones to Janis and Led Zepplin… That jukebox captured more of the evolution with Dylan acoustic going to Dylan electric to Hendrix covering Dylan…

Now I was coming to my first summer where I may not be working for my Uncle and I was actually wishing I could be there… After all, this was the place I learned to drive, had my first, well a lot of things, and if I could work the angles I could go there to the resort in Monticello have a ball, get paid and somehow get to Newburgh (closer to the concert in Wallkill) when the concert came about… I would figure it out I was sure…

Word spread of the concert and I just knew this was going to be the big one… I was going to be there no matter how or what I had to do to get there…. Although I figured I could do something to get out of the summer job…boom -next thing I know I am there at the resort wondering how I will make it to the concert…

Monticello was always a mix of local “hicks” as the city people called them, Hasidic Jews and New York City workers taking vacations to the “Borscht belt” as they called it. The city workers’ wives stayed there with the kids all week long, and the husbands would join them on the weekends… Some would be there for their two week vacations, others the whole summer… dirty dancing parents and the teens hating it, or camp – but now the area had become lots and lots of hippies… had I not noticed it before? Was it always like this?

Each day I would read the papers to see what groups were being added to the bill. Rumors of the Beatles, the Stones, Cream, Jeff Beck, the Who, The Doors and others to join what already was looking really unbelievable…

And just when I couldn’t figure out how I could disappear back to Newburgh I read that there was an injunction to block the concert from taking place in Wallkill—oh no – this was only 5 miles from my house in Newburgh. Now how was I going to find my way to who knows where?

Then the papers said Middletown was the new site - about half way between Newburgh and Monticello – (may still be doable), and each day I looked to see if there was any new news… another injunction, another site to find…

Our resort in Monticello was just up the road from the Racetrack. More importantly, just up the hill from 17b, the road that led from the highway directly to White Lake and Bethel, New York, a sleepy little farm town that you would miss if you yawned from boredom going past it.

The announcement was out, at last a real site was found, Max Yasgur to the rescue… and this site was about 5 miles from Monticello.

This was unbelievable news and a sign… I wasn’t going to the concert- the concert was coming to me!

My cousin was up for a month that summer, and he got assigned to let me practice driving on actual roads… This allowed me to explore the backroads endlessly and some of the shortcuts that would come in handy later… I convinced him that we should drive to the festival site and sit and watch the progress as the massive stage was being built. I would get goosebumps…. we loved going there and did it many times and I felt a crazy connection with the people working there.

One night we heard Ten Years After was playing at, I think the Brown’s hotel… in a little room that must have been like a clubhouse – unreal, maybe 40 people there …. Alvin Lee would show the brilliance over and over, that many had no idea about, until that fateful night in August with the watermelon and “Going Home”. It was like we had them in our living room. Of course I spread the word about Ten Years After to all my friends….

As we approached mid-August things started to change in Monticello – it was really getting over-run with hippies now and people were freaking out – they didn’t know what to make of these freaks and many were not tolerant…They would harass them and the news would tell everyone to be careful, “lock your doors”, etc. They kept coming however – and I am talking weeks before the concert.

Lake areas were filled with hippie’s swimming naked and smoking pot, streets were filled with VW micro-busses and motorcycles. This was not a movie script—it was happening for real…

My Aunt was not so tolerant, her gangster world didn’t like hippies – hippies were too out there. She insisted I wasn’t to go to the “festival” as we began calling it. It was actually being labeled as a “Music and Arts Fair” – and “three days of peace and music” was the catch phrase. She didn’t buy it… nor did many of the town folk. All I could think was “why couldn’t I go? So what I was 15, I lived enough on my own to feel like I was at least 18 now, had friends in Vietnam, taken acid, traveled all over by myself—what was the problem?”

My uncle was the total opposite … he was tolerant and an entrepreneur… he rented all our motel rooms to the hippies or kids from all over who actually had the money to pay, for good prices. He also let lots of hippies camp out on our property—make their base there and head off to the festival – I thought it was so cool.

It was surreal, hippies playing frisbie, pitching tents next to our pool, making love in the woods. Our resort was right in the middle of it. My Aunt was horrified…

As concert time approached, the road was a nonstop line of cars, and VW busses and motorcycles and campers and trucks heading to the site – 17b was the road you take after getting off the quick-way and off the Thruway (you know, “the New York State Thruway is closed man”), and this road led right past the bottom of the hill that our resort was on… we would go watch for a while wishing we could go (my friend Gary and me)… the traffic would get slower and slower Tuesday, Wednesday and by Thursday was impossible…and we were like 6 or 8 miles from the site…

The festival was supposed to be Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – but by Thursday I believe it was starting to happen… Friday news reports coming out said they were running out of food already, rain was a problem and disease was feared—

By Saturday we heard they needed water and anyone going should bring plenty of supplies…they said the hippies overran the place and knocked the fences down and it was declared a free concert now --- they just kept coming and coming. We know now that at the time it was the largest gathering of humans to watch a MUSIC EVENT IN HISTORY…350, 000, some say half a million…..

It was now Saturday around 11 am and my uncle who wasn’t much of a talker and I went in to town. The entrepreneur couldn’t resist…. He saw the traffic… We bought cold cuts and Italian bread, got cases of soda and went back to the resort…

While making hundreds of sandwiches and packing ice and water he told me --- “here’s the deal… we go down the hill and you and Gary sell sandwiches and sodas and give away water to those poor bastards stuck in that traffic” –

One lane was already just piles of cars abandoned as people got out and walked the few miles from there to the site…

“When we are out of stuff then you can go – but you have to do one thing—my friends want to go and they got to get around this traffic and you know the route—they will take you and Gary and you stay with them, but use your shortcut to help get closer…”

Needless to say, I jumped at this job with eagerness that was something to behold…sell stuff and keep a cut?, lead your friends to the concert? I am the man for this job I thought.

At first we sold the stuff, then we were trading for drugs and my Uncle didn’t seem to care – “Just keep moving and sell what you can” he would say. We got flashed from the girls for drinks and food and gave away stuff to the coolest painted cars—it was so much fun we almost forgot what we were doing it for.

Leading my uncle’s friends to the concert that had been calling me all my life—well that was the best day of my life and I hadn’t stepped one foot onto the site yet. We used the shortcuts I developed and made our way closer than all those people whose cars littered 17b for miles and got pretty close to the site…

We were sleeping in the car only to wake up to Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick’s announcement that it was time for “Morning Maniac Music”...

We made our way in….

Gary and I found ourselves in what some people called "Woodstock Nation" and it was unbelievable….everyone on the same page sharing, meeting, laughing, dancing, listening to all the best artists from our time…

I remember the announcements (too late for me but I didn’t get sick on the acid), I remember the distribution of food... baskets were at the top of the hill peaches and apples and such – the people up there would just throw them at the middle of the crowd so far away that they couldn’t walk through the maze of the people to get to them with the food… so we would just turn around and try to catch some…

We would share all the stuff despite the warnings of disease supposedly spreading… "don’t share water, don’t swim in the lake, don’t share pot," etc. We didn’t listen to a word… we all helped each other. It was the only way to survive the heat, the rain and the lack of adequate food and water….

I remember the rain… Oh how we all remember the rain…. Some guy standing ten feet from us took off all his clothes and started soaping himself up. I didn’t realize how hard it was raining... We all were just laughing and watching this scene… A beautiful blond, with the flowers and all, joined him and soaped his back—they showered right there –it was strangely funny, erotic, and appropriate all at the same time.

Somewhere after the second rain, the real bad one, I lost Gary—(my uncle’s friends had abandoned us at the crack of the first guitar chord when we got there)… I was alone but I wasn’t, we were half a million strong and everyone loved everyone. I saw Gary in the distance, one of the guys running and sliding down the hill in the mud (you saw them in the movie). He motioned for me to come join him but I went to the lake and was tripping and lost him after that. I didn’t see him again the rest of the festival.

We were friends, Gary and I (summer friends)… He was there every year at the resort, helped me work occasionally, got in trouble with me always, instigated events, but was my side kick – my brother was too young and Gary was almost my age…

The concert went on with long breaks –rain, equipment issues, etc… I was tripping and high and have to tell the truth—I don’t remember who I heard and who I didn’t. I know I left in the morning on Monday after Hendrix or maybe during but I cannot tell you anything else...

Well I do remember Joe Cocker stuck in my mind before the real rain…

I wandered out to the road upset that it was ending, frozen from all the rain and lack of extra clothing… It seemed cold even though it was August but maybe it was the finality of it all…

I wandered over to the road to make my way home… It was something to behold. You would wait for a car going by that wasn’t loaded with people, on top of it, on the trunk or on the hood, inside was out of the question… If there was a spot you would just jump on board, I could hear “people get ready” playing in my head – a car comes by and I hear the Vanilla Fudge “you just get on board” and I climb on… and we’re on our way...

I am telling the absolute truth- half a million people and not 100 more yards on top of that trunk and another body plops on the same car as me. Who is it but Gary—unbelievable…

Several more cars and eventually we reach the resort where everyone was so happy to see us –Some were worried and some just needed us back to work…. They hadn’t heard a thing since Saturday and now it was Monday – there were no cell phones then—

All I can tell you is we were back to work very shortly after returning as if it was just another day… but not for Gary and me – we had been to heaven (although the storms felt like hell on earth) and back.

It is my happiest memory of Gary and after that summer I only saw him once more, the next year. While walking home from work in Newark, New Jersey, a mugger shot and killed him. He was my first friend to die. He didn’t go to Nam, he didn’t OD, and some idiot just killed him for his money…

I choose to remember my summer buddy like he was that August day, running all out and sliding head first down the hill in the mud while I saw trails coming off his feet thanks to “a little help from my friends”….

There was something that kept calling me back there and I finally visited the site last summer. Our resort has been gone for many, many years now, and the area where it was, was run down and horrible for a good time. The last few years have seen a revival in real estate up there as an escape for people from the city and the area has been growing. My uncle returned again, bought some land, and put a horse farm on it for his wife.

For years though, people have been going to the site on its anniversary and many impromptu concerts have happened. I never made it all the way from my home in Florida, finding one excuse after another. But, an amazing connection still exists for those people who were at Woodstock. Many believe it was a seminal moment in the youth or “counter culture” movement, or the awakening of a generation yearning to express themselves that the music brought out in them. There were many events leading up to that moment: war protests, the “summer of love,” “Monterey,” etc. However, nothing like Woodstock had happened before, nor has it been duplicated since. One thing remains constant. The people who were there have a connection to each other that I believe is unparalleled.

People claim to have been there even if they weren’t, just to feel part of it.

I feel the reason this concert was so powerful is because it got the worldwide attention a lot of the events before it didn’t; most importantly, it seemed to give so many of us the feeling that we were all connected in a crazy moment in time, all feeling the same thing, accepting each other despite any differences, black, white, old, young, with the musicians verbalizing for us and giving us a soundtrack to all the sensory overload we were experiencing.

“Our collective voice,” if you will, was being heard by the world, not being ignored or dismissed.

For this reason, being in the “Woodstock Nation,” being part of the half a million that lived through it makes us special.

All the pundits have analyzed the show and the music, but I think my journey getting there may say something about the times, if not simply to voice one person’s Woodstock experience, among many.

Forty years later I’m hearing the calling again—not on FM radio like before—but through the words of so many others, whose stories I’ve been reading. I know I’m not alone—and I look forward to feeling the connection… one more time… and hey—I hear the Beatles might really show up this time!

I WAS ALWAYS TOLD I WAS A THROW BACK FROM THE SIXTIES

I was six (6) when the Woodstock Festival took place....I was visiting my Aunt Nell's in Centereach , LI at the time.....all I remember is that my oldest sister Anna who was eleven (11) at the time was mad at my Mom because my cousin John (known for hosting 'tea parties' in the basement) wanted to take her with him to Woodstock.....Of course the answer was "NO" and that was the end of that.

However, I did meet the Dead at my very first concert (Terrapin Tour, Burlington VT, May, 1978). Me & my girlfriend Rachel ended up in the Dead's limo going to their hotel....it was quite a fiasco...Rachel was feeling no pain....and while telling the boy's who had picked us up hitch-hiking where we were going so they could drop our backpack...blurted out loud the name of the hotel ....so every groupie, dead-head in the immediate area was on our tail........it was a pretty amazing ride sitting with the entire band in the limo...me holding Jerry's briefcase.

Anyway the whole freakin' time was just surreal.......My friend Rachel's sister attended Philly School of Arts and she had made it possible for us to use the silk-screen art room to make t-shirts......we chose a "Bobby" pic..... "What a long strange trip it's been" (In Rolling Stones Magazine History Book).

We showed up at Bob's hotel door in the morning with a t-shirt for him and he invited us to the next show in Troy, NY........that was a really weird trip to say the least.......we met up with many that we had partied with the night before.....Elise & Terry from NYC.....crazy girls...the four of us went to many shows throughout the following years....it was a blast. Yeah, me and Rachel the virgin groupies.....LOL

My fondest memory of all was when during that first night we met the Dead & were hangin' in the 'party room", after most of the partiers had gone home or into their own rooms ......it was just me and Jerry talking for hours.....I was 15...HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?

Well....I was old enough to make the 25th Anniversary show in '94. My sister Cyndi & her husband Kurt, Bonnie (a friend of ours) and myself took my pop-up and my sisters' van.

My sister and I had made Woodstock II flags for the show that we each carried........at least one of these can be seen in the insert of the Woodstock 25th Anniversary CD. Right upfront near the North Stage......Pretty cool huh?

Cyndi & Kurt left early on Sunday & unhooked pop-up while we were at the show....Bonnie & I stayed sporting work boots & gloves provided by the local public works guy's to help the clean-up crew.....it w as a disgusting, disgraceful mess.........some people just don't get it.............That's all for now.......

Have a sparkling Day! : )

I hadn't heard of the concert until several days before it happened. A friend of mine, Terry (who has since passed from this realm), told me there was going to be a concert in
upstate N.Y. that The Beatles were going to play at. Of course, The Beatles were not going to play, but that was enough to get me ready to drive up there. We heard there were going to be 1,000,000 people, so we got there a day early. It was about 90 miles northwest of here in NJ.

When we got close to it there were many cars and people walking all over. We got up there around 6:00pm and parked down west of the stage about 1/4 mile, by a small pond. We relaxed a little and then sat around a campfire with 3 girls, who may have been from Mass. They seemed very straight laced and really were not too friendly.

Just as the sun began to go down a jeep came cranking around the bend, where we were, and a long haired passenger shouted "Get High Brothers" and tossed a bag of something towards us. It landed in our midst and that seemed to be the beginning of a really rockin' few days. We began to walk around and noticed that it was beginning to become very active compared to just an hour or so earlier. We began to meet people from all over the country.

I met a fellow and his wife who had driven out from Indiana in a Milk delivery truck they had painted psychedelic. He was sitting in the back surrounded by a number of large bags and I was speaking with him through a side panel in the truck, which he had opened. As we were speaking he decided to tell me that all of these large bags were filled with marijuana he had grown in Indiana. He was selling it. I saw him the next day and it was all gone. Shortly after that his truck moved and I did not see them again. I did feel an immediate bond with that fellow as we spoke, as if we had known each other previously.

The next day things began to awaken. We began to hear electronic sounds coming from the stage area and walked towards them to see what was up. We constantly met people and there was a great atmosphere. People were playing guitars and singing from their campsites and there was a general feeling of things being good.

As time went by, everything became muddy and wet. As I was halfway between the stage area and our site it began to pour very hard. I went under a sheet metal roof they had set up near a vender selling what appeared to be food. I just sat on some logs to get out of the rain and a girl who looked very young sat next to me. She asked me if I’d like to smoke some opium and pulled out something which looked like tar and smelled like perfume. While we were talking she said “Uh oh I’d better get up. Here comes my old man” and I saw a guy coming who looked at least 35 years old, which seemed OLD at that time. He was either her boyfriend or husband and gave me a very dangerous look.
They left and I did not see her again.

Many other memorable events happened during those few days. We got there a day early and left a day late, to avoid the crush of the exit. I sometimes wonder how people I met there made out in life. Life has been good to me. I hope all those I shared that time with have had a really excellent trip down through these years.

Rick C
Long Valley, NJ

I hadn't heard of the concert until several days before it happened. A friend of mine, Terry (who has since passed from this realm), told me there was going to be a concert in
upstate N.Y. that The Beatles were going to play at. Of course, The Beatles were not going to play, but that was enough to get me ready to drive up there. We heard there were going to be 1,000,000 people, so we got there a day early. It was about 90 miles northwest of here in NJ.

When we got close to it there were many cars and people walking all over. We got up there around 6:00pm and parked down west of the stage about 1/4 mile, by a small pond. We relaxed a little and then sat around a campfire with 3 girls, who may have been from Mass. They seemed very straight laced and really were not too friendly.

Just as the sun began to go down a jeep came cranking around the bend, where we were, and a long haired passenger shouted "Get High Brothers" and tossed a bag of something towards us. It landed in our midst and that seemed to be the beginning of a really rockin' few days. We began to walk around and noticed that it was beginning to become very active compared to just an hour or so earlier. We began to meet people from all over the country.

I met a fellow and his wife who had driven out from Indiana in a Milk delivery truck they had painted psychedelic. He was sitting in the back surrounded by a number of large bags and I was speaking with him through a side panel in the truck, which he had opened. As we were speaking he decided to tell me that all of these large bags were filled with marijuana he had grown in Indiana. He was selling it. I saw him the next day and it was all gone. Shortly after that his truck moved and I did not see them again. I did feel an immediate bond with that fellow as we spoke, as if we had known each other previously.

The next day things began to awaken. We began to hear electronic sounds coming from the stage area and walked towards them to see what was up. We constantly met people and there was a great atmosphere. People were playing guitars and singing from their campsites and there was a general feeling of things being good.

As time went by, everything became muddy and wet. As I was halfway between the stage area and our site it began to pour very hard. I went under a sheet metal roof they had set up near a vender selling what appeared to be food. I just sat on some logs to get out of the rain and a girl who looked very young sat next to me. She asked me if I’d like to smoke some opium and pulled out something which looked like tar and smelled like perfume. While we were talking she said “Uh oh I’d better get up. Here comes my old man” and I saw a guy coming who looked at least 35 years old, which seemed OLD at that time. He was either her boyfriend or husband and gave me a very dangerous look.
They left and I did not see her again.

Many other memorable events happened during those few days. We got there a day early and left a day late, to avoid the crush of the exit. I sometimes wonder how people I met there made out in life. Life has been good to me. I hope all those I shared that time with have had a really excellent trip down through these years.

Rick C
Long Valley, NJ

I rarely talk about Woodstock 1969 much less set out to pin down in print an event made threadbare by time. Somehow the airing might oxidize the doing.
I've kept Woodstock pocketed along with other fine memories acculated along the way. I like to reach into that same pocket now and then to touch the glad-stash the way I did as a kid pocketing precious items such as a smooth pebble or an old soda pop bottle cap.

When I have told old pals that I attended Woodstock-and have to add 'the original,' they ask alike-what was it like? My answer never varies. Undescribable as are, for me, all unique experiences.
Even the hearing about the occasion feels like a fluke. My then husband and I were college students in NYC at the time. I was studying with an R&R radio station playing in the background. A dejay caught my attention when he promoted a concert in New York state. He rattled off the musicians signed on. The list was endless. That's what peeked my interest.
I sent away for three sets of weekend only tickets as we, plus a friend, had to attend classes that first friday. The radio station sent us the tickets tucked inside a Woodstock envelope which I penciled on the back the name "Bethel."
We took off via automobile early Saturday morn. I do not recall any traffic problems. I can, however, still see an unexpected, endless single file, makeshift parking lot. We followed suit. Parked and then walked along a pathway flanked by young people, a self-appointed welcoming crew some of whom punctuated the walk with offerings of "Uppers? Downers? Blackbirds? Free."
We were dressed accordingly. Jeans. T-shirts. Sandals. Long hair. Round metal-rimmed glasses. I wore a thin piece of rawhide around my forehead and tied at the back of my head.
We knew we'd arrived when all of a sudden a vast amount of people came into view upon what seemed like an endless meadow. I think it is fair to say dumbfounded sums up my thoughts at the time.
I pocketed the entry tickets once I spotted metal gates trampled into horizonal submission.
All I can recall is that we spotted an unglamorous stage yonder, music sets playing unceasingly while we squatted a long while amongst folks who offered whatever they'd brought from drugs to water. The air, redolent with the sweetness from surrounding meadows, was punctuated by P.A.'s of a bad trip being taken care of in first aid area or of someone trying to find their other somebody.
This sounds odd to say but the perpetual live music became part of the tapestry. A lively thread, obviously, but, nevertheless, just one of many.

I do not recall efforts for fare-food and water-but the latrine situation is memorable by dint of being small in numbers and huge with queues.

Sunday, late afternoon, I think, the three of us trudged to our vehicle and drove back home. I do not recall feeling sad that a burgeoning history-maker of sorts was over.

I recently secured the Woodstock 2009 tickets and accompanying envelope behind glass in a double-sided picture frame. The viewing prompted a small smile and a large sigh before I closed shut the frame.

In 1969 my new girlfriend (later my wife) Barbara and I were spending our first summer together on Long Island, NY. We were working as maids at a tennis resort in the Hamptons. It was there where we first saw the posters advertising the Festival of love and music. So many fine musicians, all gathered in one place. I was really into Crosby Stills and Nash, Tim Hardin and of course Janis and Sly and Hendrix too. There was no doubt that we would be attending the event.

We drove our VW beetle as close as we could get to the site, but I remember walking a long way through corn fields high over our heads. Some people were picking corn off the stalks and chowing down as we slogged onward. When we arrived at the entrance they were still trying to sell tickets, but shortly there after it was declared a free concert and the chain link fence came down. We flowed, with the sea of humanity into the festival grounds.

It was Saturday afternoon that my unusual experience began. I remember quite distinctly the circumstances. I was in the main stage arena bowl, when I was alerted to the fact that someone had just been run over by a tractor towing a large water supply cylinder just behind were I was standing. Sure enough the wheel of the heavy water load was right on top of the individual in a sleeping bag! I noticed, almost simultaneously, a butterfly flittering around a girl doing a frolicsome dance, unaware that this tragedy had occurred less than 10 feet away. The dichotomy between this tragic event (the only death at the event) and the gaiety of the festive girl, left such a memorable mark on my psyche.

Peace and love, Terry G Green

1969 - I was 12 years old, the Griswold Family Vacation voted to stop the station wagon near Bethel. Looking for a geological dig site, we couldn't figure how to get gems out of a wood stock. It wasn't until we got home, across the river in Poughkeepsie NY, that I learned of the peace, joy, and music shared during those first three days.
1994 - I broke away from my Pharmacy job and motorcycled to Saugerties hoping to catch the vibes. The bike broke down outside town and I hiked it to the bus center to jump it started. Nice folks there. Then it hit me as it started to rain...Man! I gotta get me some of this stuff. Nice music...good people...and joy felt immencely.
1999 - Hooked up once more with friends in Rome. This time doing it right. Yes, got me some of that 'Woodstock Rain' before it even hit the ground. After 30 years the dream is reality. 30 samples are purified and freely distributed thanks to my career choice. Friends for life, purified by those rains that fell in those days. Hot tunes, Cool friends, Good times celebrated in the Peace, Joy, and Music of those three days.
I was the one who turned in the panorama scene 'When we are together, it's awesome' to the free website after the concert.
2009 - I'm 52, and stoked to attend...I got the days off from my pharmacist gig, 8 months before I even heard of the plan to do Woodstock again...this is carma, fate, destiny. SO PLEASE...hook me up with one or two free tickets so I can live out my reality and fulfill my dream to return to Woodstock. Only you can bring me 'back to the garden'.

Sincerly,
Alan D. Griswold RPh
20 Salem Glenn Blvd
Selinsgrove, PA 17870
(570) 832 4422

photo pending....

August 13, 1969. My parents said woodstock was a cultural disaster and that there was no chance in hell i was going. Of course I went. I told them my band " The Groovy Smoothies" had a gig in new jersey and I wouldn't be back till Tuesday and they bought it. That night i drove to my buddy John Harrison's and slept there that night. We spent the next day driving from Pittsburgh to the small town of Bethel, New York. We made several stops at mcdonalds on the way there and everyone was talking about woodstock; three days of peace and music.
We got there around 7:30 pm August 14. We couldnt afford a hotel like the upper-class snobs, so we slept in our 1960 Volkswagen Microbus. We woke up real early and got about 40 feet from the stage. Although everybody was tripping on something and by the time Richie Havens took the stage we were too, I realized it was all about the music. Peace, love and music.
Day two. Food was scarce but everyone shared. I had three bites of a girl next to me's sandwich and a doobie for breakfast. Santana, Creedance, Mountain, and Janis all put on great shows but The Who's performance changed my life. I saw the Abbie Hoffman incident and boy was it funny. I still can't beleive Pete didnt kill him. The song that really changed my life was See Me Feel Me. When the sun climbed up over the horizon it was the greatest light show possible, like Rog said in an interview. I didnt sleep that night and slept until Joe Cocker came on the next day.
The next day and a half was amazing also witnessing Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Johnny Winter, Sha Na Na, and Hendrix. He is the greatest guitar player ever. When he broke into the national anthem I couldn't believe what i was hearing. God bless amreica, god bless woodstock.
If you purchase the woodstock directors cut dvd you can actually see me bathing in the lake. I would really appreciate winning these tickets to recreate what I saw 40 years ago.

Woodstock…My Story

Woodstock, yeah, I was there in 1969 for that celebration of life through music. Some still crack it up to a big drug and sex fest. When I talk seriously about Woodstock, I usually get the frivolous stock reaction, “who remembers anything, everyone was stoned out of their minds”. I think this misses the point that there was a cultural revolution in the air and the creative music of the day was the medium for new ideas and possibilities, realities that ran against the grain of the status quo, and still does today.

I mean in 69’ the social-cultural fabric of the country was unraveling from heavy waves; civil rights, the assassinations, women’s liberation, the war. For me everything was being called into question. All the music from Dylan to Woodstock got into my tamped down mind, opening up new ideas and realities that didn’t get delivered through “all the crap I learned back in high school” (P.Simon).

Woodstock was a transformative community building event. It worked for three days. As I recall a quarter million kindred souls mingling and grooving out there on Max Yasgar’s Farm, no one got gunned down, knifed or murdered and a riot never broke out. Try pulling that off today on any 4 points of the global compass and you’ll likely get a riot if not outright war because so many people have lost their human connections and compassion for the way community could and still can be.

Woodstock demonstrated that possibility to me and I haven’t let that go since 1969. That “we got to get ourselves back to the garden and set our souls free” (J.Mitchell) is not some irrelevant throw away cliche from the 60’s when you look outward at the global human condition 40 years later in 2009.

People yammering on about drugs and sex simply want you to miss the point that something deeper, more profound was in the winds of change in 1969. I believe it was, and still is, our shared human desire for peace, authenticity, compassion, meaningful community and joyous celebration. A month ago I was in JFK for a connecting flight to Utah. The airport culture looked so depressed. I’ve never seen “so many people walkin’ ‘round with tombstones in their eyes” (H. Axton).

When I landed at Woodstock on Saturday morning in 1969 there were no tombstones in any of the eyes I made contact with. Joy and celebration was in the air. As I walked over the crest of the hill at Yasgar’s Farm the air was moving as the crowd swayed to the impassioned rhythms of Soul Sacrifice washing across the amphitheatre from Santana on stage. This part of the celebration still moves me, 40 years later.

Maybe at Woodstock we were trying to connect simple things, like sharing the food I lugged in with me. Sharing anything with total strangers was outside my usual experience. The scent of damp soil, incense and marijuana, and the humanity of a quarter million people was a unique mix that I will never forget. I think the old social and emotional barriers were being challenged and relaxed.

There was all that tangible excitement in the air, and the music was the medium for new human and cultural possibilities. As I recall from reading an interview with Joan Baez ten years ago she said, ”Woodstock was the start of something and what that was about, is not over yet.” I couldn’t agree more, 40 years later.


Roger Merchant
Glenburn, Maine

As I approached Woodstock, the crowds were enormous and I began to worry that I might not be allowed into the festival. So I stopped and paid seven dollars for a ticket to the Friday, August 15th performance. It turned out, of course, that I did not need the ticket as the crowds quickly overwhelmed any attempts to impose such structure on the festival.

While purchasing my ticket, I asked the clerk if there was a good place to swim. She told me there was a swamp there, but it was muddy and full of snakes and she certainly wouldn’t recommend swimming there.

The stage at Woodstock was at the lower end of a hill, which formed a natural amphitheater. Looking at the stage, the swamp was to the left. I motorcycled to a point above the swamp, almost within sight of the stage, and camped by a fence line and small tree. Snapping two army ponchos together to form a tent, I attached it the best I could to the tree and fence line. Actually, it wasn’t easy to make a tent out of two army ponchos – I had to really concentrate.

Though I couldn’t see the stage from where I camped, I could hear it. The speaker system was quite loud and I heard music begin around 5:00 p.m. with Ritchie Havens. I then heard people talking but could not understand all the words. I later learned that I had been listening to Swami Satchidananda, who opened the Woodstock festival.

If you’re lucky and live long enough, the people you encounter often become intertwined within your life’s path. I would never have guessed that some twenty-eight years later Swami Satchidananda and I would meet face-to-face in a most intimate encounter. During 1997 I spent a month at Yogaville, Swami Satchidananda’s ashram in central Virginia, where I became certified in teaching Integral Yoga©. On August 17th, 1997 I wrote the following:
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Written August 17, 1997 UNION WITH GOD

I hoped to experience God realization and, for a time, I have!!! Tears come into my eyes as I think and remember….

After lunch I went up to Swami Satchidananda with my newly purchased mala and asked him to bless them. As I knelt in front of him, he took the beads in his hands, closed his eyes, and said a long prayer. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and opened them expecting his prayer to be over. Instead Swami Satchidananda continued praying, eyes closed, continued to bless my mala, continued to bless me.

I stared into that wondrous form and felt such a power there. Just being that close to him for so long was so wonderful!!! I have never known such power from a living being. I could feel my heart as it seemed to swell with love until it was like a blown bud bursting with joy!

This transfer of kundalini shakti, cosmic power, love, from him to me struck me like a bolt of lightening. I thought he would just bless my beads; I didn’t know he’d bless ME! I could hardly see; I could hardly walk. One staff member later said, “You had quite a transfer of shakti.” My roommate said, “I saw the blessing you received. You are very lucky.”

I feel lucky – I feel blessed!!!

In a daze I walked into the woods. Tears filled my eyes and I stumbled, twisting my ankle. Walking on, I found a quiet place by a stream and wept violently. As I wept I could feel my heart continue to open. The weeping came not from sorrow but from immense joy.

My mala even smells differently now. It smells of him, of his radiance, of his beauty. Surely this is God dwelling among us! I have never been with a human being who IS so filled with the Holy Spirit. I have so much to learn from him. God blesses Swami Satchidananda!!!
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Just as I finished setting up my Woodstock camp, a U-Haul truck drove up beside me. Out came a motorcycle gang and all of their large motorcycles. It dawned on me that I might be robbed, injured, or even killed. Just to be on the safe side, I dug a hole and buried one-half of all the money I had with me – twenty dollars.

Unfortunately, I got so fractured at Woodstock that I left my buried twenty dollar bill. I fantasize that I planted a twenty dollar money tree, which is still bearing fruit to this day.

I wandered on down to the swamp and there saw an amazing sight – hundreds of naked people. I sat down at the edge of the water and just watched this tranquil, peaceful scene.

Two girls my age appeared by the water in front of me. One said, “Let’s go swimming.” They proceeded to take off all their clothes and walk into the water. I’m sure my mouth dropped open. I was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee and we just didn’t do those things where I grew up! Without hesitation, I stripped off all my clothes and followed them.

I spent several hours in and around the swamp and met some really nice folks, many sharing their drugs with me. I saw things I had never seen before, such as using needles to inject drugs. Sometimes males and females would openly kiss and fondle each other, with an occasional pair engaging in sexual intercourse.

In time I learned that being naked added to our intimacy; without clothes we were more open, less guarded. The walls around our hearts lowered. I discovered that nakedness really wasn’t that sexy; nakedness really didn’t turn me on.

Every once in a while I’d meet a woman wearing a bathing suit. I found it was the bathing suit, the mystery, which was sexy. Naked bodies were just interesting to look at, as they were all so different.
I felt free being nude, so natural, so honest, and so comfortable. This was a life changing moment for me. From that point to this day I have appreciated the power of nudity.

While in the swamp I met Marsha. She was such a beautiful woman! She had long blonde hair, eyes filled with mystery and wonder, and a nicely shaped body. Her spirit was so gentle, so loving, and for a long time we played together in the muddy water.

Marsha was traveling with a small commune, her “family.” As they prepared to leave the swamp, Marsha asked me to come with her. I wanted to continue being with her and started to put on my clothes. Her commune members stayed naked and insisted I should also. I hesitated. A young man came up to me and said, “Marsha likes you. Come be naked with us and you and Marsha can make love later on.”

Though I was tempted, I let them go and stayed in the swamp. I could not imagine walking naked through five hundred thousand people. I would be too embarrassed and feared I might be too offensive. The last thing I remember of Marsha was her cute little rear end waving back and forth to me as she walked away. During the festival I looked for her but never saw her again. It is easy to lose someone in a half million people….

[To be honest I wasn’t exactly totally naked in the swamp. During the Woodstock experience I wore a navy aeronautical hat/head net. It looked a bit like a Robin Hood cap and I’ve never seen anyone wear anything quite like it. In fact I was recognized twice in the months following Woodstock, when nudity became more common and prevalent.

During a march on Washington to protest the Vietnam War, several of us took our clothes off and went wading in the reflecting pool which sits between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. Hundreds of thousands of clothed people surrounded us, yet I felt quite comfortable being naked. Our presence in Washington and our nudity were political protest! Obviously, I was much more comfortable being naked in Washington than I had been at Woodstock.

While wading and playing in Washington’s reflecting pool, a naked girl approached and asked, “You were at Woodstock, weren’t you?” I secretly hoped it was the size of my penis that made me memorable, but then she explained that she recognized the hat.

One other time I was recognized as a Woodstock participant. I was attending the Philadelphia Folk Music Festival in Schwenksville. A stream ran alongside the festival grounds and several of us stripped naked and got wet. While I was sitting in the water, a naked girl came up to me and asked, “Did I see you at Woodstock?” Once again she recognized the hat.]

From the Woodstock swamp we could faintly hear the music. It was muffled but filled the air. After stopping by my camp for some food, I wandered toward the music. Between acts announcements were made, many about folks separated and lost, some asking that people get down from the speaker/light towers because they might collapse from the weight. Regular announcements were also made about bad acid, especially bad brown.

I wanted to visit the bad trip tent, especially given my own bad trip earlier in the summer. The tent itself was quite large, with several cots, and full of people. I couldn’t believe what I saw there – people screaming, crying, and vomiting. It was like a trip to hell, and yet only a few minutes walk from the peaceful, joyous swamp.

I felt great empathy and sympathy for all those tormented souls in the bad trip tent and remembered my own experiences earlier in the year:
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Written May 8, 1969 FIRST ACID TRIP

I decided to sublet my apartment for the summer and chose a hippie drug dealer to take care of my apartment, which contained all of my worldly goods. He gave me a hit of acid to seal the deal.

As the acid slowly came on, I walked down to the Philadelphia Art Museum and Fairmont Park. It was a beautiful, warm day in May and the sun felt quite wonderful. In time I met a good looking Hispanic girl who was about my age. At this point the acid was peaking nicely and I was intrigued because I was having quite an unusual reaction to her. She was no longer someone to fuck. She was no longer a “spic”. She was a being of pure light, a part of Divine Consciousness, just as I, also, was a spark of pure, divine, consciousness.

For the first time in my life, I lost all prejudices! All stereotypes dissolved into the acid. As a true Son of the South I had been thoroughly steeped in prejudices and stereotypes, and suddenly a new, radical level of consciousness emerged. I felt so liberated, so free!!!
Only the present moment dominated my consciousness. As we talked of many things, I experienced pure listening for the first time in my life. There was no judgment as I listened, no thought as to how I should respond – only pure, simple listening. Our time together was such JOY!

I am convinced that my first acid trip did allow me to glimpse a higher level of consciousness, and this glimpse proved to be life changing. The next time I saw my hippie drug dealer I gave him one hundred dollars and asked him for as many hits of acid as the money would buy.

Written June 15, 1969 THIRD ACID TRIP

My third acid trip almost destroyed me, and left me psychologically quite shattered. It began innocently enough when a friend and I dropped acid together. We smoked a lot of dope and hashish, dropped the acid, and waited for what seemed like a long time, but nothing happened.

My friend said he had some mescaline and, if the acid was a bust, why not take the mescaline. I thought that was a great idea, so we did. Now a trip on acid can be a subtle journey, and we were well along the journey when we did the mescaline. We just didn’t know it.

Unfortunately we discovered our misperceptions too late to correct them, and I distinctly remember my friend yelling, “Be my kite man! GOD, OH GOD, BE MY KITE MAN!!!” He was weeping, huddled in a fetal position in a corner of the room.

My vision was completely distorted, and it seemed like I could see only strands of light, wave particles revealing nothing solid – emptiness permeating every thing. As the mescaline hit, everything speeded up. I began to vibrate intensely; wave particles flowed quickly; I began to disintegrate, not only “I” psychologically, but also “I” physically. How could I be my friend’s kite man? There was no ground; there was no “me.” I, too, found myself on the floor, in a fetal position….

I’m not sure how long we tripped like this, each of us in a fetal position on the floor. It felt like lifetimes, though I suspect only a few hours. This was by no means a pleasant experience, rather terrifying in nature and duration, and showing no signs of abating.

Written February 12, 1970 A WEEK OF ACID

Since my first, consciousness expanding, wonderful acid trip almost a year ago, I have not been able to equal the experience, though I have dropped acid a number of times since. I decided I wasn’t dropping enough acid to break through my resistance to opening up, expanding my consciousness, so I resolved to take acid every day for a week. More frequent, more intense would be better, I hypothesized.

Unfortunately, my week-long acid trip just made me psychotic as hell!!!
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The Woodstock music continued and I decided to work my way towards the stage area. Actually I spent hours moving toward the stage. The mass of people was incredible! Most were sitting and the closer I got to the stage the more closely packed together they became. I would carefully step my way among the people, find some smoking a joint or pipe, and sit down and join them. I did this repeatedly, joining and smoking with numerous groups. I was always welcomed, always offered a hit of their drugs. I so enjoyed talking with everyone. Periodically the whole crowd would light matches and candles, which was really a beautiful sight.

Eventually, however, I became so wasted, so fractured, that I began to decompensate. The night weather was turning wet. I was surrounded by this huge mass of humanity and, in spite of my efforts to reach the stage, I was still so far away that the performers looked like small dolls. It was now quite late and rain began to fall in earnest. I began to feel quite overwhelmed by it all. Then, like a heaven sent angel, Melanie came on the stage and in a beautiful, strong, clear voice sang "Tuning my Guitar.”

Her words pulled it all together for me and I found my way back to my camp, very stoned and very happy!

Throughout Friday night at Woodstock it continued to rain and in the morning I awoke to quite a different world. Mud was everywhere!!! We had become a city where people were born and people died. To escape the rain one fellow crawled under a truck. In the morning the truck started up and ran over him. Still people continued to arrive. In desperation the State Police closed the New York freeway and released word that bubonic plague had broken out. Woodstock had become the world’s largest rock festival in the history of that recent social phenomenon!

I was glad I had made the journey to Woodstock but definitely felt wasted. I wanted out! When I spoke with a local farmer and learned of a back road out of Woodstock, I decided to leave and spend the night with Joan. She was nearby working as a camp counselor and had the night off. I escaped from Woodstock, picked up Joan, and we went to a large waterfall and settled in on soft grass overlooking the falls. There we made such sweet love. We slept the night peacefully in each other’s arms, enjoying the sounds of the large, nearby waterfall.
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In 1969 I followed Timothy Leary’s instructions: “Turn On – Tune In – Drop Out!” Well I didn’t fully drop out, but I certainly enthusiastically adopted the rest. Many years later, on January 31, 1984 in Athens, Georgia, I had an opportunity to ask Leary the following question: “Do you accept responsibility for the thousands of people, both young and old, whose personalities were shattered as a result of following your prescription to drop acid?” At first he denied that there were casualties. “There is no hard evidence that L.S.D. and similar drugs have harmed anyone. No one was injured by their drug use.” Looking him directly in the eye, I angrily interrupted, “We both know casualties from their drug use!”

Timothy Leary accepted my disagreement, saying, “Those who did have breakdowns could well have had them anyway; and besides, drinking and driving were a lot worse. When you’re taking an evolutionary leap in consciousness, there will be some casualties. Every war has casualties.… Stupid people are going to use drugs stupidly. Intelligent people are going to use them intelligently. We’re just going to have to raise the intelligence level.”

Through the years, my dream of expanded consciousness and spiritual growth through drugs evaporated. I remained hopelessly addicted to drugs until June 17, 1985, when I was initiated into the Serenity Meditation while visiting northern Thailand. My depth of meditation practice made further drug use superfluous. Millions of people consider the beginning of their meditation practice their “spiritual birthday” – a date critical to their spiritual growth. Certainly that is true for me….

For many years I tried to understand why my seventeen year addiction magically evaporated when I began my meditation practice. When I studied the clinical research on addictions, I learned of one approach to treatment which postulates that addicts are not actually addicted to their “drug of choice” but rather to alpha and theta brain waves. Their “drug of choice” allows them to move from a beta brain (active/anxious) to alpha (relaxed) and theta (creative) brain waves. In meditation brain wave patterns alter and, with practice, these changes become permanent. Drugs are no longer needed or desired.

In addition, the field of consciousness research states that all humans have an innate desire to change their states of consciousness. This fits nicely with yoga’s assumption that all humans have an innate desire to be Self- and God-realized, to awaken to permanent liberation of consciousness.

As I learned more about yoga and began to practice its teachings, I learned to listen to the inner sound, the sound of OM, of God, who is always with me, surrounding me, comforting me. I discovered that, at the deepest level of my being, I am joyously peaceful at all times. Besides the increased joy and peace meditation brought into my life, I also experienced the other fruits of spiritual growth which are energizing and vitalizing, including a more loving and compassionate heart.

Thus I discovered that my meditation and other spiritual practices not only freed me from marijuana addiction, but also eliminated all desire for alcohol. I loved the state of consciousness I was in, the peace within me, and my first priority became to protect my peace. Drugs and alcohol robbed me of my peace, and therefore had no place in my life.

Meditation facilitates spiritual growth, which was the key to my recovery from addiction. If there has been one theme in my life, it has been a deep and constant desire for a reunion with God, a desire to serve God, and a desire to enter into the Kingdom of God. Through God’s grace I have, at times, fulfilled this desire.

I was a neophyte, 27. Sitting amongst hundreds of thousands
of bodies knees to backs and backs to knees. All sorts of mind tools passing by that seemed to not end. One of my favorite bands was Canned Heat. Being a beginner and using some of the tools that passed by I was in an altered state.
Free, do your own thing, etc. was my understanding of this cultural phenom. I accepted this completely. As Canned Heat Boogied I was up and boogieing wildly also. Occasionally I would feel a slight sting on my back which I boogied thru until the end of Canned Heat. Still erect and in the absence of music I heard shouting. I turn around and a Hippie was throwing pebbles at me yelling "sit down"! I freaked out saying " peace, love, do what you want to do" and you are throwing stones. I began to climb over bodies with a broken heart at the loveless display. I finally got to the fence in front of the stag. After several steps I could not move. My feet felt like lead. I thought what did I ingest I'm paralized. Not wanting to admit to passerbys my problem for fear of being know as a beginner I struggled to walk.
After I failed to be able to walk the chose was only one I had to to ask for help. I asked a dude as he passed by I said "help me I can't move"! He siad "Hey man your stuck in mud". Peace & Love.

I didn't go to Woodstock. I had to work at a Howard Johnson's Restaurant in I-84 just over into Connecticut. The city was Danbury.

I remember waiting on many folks that nite as they were returning to their homes. They stopped by the restaurant to get their first decent meal in many days. Everyone looked worn and tired.

It wasn't until this past May (Memorial Day) thaty I actually got to Bethel Woods and walked around the site.

Just before that I finished reading the Book "Taking Woodstock" by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte. I'll see the movie when it comes out the anniversary weekend.

"It was the music that helped define my life."

James

by Rupe (stage crew)
I was always a fan and I was curious about the "happening" in '69 but I never went because at the time I was only 15 and the folks said, "bla bla bla" ..... well, you know how it is. I had a thing for the "summer of love" style music and I was "up" on all of it, including the release of the original sound track. Matter of fact I had a radio station "boot leg" of that album months before it hit the stores because I had a friend who's father was a D.J. at the NY city station WNEW.

Anyway, many years later a friend asked me why I hadn't gone to the 20th reunion at the original site. It seems that this friend had heard about the reunion, read about it in the paper, and had no idea that I wasn't paying attention. My reply was along the lines of, "well, you get busy....family, kids, job, etc, .....you lose track. I mean, after all it's been 20 years and I hadn't heard much. Of course I had been sucked into main stream society with all of its problems. That's why I hadn't been paying attention for all of those years!

Along comes the 25th reunion in '94 and it's being played up big time. I want to "check it out" but my wife is working that weekend. Sooooo..... I ask my sister instead. The whole think winds up being like a trek to the original festival except this is 1994. Most people think we are heading to Saugerties NY but we keep explaining that the "other show" is still on despite publicity of a cancellation. We start late, get bad directions, (the Saugerties bit) make wrong turns, wait in traffic for hours only to park miles away and axle deep in mud at that. (sound familiar?) I'm only about 100 miles away and it takes 7 hrs before we get to the site.

We set up camp, it rained like hell's bells, the acts keep on commin' till all hours of the night, and with each act the stage / equipment just kept getting better. As far as I can recall we saw Mountain (with Noel Redding on bass), Sha Na Na, Arlo Guthre, Melanie, Canned Heat (what's left of them), Soul Asylum, and lots of other bands. I was hooked and offered to help out with several projects back stage.

The next year ('95) my wife was still working weekends so I took my son. Once again, the bands kept rolling in and the stage kept getting better by the hour. At the time my son was about 14 and he got to see Richie Havens that year. Mind you he's not a fan of Richie's music, but after about 10 minutes he figured out why everyone likes it. (chalk one up for the older generation) The guy has energy and knows how to make the crowd crazy! This was the year that the original dates fell in the middle of the week so after 3 days of fun I found out that it was going to continue through the week into the following weekend. WOW, was I blown away! I also had a serious scheduling problem but wound up taking off early on the following Friday to make it happen again.

I drove back by myself the next weekend. This is the week that Jerry Garcia passed away and it's the only year anyone can remember there being no rain for 10 days straight during a festival. Nice of him to leave us the clear skies but I'd rather have him around. Needless to say after doing some things with the stage crew I spent a fair amount of time at the local swimming hole that weekend. Lotsa Dead Heads with candles that weekend also. Needless to say, those were two memorable weekends.

Now we are up to '96 and the controversy of having the festival at the original site rages on. The town and the police are not allowing people to gather, the site is blocked off and there is much talk about where to move things. I show up with my wife that year only to find out that nothing is happening till the following weekend and we will be at Roy & Jeryl's place. My wife can't get the next weekend off from work so I invite another long time friend.

This is where it starts to get interesting because my buddy "Elbows" (good nick name, eh) had never been to one of these reunions and for all of the same reasons I didn't get there for 20 years. We are walking around checking out the vibes as we pass a pick up truck full of 18 - 20 year old people. This is not just any truck mind you, it's about a 1966 Chevy and it has CSN&Y blasting from the factory 8-track player. (remember 8-tracks?) We both chuckle and comment on "what's wrong with this picture?" Then Elbows says, "this place is comfy, like an old broken in pair of shoes." This is also the year we work with Bill Hanley (second time for me) who did the sound at the original festival in '69. There was a lot of good talent that year but also a lot of disorganization due to this being the first time at another location.

In '97 Elbows and I head out once again but we are prepared. (or so we think) We made plans to get there early (Thursday eve) and spend lots of time setting up Bill Hanley's aging stage equipment which required more time to make repairs than anything I've ever seen before. Then we get the "bomb" dropped on us about the guy who was supposed to bring the sound equipment...... somebody dropped the ball and there wasn't anyone. In the typical Woodstock fashion we started setting up what we had and the rest just appeared out of thin air. We borrowed things from each band and rigged things as best we could. In general it was a pretty good "hat trick" and we managed to pull it off some how.

That year we had Melanie and the Buddy Miles band plus a lot of other real good talent. (hmmm, that may have been another year but it really doesn't matter) Maybe it was the year of David Marks, Riki Hendrix, & Stir Fried. At any rate this place seems to be a magnet for good music! That was also a year where the town was trying to stop the show once again but this time they didn't have any real good excuse except "you don't have the proper permits." If one stops to think about it, there have never been any permits since day one in '69.

1998 was another banner year. There was a court injunction in place to stop the show but the people came anyway. It seems that the injunction was supposed to stop any advertising but it also stopped the word of cancellation from getting out as well. People came in droves and many sported the slogan "we're not here" just in case someone in authority should ask. We didn't have too much to do in the way of setting up stage equipment because we just let it happen and people set up stages all over the place.

Last but not least, comes 1999 and a new stage location at Max Yasgur's barn. This is something new for everyone involved because we now have a "back stage" area and for the first time we have real electricity without using generators. Another thing going for us this year is the fact that we now have a pretty solid core of staff volunteers who have been working the event for several years. Each year it seems that we could still use more help in almost all areas but it is getting better slowly. Along the same lines, things are starting to get more organized because most of us have this past experience to draw on.

This year brings us Melanie & family, plus Country Joe as a solo artist. The rest of the bands were great also!

In closing up my thoughts, this is the first year I took the time and stayed through Monday. I spent some time with the new & old friends I have met at this special place through out the day and in between various projects, cleaning up etc. Around 9pm I was pretty tired but it still took almost 3 hrs to say good bye to those that were there. Once you've spent time here you can't be in a hurry to leave. I finally hit the road around midnight on Monday night. There were still several hundred people milling around and there was still a band playing in the middle of the field over 24 hours after the last scheduled act was supposed to be done.

Some things never change, but that's ok with me.

I was twenty years old and a seminary student in the summer of 1969. I was a loner, a peripheral man on the fringes of both the counterculture and society at large.

It was a turbulent time in America with wars raging on both the foreign and domestic fronts. Our leaders were being assassinated, civil unrest, discrimination and the questioning of all authority, The institutions of this country were being rocked to their very foundations. In this environment the counterculture took on added appeal.

My favorite group was "The Doors". I had a record player that played single records. The only record I owned was "Riders on The Storm" which I played over and over. The great music of the day acknowledged our underlying feelings of alienation and angst.

The Hippie movement was more than bell bottom pants and long hair. It was a state of mind. A world view. A philosophy and lifestyle. It was so pervasive that it crept into, and finally overran the mainstream culture. We were all part of it to some degree. We shared common values such as basic human rights for all people, the sanctity of life, the desire for truth and a better world, the need for change, a distrust of those in power.

Civil unrest was the first wave of change to sweep the country. Demonstrations quickly turned violent. Hatred and division ran rampant. Then came women rights and the counterrevolution. The "hard hats" (Middle America) and government were terrified and struck back. Black people were beaten and hosed in the streets. Mayor Daley's police at the 68 Democratic Convention savagely beat student protesters. Our fellow young men were being brought home from Viet Nam in body bags by the thousands. Daily bombings of Vietnam and Cambodia. Assassinations of Presidents and Civil Rights leaders, all of the above brought to us in living color each night on the 6 o'clock news.

The drug scene was a way out (not a real good one) of the day to day oblivion and despair many of us felt. I began riding motorcycles, studying philosophy, visiting a friend in the town of Woodstock regularly, riding the subways of Manhattan alone late at night and spending time in Greenwich Village.

When I attended the Woodstock Festival in 1969, I was barely twenty years old. I followed a carload of people from Tarrytown N.Y. My motorcycle had ape hanger handlebars and a sissybar to which was tied a very large duffel bag. Inside the car was a girl that sort of intrigued me.

A week prior I had my motorcycle against the curb on Beekman Avenue in Tarrytown in August of 69 when a pretty girl pulled up in a new Mustang. She noticed me admiring her car and asked me if I wanted a ride. I said yes if I could keep my helmet on because I didn't trust female drivers. She invited me to follow her and her girlfriend up to Woodstock the following week. I met her and her girlfriend and two guys at the foot of the Tappan Zee Bridge that Friday, and we headed up the New York Thruway. I could hardly keep up as the car speed along at an icredible rate. I wondered if they were actually trying to lose me.
When we got within 15 miles the traffic began to back up. The girl jumped out of the car wearing only jeans, a top, and no shoes. She had me throw my gear in the trunk of the car and we rode along the edge of the highway into the festival site and waited for the car to catch up. It never did. All the cars came to a stop. Some were overheating and stopped running. Streams of people were just abandoning their cars on the roadway. We soon realized we would not connect with her friends.
I turned to her and asked if she had any money? She had $60, which was a fortune in 1969! I told her that the rules of he road dictated I watch out for her until we found her friends but she would have to split the dough. She agreed, and jumped back on the bike and we got a bottle of Boones Farm wine and rode into the Festival. She was barely seventeen. So there I stood on the edge of the grassy oval looking down upon the stage, with this pretty girl with long hair, a bottle of wine, my bike, surrounded by 400,000 unsupervised soul mates. I looked up to haeaven and said "It just doesn't get any better! Thank you God!"

Then we turned right as a tractor drove along to clear a portion of ground. I watched in horror as the tractor ran over what first appeared to be a mound of earth, as a human arm flung out. It became evident that a person had been inside a mummy sleeping bag and had been run over. I ran to the trailers and banged on a door until the doctor came out. I told him he had to come and help because someone had been run over! "What do you want me to DO!" he said, explaining that thousands of people were overdosing, having babies etc. "Are you kidding?" I said "I'll knock you out, damn it!" "

"I will call a medi-vac unit", he said. The helicopter flew in and removed the young man already dead. It was like a replay of the 6 o'clock news. Then the rain came. A hundred years of cow manure came to the surface. We were cold and wet and found refuge in other people's tents was we slept briefly an hour at a time. We sloshed around together in ankle deep mud the entire weekend, listening to the music and taking in the scene. My friend stepped on glass and cut her foot. She got help in on of the medical tents. In between the music played and everyone got along- no assaults or murders. People loving each other. Saturday night Sly and The Family Stone came on stage and sung "Gotta Get Higher" and 500,000 young people working out to the beat on car rooftops, shouted the lyrics at the top of their lungs. This was the magical moment for me, which galvanized a generation in the mud together. The Woodstock nation was born with that performance!

By Sunday I was sick and thought I had pneumonia. So I decided not to wait for Hendrix and took my friend home. Riding down the Thruway in torrential rain I had a premonition of a crash. Just then the memory of my roommate from the seminary, entered my mind to remind me he worked in a camp somewhere in the Catskills. I turned off the road and stopped at a store and asked if they ever heard of St. Vincent's camp. It was just down the road! I pulled in to the camp with a full beard and leather jacket, a big knife strapped to my waist on my black bike. The young girl on the back was literally in tatters. The old Irish Catholic nun at the gate was mortified when I told her I was seminarian. My roommate identified me and was let in. I collapsed under ten covers in a big log bed while news reports about the disaster area we had just come from, blared over the TV.

The next day it was sunny and clear as I drove down the NY Thruway. I dropped my new friend of on a corner in Tarrytown. Tears welled up in her eyes as I explained I was headed back to the seminary. I was the oldest of eight children from an Italian family and I was the "designated priest". She asked me to see her once more the day before I left for school a few days later and handed me a beautiful St Christopher's medal she had engraved. It read "Love Always Maria,
Aust 28, 1969" on the reverse side.

Once back at school in my vestments, I opened my prayer books and the picture of that sweet girl with tears in her eyes would appear. I put up with it for three months before I cranked up the bike and rode back over the Throggs Neck Bridge to tell her I just maybe I might be able to see her, once in a while. June 28 was our 39th wedding anniversary!

There was no police harassment at Woodstock that I observed. Just the opposite. They left everyone alone and were friendly.

I felt a camaraderie with the downtrodden and oppressed. I was poor, strong willed, and a fiercely independent thinker. I was a philosopher and an existentialist. When I ultimately decided to leave the seminary (I had studied since age 13 for the priesthood) I underwent a religious and moral crisis. It was a time of deep emotion and psychological soul searching for me.

I think a lot of us became disillusioned back then just after Woodstock, with Altamont and Kent State. We all went on with our lives and buried our ideals. We became jaded and cynical. We pursued wealth and power. We ultimately matured (how horrible!). But there is a reawakening, a resurgence beginning to sweep the country, I feel. A lot of us including myself are beginning to look back to those times and question the paths we have taken. We are trying to recapture the magic and the light we left behind.

The experiences of the past were both liberating and debilitating. Many of us who experimented with mind altering substances for instance, may have actually changed who we were, the very makeup of our own brains and personalities. There is something sad in that I think. Maybe that explains the comical situation I put myself in at the twenty-fifth reunion at Woodstock in Bethel were I walked around at night telling young people smoking pot that "you really shouldn't be doing that". Being a parent now myself; I wished I had taken it a little easier on my own parents.

To borrow a phrase, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." To be fair I have enjoyed the fruits of my labors to some extent in my adult life. I bought my first house at age 25, and drove fancy cars most of my life, but I never became a slave to money. I did become a slave to the retail business, however. A workaholic, putting in 12 hour days for thirty plus years. I took few too many vacations, and smelled few too many flowers. Yet for what purpose ? - I now as others ask myself.

Christopher Cole

I was driven down a road from which i would never return the same. I grew up on 60's and 70's music even though I was born in 1974. This music resonated through me like never before...I still have much of it on vinyl to this day. But on this bright sunny day I never thought I could feel the vibe and the soul to a place and had a flashback. I closed my eyes to open standing in middle of the playing fields and i'm feeling the vibes of love and peace and the best music of all time. I had travelled many times to the catskills and never knew of this music holy ground that I passed without knowledge. A quick right off of interstate 17 and I was living musical history and in awe of the greatness of the event that was here and I just sat in amazement. I ever since thought this land should be protected as a historical landmark. A few years ago heard about the sale of the property and it felt like that historical landmark was being sold off for some new resort and it hurt down to the bones knowing that my kids when they grow up would not get to see this great place and get to soak it all in. This event changed history and subcultures and just the way people look at the world. This place had to be protected just as any landmark that contributed to american history as any other building, but with a greater and much larger effect not only on the usa but on music worldwide...These Titans of Music...and their 500,000 fans came to listen , love and change the world. Never would another event ever come close to what this place which many consider a holy ground of music and music history ever exsist in any other place. I came and saw and left and thought still in awe and I remain that way till this day because woodstock 69 was a innocent and magical time...can never be recreated and must never be forgotten...we the people showed we could co exsist in peace love and harmony and in some intense numbers. God Bless those there before me and those there after me as I felt honored to be able to be there and breathe in the history and close my eyes and take me back to what I think was a better time in american history when there was more love than hate, when no lines or fences divided us, when we all stood side by side but together as one, the others since then have been a disgrace to the historical 1969 Woodstock, hopefully the next show will prove that the love and peace and music can be enough for those enlightened enough to respect the festivals anniversary and history of what woodstock was really about in 1969. I would love to be part of this historical music event just out of the love of music and especially now peace and love for it is something that or world lacks in currently and is in need of a desperate infusion of love and peace and music to bring it all together.

When woodstock happened back in '69, I wasn*t even a twinkle in my parents' eyes. As I grew up, I heard their amazing stories of their experience (yes, they were part of the historic event) and I was always in complete awe by the time the story finished. They would tell me about the people they met, one couple came from California and they spent the days together, drinking and taking LSD (which they neglected to tell me until I was in my teens). They would laugh and talk for hours about Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and all of the other greats whose music I*ve grown to love and respect. Sadly, my parents passed away in spring of 2008 and those stories I once adored and begged to hear, went with them. Even now as I struggle to piece together pieces of what the stories held, it doesn*t have the same affect on me as it once did.

The other day, as I was driving home with my boyfriend, we heard something about Woodstock 2009 on the radio. We both instantly shut up to hear what it was about and where it would be held. I got chills..I thought wow, finally it*s my chance to experience even a sliver of what my parents got to experience back in '69. I knew at that very moment that we had to be there. Although my parents and I didn*t always see eye to eye, whenever they would take the time to share their memories with me, I would sit and listen intently for hours. To me, losing my parents has been very tragic and the past year has definitely took it*s toll on me. But despite all of that, I am bound and determined to make it to Woodstock '09 and have the trip of a lifetime. To me, it*s one more thing we can connect on, even if they aren*t here to witness it with me.

I came to Woodstock to Die in 1969 - an angel saved my life....

I knew it would happen. It's 3:am in the morning and I can't sleep. I'm thinking about the trip I made back to Bethel NY in June 2009, to the site of the original Woodstock Festival. I had arrived here once before in 1969, now 40 years later I embraced the same woman then a girl who had saved my life. I had arrived upon the shores of White Lake way back then, on an old junker motorcycle, a suicide machine as battered and beat up as my own mind and body. The fact that either the bike or myself made the hundred-mile trip the first time was quite remarkable in itself.

I was a broken young man. One who set out to save the world only to become overcome by the waves of evil and despair which pervaded the reality I found myself in, in 1960's America. I was deaf to the phrase "I love you" from those that mattered most, I was dumb to the ways of the world as I emerged from an autistic mind set, and blinded to any possibility of overcoming the deep feelings of angst and alienation which weighed down heavily upon me. It was upon that very bike, stoned and unable to see clearly through darkened sun- glasses I hurled myself at incredible speeds towards wooden telephone poles at night on the winding road that ran through my mind and where I actually travelled in the real world. Knowing that a centimeter closer and it would be all over.

I was a seminarian who had faltered, ill equipped to battle the existential windmills of grief placed before me. I carried the hopes and aspirations of my monsignor, my parish, and the small Village of Irvington NY upon my shoulders: and I was losing the battle. Unable to fathom the chaos before me (civil unrest, assassinations, war) I drugged and drank myself into oblivion falling backwards into locked church doors-ways in the middle of the night.

And as I look at this picture I am brought to tears. There in front of me stands a woman, now a grandmother. Behind her looms the Bethel Woods Museum, on the very spot we spent three days in the mud together. She is checking in on the grandkids - our grandkids! The irony is quite profound.

Stuck in traffic on my bike off 17b in August of 1969 a young seventeen girl opened the door and exited the car in front of me. As she walked shoeless toward me, her waist-long hair blowing gently in the breeze little did I know my life would be changed forever? She asked if I would take her down the side of the road on my bike, to wait for the traffic to clear. I agreed and rode toward the festival site with a shoeless Maria. We waited for hours, the car never made it. After several attempts to locate the car, we embraced each other, and rode together into the concert. The rest is history.

Christopher Cole

It was June of 1969 and the status quo of the USA was in transformation. Our standing as a member of the world community was questionable and the youth of America were morphing society into a revolutionary drug and music inspired frenzy. I was 16 and recently displaced from my home and friends in Kansas City, living in a hotel in New York City while waiting for our new home in New Jersey to be built and looking for a place to comfortably rest my new mind set. I had become, as my younger brother has recently told me, "a different person". I was totally ready for something new and the summer of love was frustrating me. I was encouraged to spend time with my cousin who was my age and had a day of hysterics. I met with him and we cruised through his neighborhood in Queens with a car load of girls. He spotted a police car a few blocks away that also saw him, and we took off. One of the girls popped open the glove box and took out a gun. I was naive and innocent and had no clue what was coming. We found our way to someone's home and I watched tv with a couple of the girls while something was going on in the kitchen. They called me in and I had my first and only exposure to heroin being administered through syringes. I saw, I watched, I left. A few weeks later my brother and I were going to a concert up near White Lake where an uncle lived and we had gone on vacations in the summer. I remembered the lake, jumping in off the dock and swimming with my brothers and Dad. I had no idea what we were in for. The Who, The Buckinghams (Kind of a Drag), and the Byrds, had played at Shawnee Mission South HS, my school before relocation, and I had seen Jefferson Airplane and James Brown in downtown Kansas City too. I wasn't really into the music as my older brother Stewart, had always been in bands, and I was the 'athlete' and thought it was cool, but not so special. When we talked about getting me out of my home 'the Sheraton at Laguardia Airport', a dream location for a 16 year old heading for his senior year in high school, NOT, by heading up near White Lake for a big concert called Woodstock, I was in. My brother, my cousin (gun and heroin boy), and I drove my Mom's 67 Mustang upstate. I remember my cousin giving us a bag of pills that we hid in the passenger side air vent. It turns out that they were qualudes (714), and my entreprunurial cousin was all business. I remember the traffic and walking a long, long way ahead up the highway to see what was holding us up. I walked seemingly forever and each time I got to the peak of the hill in front of me, I saw the same thing......hundreds of cars in traffic lining the road up the next peak. I recall the rain, the shops, the hippies, Richie Havens, the mud, the crowd and again, the rain. My brother recently informed me that we didn't stay long and that we took a girl that was with my cousin to the hospital after having a problem with heroin. I didn't participate in our new drug culture at this time at any level but truly have little memory of details of that weekend. I still have the original poster framed and on my living room wall and am proud to have been a participant of this incredible historic landmark in American history. When Life Magazine published a special Woodstock edition (which I still have an original copy of), my Mom was quick to find a picture of me as I walked the road looking for our final destination. In the years afterwards I became a 'hippie' and entered and enjoyed the peace, love, music and drug culture. Not long ago, my Mom and I were discussing something and the word hippie came up. She looked at me and said "you were never a hippie, they're lazy and dirty people". I was surprised and told her that it was more a state of mind where everyone was your neighbor and you felt good will towards everyone and wanted to live in a world of peace and that I am and will always be that guy. Twenty nine years later, I found myself a single Dad raising my 14 year old daughter and 11 year old son and it was unanimous that we were headed for Griffith Air Force Base in Rome, New York to Woodstock 99!
We had just visited my parents in their house in the Poconos, and were traveling north to Woodstock. We passed a truck with wierd graphics and along with them on the side were the words Insane Clown Posse. We didn't know who they were but in the next couple of days we'd find out. There was a lot of traffic and we were stopped miles from our destination. I left the van and went for a walk and remember coming upon a car where the girl driving had a unique rolling system and I brought my daughter over to see how cool it was. I've always told my kids that I thought that marijuana should be legal for multiple reasons and that they should wait until they completed high school so that they learned the basics before they messed with their minds. We parked our cross country (another story) conversion van and headed through security. We set up our tent not far from the entrance and began exploring the site. It was awesome. There were multiple stages, an incredible lineup, and a great forecast. We watched some of the earlier playing, local bands and then ate, drank, and walked around looking at all of the people and experienced the awesome atmosphere. There were food and craft vendors and artists and a great feeling of comraderie. We slept in our two room tent and got up and explored. I pointed out a very cool blouse to my kids and they laughed and pointed out that she was topless with painted tatoos and that they'd seen many of them and I hadn't noticed. One night, we watched artists paint one woman after another with incredible and beautiful designs. We entered the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a trailer set up to listen to the life story and musical innovations of the Master and my son was awed by the music. We listened to music through the days and into the nights. The entire experience was new and unique, stimulating and entertaining. I heard new groups with new sounds. I heard and enjoyed Offspring and many other bands for the first time. We met a girl with 22 piercings and saw odd hair and clothes styles. It was Woodstock all over again. I felt the same awe and pleasure. The entire experience worked until the last night. There was a problem with the garbage collectors. There were trash barrels everywhere and they were not only full and overflowing, but a circular pattern spreading about up to twenty feet surrounded them all. Pizza boxes were everywhere and on the last night it started drizzling and getting colder. We were sitting in a field enjoying the Chili Peppers when a couple of guys put a few pizza boxes in a pile and lit them on fire. We moved closer to the fire as more fuel was added to the fire and warmed ourselves. Others saw the fire and started their own. Unfortunately, the ignorant ones showed themselves and decided to throw a portapotty onto one of the fires. Someone came out from backstage and announced that the music was now over and the kids and I went back to our tent and went to sleep. In the morning, we heard that there was quite a bit of insanity through the nights and it was apparent as tents, sleeping bags and other items were up in the trees everywhere. Trailers had been broken into and things were both stolen and damaged. We left that next morning and saw what viewers at home saw, and knew that they didn't understand or appreciate the true Woodstock experience that I have now been fortunate enough to experience twice, once with my brother and once with my kids. A few years later I sat next to the promoter of Woodstock 99, Michael Lang, at the Brian Wilson tribute concert at Radio City Music Hall. I congratulated him on a job well done and expressed my hope that there would be a Woodstock 2009. If they build it, I will come. My brother has already said that he wants to travel with me if the concert is to happen so now it's time for the tickets. I hope this year's event is well received and that the true Woodstock spirit that so many of us have been fortunate enough to experience will live on forever.

At the time I was living in New Jersey when I found out about the festival. A group of my friends and I finally were able to get tickets. There were seven of us all together. Our only means of transportation was one of my friend's VW bug. When the day come for us to leave, we made sandwiches and all piled into the tiny car. The ride from Park Ridge, NJ was not all that long however stuffed into that tiny car it felt like forever. About a half hour after we finally got on the road, one of the girls made us turn around because she left her tickets at home. So we went back, got her tickets and everyone else checked to make sure we all had ours. The ride was exciting, at first. When everyone finally settled down, it seemed that every few minutes we had to stop for someone's bathroom break. The whole ride was everyone complaining about someone's knees or elbows.
We finally get to the NY State border and it seemed that the rest of the way was going to be an easy drive. Boy, where we wrong! Eventually, we hit some heavy traffic. At first we thought that it was probably an accident or construction and would clear up soon. Wrong again! After what seemed like endless hours we decided to pull over somewhere and walk. We figured that we were close. We walked and walked and walked and walked. Every now and then one of us needed to stop and rest. By the time we finally got to the festival site, It was already the morning of the second day. To our surprize, no one was taking our tickets. It was free. The rest of the concert was fantastic. We had a great time, and forgot about our sore feet and hunger. Everyone there was fantastic. A lot of people shared their food with us among other things. When it was over, to our surprize, the car was still where we left it and undamaged. When I got home, all I could talk about for months on end was the great time we had at the festival.
A few months after we got home a couple of us got our draft notices. Even though I had to serve in the Army and got shipped overseas, I never forgot the time I saw some of the greatest musicians and the friendliest people I've ever met. After I was discharged from the Army, I joined the "Establishment" and became a police officer. A few cops on the job had also gone to Woodstock and we shared our experiences. To this day, I will never forget the great couple of days I spent with about 500,000 of my friends.
I am now retired from the force and a grandfather. I have a 20 year old son who still lives with me and is always asking what it was like in those days. Woodstock 2009 at the same site as Woodstock 69 would be fantastic for both of us. Just to share that experience with him takes me back to my memory of the theme of peace and love.

Moose Jaw, SK is a small city in Saskatchewan, Canada and a 3 day drive away from where the 1994 Woodstock celebration was held. And at the age of 19 I would have done anything to get there and that is what I did. With barely any money I had to find a way! So to finance the dream of my life I pawned off my second car! Cash in hand and I was off! We drove straight for the first 24 hours and finally after the windows were apparently not dirty and our eyes were just fuzzy we pulled over for a sleep. It took another day to get there and when we did I could not have have asked for anything more!

Parked the car, got on the bus and we were almost there! The anticipation was overwhelming. I was one of those kids who would tell her mother that I should have been her so that I would have been old enough (born) so I could go to Woodstock.

We set camp up and we were off to experience the mud and the music. We walked over a small bridge where a man was selling some illegal pieces of paper...so when in Rome we bought some! It was only 5 minutes later that I crap you not they announced over the speaker system to watch what you were putting in your mouth. I can only say the good thing was that we were heading to our tent to pick something up because within 20 minutes I was unconcious and could not move. I could hear Metallica playing, i could hear fireworks, i could hear the people around me but my eyes would not open and my body would not move. It was as though I had left this world. What I would not give for that night back at Woodstock!

The following day we awoke and headed down to the stage where another dream came to reality and Crosby, Stills, and Nash were on stage and I was only 5 meters away from them. I cried, I sang, danced, and yes even joined the "mosh pit". As my friend put me on his shoulders so I could take a panaromic picture of the stage I once again thanked my inner gypsy for leading me to the place of love and peace.

Woodstock is a part of me. I was not even born yet though everything I am is from the gifts my Mother gave me. She was a "true flower child" and in 1969 she was 17 defining herself in this world. She bestowed the gift of LOVE on me, a love for humanity, a love for life, a love for freedom and most a love for MUSIC. As I grew up she would sing to me Melanie songs. She exposed me to music from around the world but we always fell back to the comfort of Folk Music and the Fabulous music of the 60's and 70's. She took me to festivals growing up and I still go to music festivals today with my children. My Mother passed away in August of 2007, the night before she was at the Philadelphia Folk Festival despite being on oxygen and in a electric wheel chair. She got to be at her beloved Music Festival one more time before she died the next day in her sleep from heart failure. Whenever I hear music from that era and whenever I am in a festival enviroment I feel her with me. What a treat it would be to be there at Woodstock 2009... 40 years after my Mother found herself! I would be honored to sing along with Melanie in the crowd. Getting goosebumps just thinking of it!

in 1969 I came to this country from colombia south america and the first place I went was woodstock in august I met my first american girlfriend by the lake on my second day in woodstock, and I became a new hippie I had at lot fun I was reborned on that day, I really became in american on that day I got to know and could not understand why we were figthing in vietnam a land that has noting to do with this part of the world. woodstock to me was the stop to this war in vietnam. this was a war that belong to them and not to us. Woodstock was the begining of my new life I learned at lot in those 3 days, too bad it would never happen againg like those were the days to me this era was the best part of the American history.

Even though I wear a suit and work for a corporation - Woodstock Nation has lasted all these years and carried me throughout.

At 19 years old, I begged my mom to lend me her new station wagon and two buddies and I jumped onto the NY Thruway from Boston loaded with beer, food and sleeping bags. We had no idea what was ahead but we were filled with excitement and curiosity. The highway was so packed with cars that we pulled off the road and went into a sleepy bar. Three "old" farmers took our map and drew a path through the corn fields - and off we went. New car and all - we drove through the corn fields.... after a few hours - there is was...we came out at the stage!

Three days of peace, fun, music, FREEDOM, swimming in the lake, enduring the rain, mud, trading the beer for food. It was incredible and indelible in my memory.

All that Woodstock means - has been lasting for me in my actions, reactions, reading and political viewpoint about the world in which we live since 1969. To memorialize this time -- and this is ironic -- I am captured in a prominent place on the Woodstock Album cover.
Woodstock Nation Forever.

Woodstock by Javier Campost
(translated from English by Nick W. Hill)

I wasn’t at Woodstock in August 1969
among these peaceful green hills
a summer day about this same time
when it rained three days straight and all that wet
didn’t rust the electric guitars
or short out the microphones
or drown the singing and the speeches
that blared out of gigantic speakers
rooted on stage like dark trees

There weren’t any lightning bolts to reduce into ashes
the hundreds of performers
who made the most deafening noise
ever heard
for miles around these pastures
where for decades all you could hear
were the cows’ moo
the horses’ whinny
the tractors’ whine
or the corn
spill out of the big metal silos
erected toward the Universe
as monumental phallic symbols
(No one worried either what might have been going
through the minds of the tight-lipped farmers,
the same ones Walt Whitman described in
Leaves of Grass,
when they saw a half a million people descend
on these hills
where nobody knew about sounds or songs that didn’t
come from Nature herself)

During those three days there were thunderstorms
and the horses of the Apocalypse were visible in the sky
and down below, the sea of humanity moved like Noah’s Ark
in front of the monumental stage
lashed by the tempest

The steam from young bodies
rose like a torch in the rain
thousands of blonde men and women, all danced
as in a dream:
Blacks from Harlem, Chicanos from the San Joaquin Valley,
or poor Puerto Ricans from New Jersey
Embraced young Indians drinking
cans of beer
or hugged prophets, gurus, bums, psychics,
street musicians
and acrobats

The fragrance of marijuana wafted
to and fro on the wind
hash and peyote also went up into the sky
in a spiral of holy smoke
watched by thousands of eyeballs in flames

Rain fell like cataracts
in the fields of grass and dirt
and made artificial lakes
where everybody splashed naked
let their beautiful bodies
sink in slow motion
and baptized themselves with water from the sky
as if they were humble prophets
from distant civilizations
hidden under the earth forevermore

They embraced transparent
from a mysterious inner light
they went in and out of those artificial lakes
with purified hearts
cleansing the filth from their souls
they believed they were touching the mere origin of the Universe
they made love on the muddy grass
and no one asked
anybody anything
nobody pointed at them either
nobody called the police who watched from a distance
in their black and white squad cars, with flashing lights
twirling
like whips of fire.


(No one in that multitude ever knew
the National Guard
had a hundred helicopters
waiting behind the hills
to bombard them with tear gas
and transform that promised land
into a Holocaust)

But they all knew
Paradise there

The bands kept coming up on stage
and the performers
dueled with the thunder and lightning
as if they were the very bombs
that at that same hour

were
falling

incessantly
on
Vietnam

***
It’s the same place today
and it’s raining like it did in August ‘69
only a stone and metal marker remains
to recall the bedazzlement that held a whole generation
for three days

Fresh flowers are always there
and someone never fails to leave a little bag of marijuana:
that grass was their only native weapon
and those sacred leaves
the only ones

where stoned they saw the origins of the future.

(Translated from Spanish by Nick W.Hill)

Javier Campos

I was born in 1950 and I can tell you, the late 60's was a time like no other. I had just graduated from high school and it seemed everything in the world was revolving around music... so there was no way I was going to miss Woodstock. My sister said she'd pay for my tickets if I gave her and her girlfriend a ride. The three of us left Suffolk County, Long Island, Friday night about midnight. All the radio stations were saying the New York State Thruway was closed because people just parked their cars and started to walk to get to the concert site, but I wasn't planning on walking. We took the last Thruway exit before the Woodstock one and drove west. At one point we came to a northbound road that had police "DO NOT CROSS" signs across it. I moved the signs out of the way and off we went. After a bit we came to a road COMPLETELY filled with people heading west. It was starting to get light out, so we parked. I told my sister and her friend to meet back at the car after the concert was over, and the three of us joined the moving mob of happy faces. I wormed myself down to the right side just in front of the stage.

As far as the concert went, it was truly a religious experience. One breathtaking performance after another. I wasn't into the Who before Woodstock but they were ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. When Sly and the Family Stone came on stage it was like a spaceship landed. There should be a movie of just their set. In fact there should be individual movies of everyone's set. I stayed until the end. Jimi Hendrix. Probably only three hundred people left.

A few weeks later my picture was on the inside cover of the Life Woodstock Special Issue. http://tinyurl.com/lrkmup I'm the third head above the 5 in 445. Twenty years later that same picture was on the cover of the Life Woodstock Twentieth Anniversary issue. In 1999 I went to Woodstock Bethel and met Elliot Landy, the photographer who took the picture. I bought his book Woodstock Vision: The spirit of a generation, and got his autograph.

The real punchline to my Woodstock '69 story is, at the end of the concert the only one waiting at my car was my sister. Her friend never showed up. And I never have seen her since.

See you at Woodstock '09, Dan Sullivan

Attended the first in 1969. Flew back home to New Hampshire from a summer of bumming around Alaska, and hitched down to Bethel for music and magic under the sun, moon, stars and ... rain. A seminal experience.

One of the most indelible memories now etched in my mind, is turning to leave the Woodstock festival -- after Jimi's incredible closing set… and mind-blowing rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" -- looking back down the hill at the emptying stage, sparse and dwindling crowd, and remnants of belongings on the mud, trampled ground. Magical. Will always be with me.

Peace, love, and unity…

My best friend and I decided to go to Woodstock '94 but we were only 17 (a month away from 18) and both didn't have cars. I got the bright idea that we should hitch hike there (from Lancaster, PA). So we got a poster board and wrote "Woodstock or Bust", trekked over to the highway and hoped for the best. It didn't take long until a guy named Doug picked us up in his little blue car and dropped us off in Valley Forge.

Our next ride was a guy named Pat who took us a few miles down 76 to right outside NJ. From there we met fellow hitch hikers Bill and Cowboy who were also on their way to Woodstock.

Cowboy had been hitch hiking for 14 days from California. He had tons of stories which was awesome.

We met up with a group of guys in a truck who were also going to Woodstock so we all piled in the back and started back down the interstate. Apparently you are not supposed to have people in the back of a pickup truck while you are flying down the highway. This was knowledge that I did not possess at 17. So we got pulled over and the cop told us to stay of the highway. But we were determined to get there so we all piled back in and ignored the cop.

It was about 4 am by the time we got near the site. Unfortunately we had to park the truck a few miles away so we walked the rest of the way.

We had no tent, $13 and no clothes with us. It wasn't a well thought out plan at all. But we met up with some people who got us in.

The first day was crazy. Due to lack of funds...we had lack of liquids. At some point after Crosby, Stills & Nash played I fainted. Some people apparently carried me to the Red Cross tent where they found out that I was dehydrated and hooked me up to an IV. (thanks whoever you guys were!!!)

When I woke up the sun had set. I headed over to the stage to see Nine Inch Nails and met this guy.

His name was Dave and he was working there as a roadie.

There was a woman bothering him so he said to me, "Could you pretend that you know me so this chick will leave me alone"?

I said, "If I know you then can I bum a smoke"?

We joked around for awhile and I told him that I had come to see Aerosmith play.

Dave offered to take me backstage so I went with him.

We sat there under a tree and told each other our life stories.

It was time for Aerosmith to start and I was having so much fun with him I decided that I would rather stay with him.

As we stood under that tree the rain started to fall and he kissed me.

I didn't go back to my friend that night. I ran off to Dave's tent with him.

That was the beginning...

After the festival ended, Dave and I stayed there to clean up the grounds with his crew. It was about 2 weeks after that when I started to feel sick to my stomach. I decided to buy a pregnancy test just to make sure I wasn't pregnant.

I was.

Mika was born May 11th, 1994 almost exactly 9 months after Dave and I met.

Dave and I aren't still together. He died 6 months after Mika was born. Although the story sounds like it doesn't have a happy ending...it really does.

Mika and I have traveled around the country and she knows where she was conceived. We are the best of friends...who argue A LOT because in the end we're Mom and Kid.

She just turned 14 and she is AWESOME.

Dave would have been proud of how she turned out.

I know I am.

This Fall I am going to take her up to Saugerties so she can see where we met. Since Dave died I haven't been back...although I've wanted to. Sometimes I think that I might catch a glimpse of him walking across that field. Deep down I know I won't but lucky for me I see him everyday in Mika's eyes :)

Woodstock Times
©Emerson Dean Brooking, Ph.D.

I heard about a music festival that was being held over the weekend in New York. As I had a couple of days before school began, I decided to go.
I felt a bit like a speeding bullet as I dove along at sixty-five miles per hour on my little 100 cc, twin cylinder, Yamaha. Strapped behind me was an army-navy bag, almost dragging on the pavement. As I got closer to Woodstock, the traffic became heavier and heavier. Eventually cars were just left along the road and people began walking.
Using my motorcycle clutch, I continued on at a walking pace. As the clutch cable stretched, I adjusted it and continued on until eventually there was no adjustment left. I pondered what to do. Amazingly, I spied a motorcycle shop just ahead of me. I bought another cable, installed it, and kept going.
The crowds were enormous and I began to worry that I might not be allowed into the festival, so I stopped and paid seven dollars for a ticket to the Friday, August 15th performance. It turned out, of course, that I did not need the ticket as the crowds quickly overwhelmed any attempts to impose such structure on the festival.
While purchasing my ticket, I asked the clerk if there was a good place to swim. She told me there was a swamp there, but it was muddy and full of snakes and she certainly wouldn’t recommend swimming there. (Later I was told that a hose was placed out in the swamp and the swamp became the Woodstock water source. I know it became a very popular swimming hole.)
The stage at Woodstock was at the lower end of a hill, which formed a natural amphitheater. Looking at the stage, the swamp was to the left. I motorcycled to a point above the swamp, almost within sight of the stage, and camped by a fence line and small tree. Snapping two army ponchos together to form a tent, I attached it the best I could to the tree and fence line. Actually, it wasn’t easy to make a tent out of two army ponchos – I had to really concentrate.
The Woodstock music began around 5:00 p.m. with Ritchie Havens and during his performance I finished setting up camp. Just as I finished, a U-Haul truck drove up beside me. Out came a motorcycle gang and all of their large motorcycles. It dawned on me that I might be robbed, injured, or even killed. Just to be on the safe side, I dug a hole and buried one-half of all the money I had with me – twenty dollars.
Unfortunately, I got so fractured at Woodstock that I left my buried twenty dollar bill. I fantasize that I planted a twenty dollar money tree, which is still bearing fruit to this day.
I wandered on down to the swamp and there saw an amazing sight – hundreds of naked people. I sat down at the edge of the water and just watched this tranquil, peaceful scene.
Two girls my age appeared by the water in front of me. One said, “Let’s go swimming.” They proceeded to take off all their clothes and walk into the water. I’m sure my mouth dropped open. I was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee and we just didn’t do those things where I grew up! Without hesitation, I stripped off all my clothes and followed them.

If I had done any drugs back home my parents would have immediately sought Tennessee addiction recovery solutions to help me out.

I spent several hours in and around the swamp and met some really nice folks, many sharing their drugs with me. I saw things I had never seen before, such as using needles to inject drugs. Sometimes males and females would openly kiss and fondle each other, with an occasional pair engaging in sexual intercourse.
In time I learned that being naked added to our intimacy; without clothes we were more open, less guarded. The walls around our hearts lowered. I discovered that nakedness really wasn’t that sexy; nakedness really didn’t turn me on.
Every once in a while I’d meet a woman wearing a bathing suit. I found it was the bathing suit, the mystery, which was sexy. Naked bodies were just interesting to look at, as they were all so different.
I felt free being nude, so natural, so honest, and so comfortable. This was a life changing moment for me. From that point to this day I have preferred nudity to clothes.
[Admittedly, I don’t have a great looking body to exhibit, as I have always been overweight. This was pointed out to me quite bluntly by a nudist I once met at a nude beach on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. “Emerson, you’re very comfortable with your body, which surprises me considering how you look.” As I looked around the Ocracoke beach, I understood what he meant. All I saw were beautiful, naked bodies. These nudists really worked on their bodies!
I once went to a nudist camp outside of Cleveland, Georgia but did not return because the sign at the pool said “No Bathing Suits Allowed.” Legislating nudity was not compatible with my Woodstock initiation.]
While in the swamp I met Marsha. She was such a beautiful woman! She had long blonde hair, eyes filled with mystery and wonder, and a nicely shaped body. Her spirit was so gentle, so loving, and for a long time we played together in the muddy water.
Marsha was traveling with a small commune, her “family.” As they prepared to leave the swamp, Marsha asked me to come with her. I wanted to continue being with her and started to put on my clothes. Her commune members stayed naked and insisted I should also. I hesitated. A young man came up to me and said, “Marsha likes you. Come be naked with us and you and Marsha can make love later on.”
Though I was tempted, I let them go and stayed in the swamp. I could not imagine walking naked through five hundred thousand people. I would be too embarrassed and feared I might be too offensive. The last thing I remember of Marsha was her cute little rear end waving back and forth to me as she walked away. During the festival I looked for her but never saw her again. It is easy to lose someone in a half million people….
[To be honest I wasn’t exactly totally naked in the swamp. During the Woodstock experience I wore a navy aeronautical hat/head net. It looked a bit like a Robin Hood cap and I’ve never seen anyone wear anything quite like it. In fact I was recognized twice in the months following Woodstock, when nudity became more common and prevalent.
During a march on Washington to protest the Vietnam War, several of us took our clothes off and went wading in the reflecting pool which sits between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. Hundreds of thousands of clothed people surrounded us, yet I felt quite comfortable being naked. Our presence in Washington and our nudity were political protest! Obviously, I was much more comfortable being naked in Washington than I had been at Woodstock.
While wading and playing in Washington’s reflecting pool, a naked girl approached and asked, “You were at Woodstock, weren’t you?” I secretly hoped it was the size of my penis that made me memorable, but then she explained that she recognized the hat.
Speaking of my penis, I suppose there’s a picture of mine at F.B.I. headquarters in Washington. I imagine J. Edgar Hoover, the Head of the F.B.I., might have been a bit upset with me, and others. Not only did we march on Washington to protest the war, but we also had the gall to get naked and go swimming in the reflecting pool!!!
One other time I was recognized as a Woodstock participant. I was attending the Philadelphia Folk Music Festival in Schwenksville. A stream ran alongside the festival grounds and several of us stripped naked and got wet. While I was sitting in the water, a naked woman came up to me and asked, “Did I see you at Woodstock?” Once again she recognized the hat.]
From the Woodstock swamp we could faintly hear the music. It was muffled but filled the air. The first day was devoted primarily to folk music, of which I am particularly fond. After stopping by my camp for some food, I wandered toward the music. Between acts announcements were made, many about folks separated and lost, some asking that people get down from the speaker/light towers because they might collapse from the weight. Regular announcements were also made about bad acid, especially bad brown.
I wanted to visit the bad trip tent, especially given my own bad trip (described below) earlier in the summer. The tent itself was quite large, with several cots, and full of people. I couldn’t believe what I saw there – people screaming, crying, and vomiting. It was like a trip to hell, and yet only a few minutes walk from the peaceful, joyous swamp. I felt great empathy and sympathy for all those tormented souls in the bad trip tent.
The Woodstock music continued and I decided to work my way towards the stage area. Actually I spent hours moving toward the stage. The mass of people was incredible! Most were sitting and the closer I got to the stage the more closely packed together they became.
I would carefully step my way among the people, find some smoking a joint or pipe, and sit down and join them. I did this repeatedly, joining and smoking with numerous groups. I was always welcomed, always offered a hit of their drugs. I so enjoyed talking with everyone. Periodically the whole crowd would light matches and candles, which was really a beautiful sight.
Eventually, however, I became so wasted, so fractured, that I began to decompensate. The night weather was turning wet. I was surrounded by this huge mass of humanity and, in spite of my efforts to reach the stage, I was still so far away that the performers looked like small dolls.
It was now quite late and rain began to fall in earnest. I began to feel quite overwhelmed by it all. Then, like a heaven sent angel, Melanie came on the stage and sang “Tuning My Guitar.” When, in a beautiful, strong, clear voice she sang her song, her words pulled it all together for me.
I found my way back to my camp, very stoned and very happy!
Throughout Friday night at Woodstock it continued to rain and in the morning I awoke to quite a different world. Mud was everywhere! We had become a city where people were born and people died. To escape the rain one fellow crawled under a truck. In the morning the truck started up and ran over him.
Still people continued to arrive. In desperation the State Police closed the New York freeway and released word that bubonic plague had broken out. Woodstock had become the world’s largest rock festival in the history of that recent social phenomenon!
I was glad I had made the journey to Woodstock but definitely felt wasted. I wanted out! When I spoke with a local farmer and learned of a back road out of Woodstock, I decided to leave and spend the night with Joan.
I escaped from Woodstock, picked up Joan, went to a large waterfall, and settled in on soft grass overlooking the falls. There we made such sweet love, forgiving all the pain we had previously caused each other. We slept the night peacefully in each other’s arms, enjoying the sounds of the large, nearby waterfall.

Written May 8, 1969 - FIRST ACID TRIP – Philadelphia, PA
As the acid slowly came on, I walked down to the Philadelphia Art Museum and Fairmont Park. It was a beautiful, warm day in May and the sun felt wonderful. In time I met a good looking Hispanic girl about my age.
At this point the acid was peaking nicely and I was intrigued because I was having quite an unusual reaction to her. She was no longer someone to fuck. She was no longer a “spic”. She was a being of pure light, a part of Divine Consciousness, just as I, also, was a spark of pure, divine, consciousness.
For the first time in my life, I lost all prejudices! All stereotypes dissolved into the acid. As a true Son of the South I had been thoroughly steeped in prejudices and stereotypes, and suddenly a new, radical level of consciousness emerged. I felt so liberated, so free!!!
Only the present moment dominated my consciousness. As we talked of many things, I experienced pure listening for the first time in my life. There was no judgment as I listened, no thought as to how I should respond – only pure, simple listening. Our time together was such joy!
I am convinced that my first acid trip did allow me to glimpse a higher level of consciousness, and this glimpse proved to be life changing. The next time I saw my hippie drug dealer I gave him one hundred dollars and asked him for as many hits of acid as the money would buy.

Written June 15, 1969 - THIRD ACID TRIP – Miami, FL
My third acid trip almost destroyed me, and left me psychologically quite shattered. It began innocently enough when my friend and I decided to drop acid together. We smoked a lot of dope and hashish, dropped the acid, and waited for what seemed like a long time, but nothing happened.
My friend said he had some mescaline and, if the acid was a bust, why not take the mescaline. I thought that was a great idea, so we did. Now a trip on acid can be a subtle journey, and we were well along the journey when we did the mescaline. We just didn’t know it.
Unfortunately we discovered our misperceptions too late to correct them, and I distinctly remember my friend yelling, “Be my kite man! GOD, OH GOD, BE MY KITE MAN!!!” He was weeping, huddled in a fetal position in a corner of the room.
My vision was completely distorted, and it seemed like I could see only strands of light, wave particles revealing nothing solid – emptiness permeating every thing. As the mescaline hit, everything speeded up. I began to vibrate intensely; wave particles flowed quickly; I began to disintegrate, not only “I” psychologically, but also “I” physically. How could I be my friend’s kite man? There was no ground; there was no “me.” I, too, found myself on the floor, in a fetal position.
I’m not sure how long we tripped like this, each of us in a fetal position on the floor. It felt like lifetimes, though I suspect only a few hours. This was by no means a pleasant experience, rather terrifying in nature and duration.

Written February 12, 1970 - A WEEK OF ACID – Philadelphia, PA
Since my first, consciousness expanding, wonderful acid trip almost a year ago, I have not been able to equal the experience, though I have dropped acid a number of times since. I decided I wasn’t dropping enough acid to break through my resistance to opening up, expanding my consciousness, so I resolved to take acid every day for a week. More frequent, more intense would be better, I hypothesized.
Unfortunately, my week-long acid trip just made me psychotic as hell!!!

In 1969 I followed Timothy Leary’s instructions: “Turn On – Tune In – Drop Out!” Well I didn’t fully drop out, but I certainly enthusiastically adopted the rest. Many years later, on January 31, 1984 in Athens, Georgia, I had an opportunity to ask Leary the following question: “Do you accept responsibility for the thousands of people, both young and old, whose personalities were shattered as a result of following your prescription to drop acid?”
At first he denied that there were casualties. “There is no hard evidence that L.S.D. and similar drugs have harmed anyone. No one was injured by their drug use.” Looking him directly in the eye, I angrily interrupted, “We both know casualties from their drug use!”
Timothy Leary accepted my disagreement, saying, “Those who did have breakdowns could well have had them anyway; and besides, drinking and driving were a lot worse. When you’re taking an evolutionary leap in consciousness, there will be some casualties. Every war has casualties.… Stupid people are going to use drugs stupidly. Intelligent people are going to use them intelligently. We’re just going to have to raise the intelligence level.”
Through the years, my dream of expanded consciousness and spiritual growth through drugs evaporated. I remained hopelessly addicted to marijuana until June 17, 1985, when I was initiated into the Serenity Meditation while visiting northern Thailand. My depth of meditation practice made further drug use superfluous. Millions of people consider the beginning of their meditation practice their “spiritual birthday” – a date critical to their spiritual growth. Certainly that is true for me.
For many years I tried to understand why my seventeen year addiction to marijuana magically evaporated when I began my meditation practice. When I studied the clinical research on addictions, I learned of one approach to treatment which postulates that addicts are not actually addicted to their “drug of choice” but rather to alpha and theta brain waves.
Their “drug of choice” allows them to move from a beta brain (active/anxious) to alpha (relaxed) and theta (creative) brain waves. In meditation brain wave patterns alter and, with practice, these changes become permanent. Drugs are no longer needed or desired.
In addition, the field of consciousness research states that all humans have an innate desire to change their states of consciousness. This fits nicely with yoga’s assumption that all humans have an innate desire to be Self- and God-realized, to awaken to permanent liberation of consciousness.
As I learned more about yoga and began to practice its teachings, I learned to listen to the inner sound, the sound of OM, of God, who is always with me, surrounding me, comforting me. I discovered that, at the deepest level of my being, I am joyously peaceful at all times.
Besides the increased joy and peace meditation brought into my life, I also experienced the other fruits of spiritual growth which are energizing and vitalizing, including a more loving and compassionate heart.
Thus I discovered that my meditation and other spiritual practices not only freed me from marijuana addiction, but also eliminated all desire for alcohol. I loved the state of consciousness I was in, the peace within me, and my first priority became to protect my peace. Drugs and alcohol robbed me of my peace, and therefore had no place in my life.
Meditation facilitates spiritual growth, which was the key to my recovery from addiction. If there has been one theme in my life, it has been a deep and constant desire for a reunion with God, a desire to serve God, and a desire to enter into the Kingdom of God. Through God’s grace I have, at times, fulfilled this desire.

I was born in Poland in 1994 (not that long ago, I know), and I grew up in a family that loved music. My dad's love for music swiftly infected my sister and later on me. I remember when there was a Polish version of Woodstock (Przystanek Woodstock, translated to Woodstock Halt) came to a nearby town. That was in 2003 I believe and I think that was the first concert of my life so I was obviously really looking forward to it. My dads best friend who lived in that city (Zary) passed away not long before that so it was an experience going back to that town for my dad.
I was 9, so what did you expect, I was waiting for the big fireworks that were suppose to some in the end. I was pretty confused, it was really loud, everybody seemed to have a good time, some because of the music some because of the...alcohol. I even remember some random man walking up to my dad and yelling to his friend "Hey look! It's Jesus!" (my dad had a beard and longer hair back then and now that I think about it, he did somewhat look like him). Well it was around midnight and the fireworks were about to start and wouldn't you know it. I feel asleep, right before they started. My mom later told me they were louder than the music but that didn't seem to bother me, I just slept on. I was really disappointed that nobody woke me up. I still loved the atmosphere at that young of an age. Well now that it's the 40th anniversary, I really want to go to Woodstock one more time. The energy of it is wonderful, plus this time I'd get to see the fireworks. I got my Woodstock t-shirts ready and let's rock!

This particular experience happened to my friend Dave and myself on the second or third or maybe it was the fourth day. Their are only a few things that I remember, like getting there from Bloomington In. to N.Y. in an early model International Scout ,with bucket seat no less all nine of us, yes 9, and a german sheperd 2 people in the front dog in the middle and the rest of us in the back sitting cannonball style on the floor rotating with 2-3 sitting on the tailgate with arms over the top hanging on for dear life. Needles to say we stopped and changed positions a lot. The trip was pretty much uneventful until we stopped in Scranton Pa. at a grocery store. My partner and his ol lady baled out of the scout and had themselves a hug and a kiss, thats when the town constable stolled up and accused them of lewd and lacivious behavior and they were being arrested for public indecencey . Somehow we managed to talk him out of this terrible act, we grabbed our loaf of white bread and bottle of ketchup and got out of Dodge. When we got there we were all pretty hot and grubby but somehow we managed to drive right up to where the concert was taking place . We pulled in to a place that was so beautiful, I can remember to this day, huge boulders ,the trees were turning gold and bright red and the weather was perfect,75-80 degrees, you could just feel the excitement and great vibes in the air. Thats it, pretty much foggy after that for a couple of days.Back to the particular experience.Dave and I had been tripping for a couple of days and were absolutely exhausted and covered in mud of course,we were coming down from the last 2 days of some very good acid and feeling kinda--- well you know. We were walking thru a woods on a path, I think it was where the hog farm had one of the food tents and came upon a little creek, so we got the bright idea that we would wash our clothes off and take a bath. We stripped off and washed most of the mud out of our clothes and hung them on limbs to dry. So now its our turn. We both sat down in the water and washed off the best we could without soap or washrags. By the way we are not gay,not that it matters. We get finished washing and Dave stands up first and his butt is about 20 inches from my face and I notice he still has a lot of mud all over the backs of his legs and butt, but wait, they're moving . I then realize that he is covered from waist to his ankles with LEECHES!! THOUSANDS OF THE LITTLE BLOOD SUCKERS!! Of course he wants me to help get them off of him! On top of this not so pleasing activity, I now remember that I am still sitting in the water no doubt covered in leeches my self. So picture this, two almost grown men standing ankle deep in water, naked, brushing leeches off each others asses with sticks.(I wasn't gonna touch his bare ass) So we lived thru this experience to party another day. Stay tune for more tales of Gregg and Dave. Bye for now and keep your freak flag flying.

The latrines overflowed in Rome during Woodstock 1999 ...

I drove up there with my 2 kids, they were 13 and 15 at the time. It was Rachel who observed that in 1969, the watchword was "don't take the brown acid," while in 1999 it was "don't drink the brown water!"

The two stages threw us, as it was often hard to decide which one to stay at! We saw Metallica, Megadeath, Godsmack, Kid Rock .....so many good acts!

I know they will NEVER forget the experience!

Long before the kids were a glint in my eye, I WORKED at the 1969 festival. I don't remember if it was Kip Cohen, or Chip Monck, but one of them recruited any of the Fillmore East employees that were available. (I was the doorman.)

1999 was brutally hot, 1969 was brutally wet. Both festivals had plenty of mud, but the 1999 festival has a tent that was full of cool mist, and we visited it several times.

At the first festival, traffic was gridlocked 2 days before the event started, but 30 years later, I was actually able to leave the campsite, drive into town, and go shopping!

As good as the music was in 1999, it couldn't compare to the first gathering. The lineup for 2009 sounds very promising! (But there is no truth to the rumor that Herman's Hermits will release "Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely walker" next month!)

Memories? The "Hog Farm", Hugh Romney, Filet Mingon but no bread, HENDRICS (!), skinny-dipping in the rain, being part of the third largest city in New York State, and everybody realizing that we were making history, PEACEFULLY!

I am looking forward to making new memories at the 2009 festival, and hope that you can find a way to make me part of it ... the $600 that I get from Social Security every month sure doesn't last very long!

What a long, strange trip it's been!

Allen Singer (A.Singer@juno.com)

It all started in the summer of '69. My old man and old lady sadly split. Daddy O decided to split the scene and go truckin out east. By coincidence he was asked to deliver a new pick up to Toronto. My old man worked for a contracting company. So my brother, myself, and Daddy O packed and fled the scene. By some strange coincidence we left the first week of August. During our trip, we crashed in various motels, and virtually lived out of our suitcases. Along the way we met some groovy people.

As we were entering Ontario, my old man decides to exit South towards the border. Once in New York state, we head down the I90 thruway South. Before we know it, we are at Yazgir's farm. From what I remember, there were lots of people, rain and mud, and very groovy tunes coming from these little speakers. They were attached to some tall stands. This was all accomplished by some "loving" hands, in order to try and accomodate my old man, myself, my brother, and the rest of us 400,000 to hear the groovy music, from a far distance from the stage.

The rest is history. What an experience. Three days of peace, love, and groovy music.

My name is Deneen and I am on a never-ending search for my bio-parents. I have always had a weird feeling that my bio-parents were at woodstock. I am drawn to anything woodstock hoping to spot a pregnant lady. (My DOB is 12/05/1969, making her approx 5 months pregnant).I saw a shirt with a random photo of the crowd. The woman in this photo resembles me way tooo much. I was hoping she may be reading this and perhaps we could make a connection. I am 5 foot 7, dark brown hair (a little longer than Joan Jett), skinny with hazel eyes. If you are this person or know of anyone who was pregnant during woodstock, please email me at mrs_lange0709@yahoo.com

Thank you.. Deneen

Duane & Paulette's story:

In 1969, we were high school buddies, part of a group of friends into music and art who got sent to the Principal’s office for hair too long, or dress too short. Duane played in bands for Van Morrison and others when he was only 16, and went on to be in several bands. Paulette was an aspiring writer (and became one, published Alimentum).

We went to Woodstock together as platonic friends (we want to be hypnotized to remember how WE TWO went together out of all of our friends-we can't remember!)

We politely slept together in the car’s back seat -- perfectly behaved. Duane had a girlfriend. He thought I had a boyfriend. No awkwardness - we were quintessential pals. We soaked up the music and the rain–an experience beautifully imprinted in our hearts.

After High School we went on to different lives. Over the 40 years we've been apart we were each a bright light in each other's hearts because of Woodstock.

Our 40 years apart included 3 marriages, 3 kids, several rock bands, plays & TV produced, buildings built, books written, and thousands of miles between us.

A year ago we re-met at a reunion and fell madly in love!

At this 40 yr anniversary we’re about to spend the rest of our lives together. Duane’s moving from Maine to join Paulette in Nashville. We are giddy with happiness and excitement. And we are definitely having a BIG Woodstock party on August 15th!

Happily, out of that Woodstock crowd of 500,000, Duane’s photo is featured in every chapter heading of Joel Makower’s Woodtsock: The Oral History just reissued. And that same shot angle appears elsewhere with the both of us. How on earth does that happen??

We're twittering our details at:
https://twitter.com/WoodstockHearts

Duane's music at:
http://www.myspace.com/duanespencer

Paulette's publishing dream come true at:
http://www.alimentumjournal.com/

Thanks for reading about us and a big Woodstock Heart to all our fellow Woodstock Hearts!!

i prepared for months for everything and anything bus drivers went on strike due to no lunch break i have a whole ticket tent,booze,dry white socks,new waterproof hikers,and a chaise lounge chair.set up tent towards main stage and hoped noone would fall on my tent.very little room to maneuver.skuse me,skuse me,skuse me.arrived thursday and hoped we wouldn't get rousted to camping area 1/2 mile away.i didn't move the 1st day.drank vodka,beer,and smoked big fatties.fine party people and relaxing on my chaise.many people started to congregate in a wide vast area.many tents,people,and flags.the only way to find your squat was a flag or tall tent as a landmark.if you ventured into the sea of people and tents you needed a land mark.1st morning music was yoga,meditating,chanting,humming or whatever.alot of recorded music until the local bands came out and help the feeling of celebration.by late after noon we felt that we had grown roots and enjoy the constant passing of a new and different person sharing and enjoying.thursday night seemed like a wave of darkness was passing by and steamrolling over our village.i think people were visiting and not staying or sharing what i would later fell was a unique happening.if we could survive the wave...friday morning was time to really venture into the outskirts and look for water.people were thinking the same as me and word spread about washup faucets and naked women.i guess 2 days in a puptent might do that.somehow i hooked up with a neighbor and made the grounds round.with all the people,the map and the reality didn't jive.i guess it was like 69 and the books get trown out and you make the best of the offerings.if you looked,or asked everything you needed was somewhere.i brought plenty of money.you could get woodstock token for cash but that fell through.money talks.my hiking boots were great and my socks were white.water.food souveniers

MY DAUGHTE AND I WENT TO WOODSTOCK 25TH ANNNAVERSARY. IT WAS A GREAT ADVENTURE AND A GOOD TIME.

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK MY EX-HUSBAND: FOR IMPLING IT WAS CRAZY TO TAKE A 16 YEAR OLD ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO A ROCK CONCERT.

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE ON THE WOODSTOCK EXPRESS: FOR THE COMMRADAIRE, JOKES, MUSIC AND EXCEITMENT, IT MADE GETTING THERE GREAT.

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE BUS DRIVER: FOR FIXING THE BUS, DRIVING US AROUND FOR AN HOUR TRYING TO GET US ON TO THE VENUE, BEFORE DROPPING US OFF ON THE INTERSTATE TO MAKE OUR OWN WAY IN. I FELT LIKE A REFUGEE, IT TRULY HIGHTENED THE EXPERIENCE BY TENFOLD. I NO LONGER FELT LIKE A TICKET HOLDER BUT A ROCK AND ROLL GODDESS .

THANKS TO THE GUY THAT PUKED: WHERE I WANTED TO PUT MY TENT. MY SECOND CHOICE WAS A MUCH BETTER HOME.

THANKS TO THE LOCAL THAT SHOWED US AROUND: NOT ONLY DID WE HAVE PLENTY OF FOOD AND DRINK, BUT ENOUGH TO SHARE.

THANKS TO THAT GUY THAT MADE AND GAVE AWAY NECKLACES: HE TAUGHT ME ITS OKAY TO TAKE SOMETHING FREE IF ITS GIVEN IN LOVE.

THANKS TO ALL THE MUSICIANS: WITH OUT YOU IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A REALLY GREAT CAMPOUT. YOU MADE IT A MEMORABLE AUDIO/VISUAL EVENT.

THANKS TO ALL THE PEOPLE I MET IN THE CROWD FROM EUROPE AND AMERICA: I TRULY FELT PEACE AND LOVE. HERE'S ONE FOR THE LONG ISLAND BOYS!!!

THANKS TO WHOEVER MISPLACED THE WHEELCHAIR: THAT WAS A GREAT SHOW OF COMPASSION AND A WILD MIX-UP.

THANKS TO THE MUD: A GREAT WAY TO MEET AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE.

THANKS TO THE GAS STATION GUY: THAT WATER SPICKET OUT BACK WAS THE BEST BATH I'VE EVER HAD.

THANKS TO THE ORGANIZERS AND PROMOTERS: KEEP ON DOIN WHAT YOU DO.

THANKS TO GOD: FOR GETTING ME THERE AND BACK AND ALL THE GREAT FUN AND ADVENTURE THIS LIFE HAS TO OFFER.

THAT'S MY STORY REMEMBER: WHAT HAPPENS IN WOODSTOCK STAY IN WOODSTOCK. PEACE, LOVE, AND ROCK AND ROLL.

I got to Woodstock on Thursday (day before it started) and was driving my '69 Dodge van through the festival grounds when someone from the crowd asked if he could hitch a ride on the open tailgate. I said sure, no problem.
About 2 minutes later someone shouts out "Colorado! You ripoff!
Next thing I know this guy runs up to the back of my van, breaks a bottle and sticks it very near to the face of the guy who was riding on the tailgate!
The guy with the bottle start yelling "I gave you my guitar and amp and you said you would sell them!". "I tried to get in touch with you and your phone was turned off!" I put the van in park, jumped out and said "What's going on here?" "Peace and Love, man - Peace and Love!" (which sounds really corny now, but it really worked then). They ended up making up....even shaking hands - if you can believe that - and walked away together. That was the only violent act that I witnessed at the the most beautiful 3 days of music, peace and love in the history of the 20th century.

I graduated from the class of 1969 in a small New Mexico town. Three days after graduation, I moved to San Antonio, TX. I wasn't at that time a hippie; I was pretty green growing up in Mayberry USA. It was May 1969 and I was just beginning to enjoy my newfound freedom. I happen to come across this "Head Shop". I did not know what it was. So I went inside and met some of the nicest people ever. Beautiful people; guys with long hair, women with flowers in their hair. There was incense, black lights, neon posters, bongs, the smell of pot. Right then and there, my life as I formerly knew it no longer existed. I started to make necklaces and bracelets out of those tiny tiny beads and sold them on the street corners of San Antonio. I became a "hippie". Still, I was "green". Today that is good, "going green"! Some of my friends had this VW Van with the peace sign painted on it, flowers all over the truck who were going to Woodstock NY for this big concert. They invited me to go along, but I had reservations because I still didn't have the confidence they did and I said no. When I started to see bits and pieces on the television about how big this grand concert was, I was sick. Needless to say, no cell phones back in the day or at least my friends didn't have any. I didn't know anyone else who was going; didn't know too many people at the time and I missed out on what would have been the best experience of my life. I still cannot forgive myself. My friends shared their experiences, showed me pictures and I was sad. Janis, Jimi, Jerry G., Jim Morrision are all gone. But I'm coming to the 40th anniversary even if I have to hitchhike all the way.
PEACE & LOVE TO ALL!! SEE YOU IN AUGUST, 2009!!!! Alexandria

When I was about 18 a friend of mine introduced me to a girl named Joyce Kelly. Joyce wasn’t a beauty, but she had something special, a whispering voice, she was kind and considerate, loved life and especially music. That was Joyce and my common interest. Joyce also had a beautiful body. She had large breasts and a lovely curve. We truly loved holding one another. She was so soft and I remember her smell today. Clean and nice. Joyce’s older sister Nancy had an apartment in Edgewood, a section of Pittsburgh which had a number of multifamily dwellings. Nancy lived on the 3rd floor of a 3 family dwelling. I was living at home at the time with my Mom and Scot, so going over to Nancy’s was a liberating experience for me. Nancy was a hippie. She had long straight hair almost to her ass. She was kind and loved Joyce very much. Nancy and Joyce had lost their parents in a car accident when Nancy and Joyce were very young. Nancy raised Joyce for most of her life. If Nancy had been a little younger when they passed away the two of them might have ended up in an Orphanage.
Nancy and Joyce were originally from a small town in Pa called Greensburg. A small town that raised small-town girls with small-town views.
Joyce was naive. It was part of what attracted me to her. She had very little knowledgeable about the world outside of Pittsburgh and Greensburg PA, but at the time neither was I. I fell deeply in love with Joyce. And I viewed Nancy as the elder sister I’d never had. She was wise and well read. She spoke with a soft reassuring voice. The three of us would stay up late while Nancy would tell us about the politics of the world. Why we shouldn’t be in Viet Nam. Why I should make sure I stayed out of going to Viet Nam.
Nancy also had a great record collection. Paul Butterfield, Sony Terry and Brownie Magee, Jefferson Airplane, Phil Oaks, and Joyce and I would stay up late listening to the sounds of the sixties. A new group was emerging out of one of my favorites Buffalo Springfield. They called themselves Corby Stills and Nash. Their music was harmonic. Beautiful beyond belief. I still feel that way today. Their lyrics were of the times. Kent State –Ohio, Carry on, and others.

A dude with a scraggily looking beard…passing out flyers said “Here ya go guys”. We are walking down Walnut Street. A very hip area with girls in bell bottoms –Asmile jeans, shorts, long hair, and beads,
Peter Max style art rose above the shop fronts as Gary and I walk down the crowed sidewalks of the hip Shadyside area. “Wow! Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Stills and Nash”, the list went on and on with our favorite bands of the time. “Let’s go I said!” Gary agreed and we headed back to my Mom’ car that she let us borrow for the afternoon to go back home to pack. When we got home we told Mom that we were of to a concert in a place called White Lake. Here’s $10 for each of you. Be careful and be sure you call me on your way when you can get to a phone. I decided to make a sign, so I got some magic marker and put PA Turnpike on one side and New York on the other. I didn’t know where we were going in NY. Gary and I put a few things in our knapsacks and Mom drove us down the nearest intersection to start on our trip. We kissed Mom goodbye and unloaded our sacks and while Gary went and sat on the grass, I put out our sign along with my thumb. After a minute or so a young guy alone in the car stopped and asked, “Where you guys headed?” to a concert at White Lake I answered enthusiastically “I’m going to the next intersection if you want a lift.” Before we could put our knapsacks in the car, we were taking them back out. Thanks Man!
I put my sign back out and the next ride took us to the PA Turnpike. From there we turned over our sign to show the NY side and we were off. I don’t remember how many rides it took to get us close by, but I do remember one older gentleman dressed in a nice suit. As the radio station talked about the NY state freeway crawling to a stop, I remembered staring at his shoes shined to a reflective mirror finish. Who is this guy I thought and will I ever see him again. The thought was over and so was the ride. After 4 or 5 more rides, we started getting close because the people walking beside the cars were moving as fast as the cars were. Up and down hill after hill we walked. One VW microbus full of hippies and a black guy driving it with an afro to beat all afros, he reminded me of Luke from the Mod squad. In back of the van Gary and I toked on joint after joint. The dude in the front passed out a bottle of wine to one of the walkers beside us and what seemed like an hour later, that same guy handed me the wine bottle back! Time was going in slow motion and it seemed like we’d never get there. Somehow we got out of the van and started walking again. “The concert is over, they canceled it.” One girl said. We decided to keep walking. We’d come far enough already. It was dark and the only lights were from showing from the line of cars lined up behind us as far as we could see. There was no traffic coming toward us so we figured we’d just keep going. “You can’t get in without a ticket” another guy blurted out. He was stoned and one guy behind me said “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he can hardly stand up.” Gary and I didn’t have tickets, they were $50 from the guy in Shadyside and we didn’t have $50 between us. We hoped that when and if we ever got to the concert that we could finagle a way in.

After hours and hours of rides in cars, and what seemed like days of walking in the dark, I heard a faint singing. As we got closer we could make out the words, “Coming in from London from over the pole, Flying in a big airliner, Chickens flying everywhere around the plane could we ever feel much finer?” ….Hey it’s Arlo Guthrie I screamed!
I knew we were there! Or at least we close. I couldn’t believe it! Compared to how far we had come already it didn’t seem like much time had passed until we got to the amazing hill of wall to wall people. But looking back on it must have been an hour or so. Arlo’s voice carried over the hill!

We’re here Gary. We were exhausted, tired and dirty. It seemed like a week ago that we gotten our first ride from the guy alone in the car. Our PA/NY sign was now a ripped piece of cardboard with faded magic marker, dirty and tired from the many car floors it had sat on. I threw it into a dumpster and as we stood at the top of the hill and looked down into the dark, over the wall of people and pot smoke, all that was visible was a very distant light far into the distance. The smoke and fog danced in the huge spotlight pointing to the stage.
“How do we get down there” Gary asked. Gary and I were known for our aggressive natures when we were younger-or so we thought. We were both off-street motorcyclists in our teens. We would down a few Percodans and ride our motocross bikes into the woods below our home, un-frightened by what might lay ahead of us in the wooded area! If we did get hurt at least we had our pain medicine in us already.
I looked down the far edges of the crowd and noticed that to the right and left there was a wood fence with about a 5 foot margin between the fence and the crowd. “Follow me”. I headed down the side and we found that we had an open path that led us down to the front of the stage. But once we got to the front we found ourselves pushed right up to the wood fence barrier that stood between the crowd and the stage. The fence was about 10 feet tall so that you couldn’t see anything if you were right up against the fence. The crowd was packed 3 feet back from the fence because that was right where you could see the stage. Gary and I faced the wood fence and slowly pushed our way backward until we could see the stage. Joan Biaz was performing when we finally were fixed in our spot. I looked over at Gary and took it all in. He was just exhaling from a big toke that he took from a joint that a cute chick beside him handed off. “W----O-------W” he said in a slow-motion exhale! We were mesmerized by the grass, the music, the crowd, and the Moment. After a few hours of listening to.

That night we made our way back to the top of the hill. We made a U shape out of the fence that had been cut and placed some corn husks over it in case it rained during the night. We placed our sleeping bags on the floor and fell into a catatonic serenity.
During the night I had awaken many times to the far away sounds of The Who and later or should I say early the next light, Jefferson Airplane. I finally was forced out of my sleeping bag to the soaked feeling of waterlogged pants, shirt, shoes and sleeping bag. It had poured all night long and our sleeping bags didn’t deter a drop of it.

After tossing and turning for what seemed to be hours I peeled away my saturated sleeping bag. Gary and I found our way under a large maple tree with a handful of other people. “What a night”, I said to one of them. “Who is going to be on today I asked?”
He muttered an answer, but when it made it to my clogged ears it sounded like a slow-motion slur.
The sun shown through the clouds, and the music began. Joe Cocker vibrated onstage in his tie-died shirt to a chorus of Through the Bathroom Window... Hours passed as we stand listening to the music in our drenched clothes.

Little did I know that the drumstick I was catching would be well-appreciated someday...It was the drumstick of the drummer from Santana! He was young and his beat was right on! The sun was hot and the mud from the rain was all around us. The smell of Grass was heavy in the air. I felt a poke on my shoulder, it was a girl handing me another joint. I took a hit and inhaled till I couldn’t hold it anymore. The sound of the music, and my feelings were soaring. A peacefulness came over me. O’ le co mo va…I sang along. Ladies and Gentlemen ….Sha Na Na…I’d never heard of them before. 5 or 6 men, at least to me they looked like men-older, in 50’s style clothes, Gauchos, satin pants and black pointed shoes came across the stage dancing and singing. One o’clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock 4 …Hmmm this is different I thought. Who the hell are they and what are they doing here. The crowd roared and started to sing along. It was an old fashion 50’s sing along with a group of guy’s style’n, hair that met in the back and was slicked down with 10w 30. Bozzer, the lead singer was a tall, really crazy energetic dude with a great bass voice. By the time they left the stage they had a few hundred thousand fans on their feet screaming for more! It was humid and the air was thick with moisture and the smell from Grass and the unbathed bodies surrounding me. That day I sat in the hot sun and mud and continued to be serenaded by the likes of Credence Clearwater Revival, Canned Heat, Mountain, Quill Joe Cocker, and others that I can’t remember because I was either to stoned or to tired, or possibly and probably both. I hadn’t seen Gary for a while and it was dusk and decided to go looking for him. I squeezed my way to the front of the stage. I ran into Gary on the way back and said, “I bet Mom is worried sick about us. We should call her now.” We sloshed our way through the thick mud and finally came to what was a quarter mile of pay phones all standing in a row. There must have been two hundred of them, and each and every one had a line of people waiting. I mean a long line, possibly 20 to 50 people in each line. I remembered that they were announcing on the stage every hour or so something like “ Bill, call home", your brother needs to get your diabetic medicine to you”. So….I walked up to one of the lines and scoped out a kind face. I got to the second person in that line and said, “Excuse me; they just made an announcement on stage that I needed to call my Grandfather at the hospital in Pittsburgh right away. The kind faces said oh sure go right ahead. I got a quarter from Gary and called my Mom and told her that we were alright. She said that she had been hearing on the news what chaos it was on the way to the concert and was thrilled that we called. I thanked the kind face and Gary and I worked my way back to our makeshift corn hut.

Gary and I didn’t have much money on us. We went looking for food and came upon a makeshift wood hut with handwritten signs. Peanut and butter $2.00. What? Can you believe it, two bucks for Peanut and Jelly? I only had a few dollars left from the $10 my Mother had given me but I was starving, and there wasn’t much else to choose from. The peanut butter and jelly tasted more like steak and potatoes to me! My most vivid and exhilarating memory of Woodstock was during a break in the concert I was sitting eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwich while listening to Crosby Stills and Nash singing….”It’s getting to the point….

"Building a Getting To Woodstock" ... Woodstock Renion 2009,...
To: http://www.woodstockstory.com/contact.html
06-05-09
Sparrow LaPoint ~..................................................951-275-7725
"AS Janis Joplin~ If She'd Gotton Sober, and Lived!"
P.O. Box 1351
Lake Elsinore, CA.
92531-1351
Singer/Actress/ Certified Licensed Holistic Health Massage Practittioner

Greetings and Blessings to You All,

I wouldn't have been "allowed" to go to Woodstock, being brought up by a conservative Famous Naval Officers Family, even IF I was of age..., and I have grown into being a rather non-conventional, if not actually somewhat... rebellious as an adult...I say in a good way...like refusing to believe people are purely monetary, or evil, or corrupt, I like to believe the best of people unless proved otherwise...
A Fiancee in the late 1970's drove me up to see THE PLACE where Woodstock Happened years before I arrived, and now here I am, quite un- expectedly "Wailing Out " Tribute to Janis Joplin: "UTTERLY AMAZING(!)" say the experienced Recording Studio Owners, Sophisticated Professional Musicians, Janis Joplin Fans, World-Travelled Destination Membership Resort Visiters and Guests of a elite, Southern California Private Resort,... for the past year! Audiences have been literaly freaking out! People have heard me sing and thought I WAS JANIS JOPLIN's RECORDINGS!!!!..
It was me ... this fact has BEEN CONVINCING me to write to your group,...Please pass this info on to the ReUnion Organizers, as Preparation is at hand... and time running short...the time is brief...I had occasion to meet "Nancy Nevins formerly of Sweetwater", on Easter, and am preparing to accomplish my most recent but heartfelt goal to arrange an opportunity to Present the Absolute BEST JANIS JOPLIN, If SHE"d Gotton Sober and Lived...for the 2009 40th Year Reunion!
I am not currently signed with anyone, My two song Demo is in Consideration with "Crooners Unlimited" The Demo is awesome,... and my fan's say I AM THE BEST >>>> so "doing" the Greatest Janis Joplin, I AM SURE IS ONE of the THINGS High on their priority list! I have done my homework, checking out the competition, and frankly, I AM THE BEST!
Say you ignore this note, well, The sky won't fall in but I have seen alot in my many years as a Navy Brat, living in over 40 places, right, well hook me up., I promise YOU...to keep you on the edge your seat,... You WILL BE Believing You are hearing Janis Joplin Herself and I have the impression of her Down as well, with Style and Spirit, YOU WILL BE hearing her NOW.... I am waiting on the edge of MY seat to hear from you!
I am so confident that I will say,... It may prove embarrassing later,... when the organizers find out thru my upcoming agents and others that they should have contacted me earlier, as Airplane Flights need arranging and stuff's gotta get done quickly to pull this off...Again,...My offer bares looking into...I realize this intro is in the scheme of things, "bizarre" but believe me, I am a sane, I'm a 51 year old, attractive, 14 1/2 year sober woman of Alcoholics Anonymous, and what I say is true. I actually became acquainted with Mr. Joe Cocker, back about in 1980 or so... who I met personally, at his manager's Mr. Ross's home in Mulholland, back over 20 years ago, when neither one of us was sober, nor the other 20 people in the room,...following a Garden party off of Sweetzer, ... ask him, if he remembers... he may remember, when he sees me in-person, ... nothing very unusual about the meeting , we were all partying...I am sure we supposed to meet again, to share our sobriety stories...so many of our youth are dying from overdoses, I feel strongly that The Message of Recovery is Topmost among Personal/Government/ and Social Freedom, Today, I am a contributing, straight-forward, honorable, generous, enthusiastic, and as a seasoned, experienced performer, since an early age, and now in my 51st year...quite competent, in fact a talented individual who has been promoting others for years...and my interest and contribution to the upcoming Woodstock ReUnion Tour has "Definate Commercial Considerations." I have been in many facets of the Arts and Entertainment Business for many years and I am as amazed as anyone to find myself belting out Janis joplin~If She'd gotton Sober and Lived.......Gotta Give It a Try.....Sincerely Sparrow LaPoint (aka Laura Elizabeth (Wilson) LaPoint

I had just turned 18 on Aug 3rd. My mother let me go to Woodstock, because my big brother (age 21) was going with me- boy was that a mistake! 4 of us ( my best friend, and my brothers friend) got into a Volkswagon 1968 Beetle at 5pm and began our journey.

We didn't have tickets for the event- but felt drawn to be part of the whole scene. We drove thru the night, and on the morning of Aug 15th as the sun rose- and we became stuck in a huge traffic back up, we realized many people were doing what we were.

We drove as far as we could, decided to park the car & start walking to the venue. The walk would take 3 hours, into a sea of people . That was the last time I saw my big brother until Monday morning.

We walked as far into the sea of people seated at the concert, and sat down on a blanket we brought- only to find another Buffalonian we knew sitting next to us. We were not prepared for camping- we had no coolers, sleeping bags or food. When the rains came, it was sheer determination that kept us still there. To this day- I cannot stand to get soaking wet!

I will never forget the people in their hippie garb, the drugs, and the music above all. Sometimes you have to do what is against better judgement, and this time, I was glad I did!

Peace & Love!

We all lived & worked in the White Plains NY area & heard ads for Woodstock onWPLJ fm. It sounded like a cool weekend so we all bought tickets (still have em). When I got home from work Friday my wife said " We can't go to Woodstock the thruway is shut down!!!! " I thought about it and said BS we'll take the bike. 55 miles later after cutting through all the cars & VW buses getting food & drinks handed to us by all the great folks who lived along the way we arrived & found we didn't need tickets (fences all down), should have brought higher boots for all the mud & by some miracle found all our friends. We spent the 1st night sleeping in a small cemetery, didn't need to smoke any weed ( just inhale the night air ) Next day the NY State troopers offered to rent my Bike so they could get around I could have used the $50 but turned them down. The best was the music as any one who was there knows, Arlo showing up in a helecopter was neat. My best buddy left on a dirt bike to get his wife and came back with her on a Harley, traffic had let up by then. Best time of our lives. We all left Monday morning, didn't know we were part of history till later. If I ever find that bottle with the Genie in it I'd be back there in an instant. By the way our tickets cost $7 each & were numbered B01264-66-66 & B1268. We live in Big Bear Lake California now & my email address is woodstockwest@hotmail.com. We'd love to hear from all you who loved the music and the best of times.

Peace & Love to All

George & Teri

I have never been to a music festival, so, that proves that I have never been to anything relating to Woodstock, seeing as I was not alive when Woodstock '69 took place (I'm 12 years old). But from the first time I laid eyes on Richie Havens in the movie "Woodstock - Three Days Of Peace and Music", I was hooked. This was last year. Oh, yes, I had known about Woodstock before then, but I just had never seen any performances from it. Now, the movie has left me looking for any film outtakes and material that I could find.

A Short while after looking all around for any Woodstock memorabilia or footage, I was notified of Woodstock 2009. Excitedly, I ran to the computer to look it up. There was supposed to be a 2 day festival in Prospect Park. Hoping that this would actually materialize, I told literally EVERYONE I saw that there was to be a Woodstock '09. Unfortunately, as you all know, there is only a very slight chance that this will occur. This is about the time that I heard about the Heroes of Woodstock tour, and how one of their sets will be in Bethel, NY.

As you can probably tell, I was ecstatic, as this is close to where I live. "This will be the next best thing" I said. With Mountain, County Joe McDonald AND Jefferson Starship? Amazing! Woodstock 2009's official replacement!

The way I would like to end this story is by telling you that you, the Woodstock Nation are a great people. As Stephen Stills once said, "We just love ya'!" We meaning me and my Dad, (My Mom HATES Woodstock).

Goodbye,
From Emil

Twiggy and I were 19 the summer of Woodstock, we had long straight hair with bangs, wore bell bottoms and see through eastern european embroidered peasant blouses. I think i had my first pair of clogs, navy blue Olof daughters i bought on bleeker street. I was working at Prexie's the Educated Hamburger, the one on 6th ave. at 8th street. Electric Ladyland studios was across the avenue on 8th street. Richie Havens was a regular and my memory serves me well that he ate chocolate cake and drank cokes, one day he came in with what looked like a sitar in a canvas case, and propped it in the corner, then took his seat at the counter. Fast forward, i quit my job so I can go, 3 days of Peace and Music. Look at the bands ! Some of our friends were gonna drive the next day or 2 but
Twiggy and I took the bus early in the week, they were still building the stage. Lying in the grass staring at the clouds I hand Twiggy some acid, it's her first trip. A few hours later she says to me, "I don't ever want to come down, if i do just give me more" ! I just have to giggle when, she says that. Then she says "I never told you how sad I was when your dog Puggy died" ,, and starts hugging me,, again I have to giggle. I don't remember much more of that day. Just that there were a lot of beautiful men building the stage with their shirts off. .. and the sound of trucks, helicopters ??

we are sleeping near where the Hog Farm is camped, and there was a small stage, we thought they were so cool. we're college girls between freshman and sophmore years, they are free women and men carrying babies, those beautiful long hair men and women, little wild child's running around and we are all dancing. Remember the guy wearing the leather loin cloth and the head band, I will never forget that guy. He's in the movie, and we should be in that scene,, i know we were right there, the music,,,

Fast forward, Richie Haven's is about to begin and we are in the front row, by this time there are more of our girlfriends, and we know by now that Richie is opening the show,,, 4 of us all had worked at the same place so he's seen all of our faces. We look up at him and his band ,, were there just 3 guys, drums, bass ,and richie ?? ,,, we are giggling and waving and they wave back. After Richie's set we roamed around,, never got back to the front,, but I have that opening vision in my head. And one of Janis's shadow on a screen. I was walking behind the stage, it was dark and the Joshua Light Show was projecting behind Janis singing, I see her shadow through the back of the screen... and the pyschedelic swirls.

I'm sitting in the middle of a crowd, a very interesting older man is sitting next to me, and he pulls out the largest piece of hash i have ever seen, it's a brick, he has a small knife and chips off some and fills this pipe that i can only describe as a long peace pipe with feathers,, beads,, he puffs and passes it along, I watch that pipe go far far away from us and come back to him,, he fills it and passes it,, and it makes it's way back. again and again.

fast forward,, the rain stops, we are soaked and covered in mud. we walk and find a place to swim, but we are too shy to get naked,, we go in anyway, clean up and sit in the sun. ... during the rainy night we are all inside a tent with a bunch of guys we went to high school with,, have no idea how or where we found them.. we only brought sleeping bags no tent,, silly girls,

we're still silly girls at heart, i was home for the 20th woodstock reunion, 39 years old and my friends from park slope are part of a bungalow colony for their kids summer vacation,, nearby Bethel. we went to the original site and joined that celebration. I had a big old cadillac and drove it up to the catskills , slept in it for a few nights and some nights in the bungalow. Melanie was there and Johnny Winter ?

So it's 40 years now, 59 this year, i'm living in Amsterdam for 14 years. no car, riding a bicycle, living easy running a Guest ahouse for tourists, and missing some of my tribe,, if i get a free ticket maybe i'll see how this unfolds. Going home anyway this summer to spend time with Mama Bella. and considering a road trip. New York, North Carolina to see Twiggy, then Arkansas where i lived in the Ozarks with 25 others in geodesic domes in the 70's, then maybe Austin, and if the gas mileage doesn't stop me on to California. timing it to be in San Francisco for the Golden Gate gathering with Artie Kornfeld would be a hoot and a blessing.
Where are those old tickets,, i had them for so many years, they must be around here someplace.
xoxo peace and love baby
ps - it's christmas and i meet my exhigh school bf in the city to see the premiere of the film ..Woodstock. In one of the scenes they are interviewing older people in one of the towns close by,, must be Monticello. All of a sudden we see Michael's (the bf) father's face huge on the screen and he is saying why not, this is great what these kids are doing, imagine putting 500,000 adults drinking alcohol together and see what would happen... they are being polite ... I have a son, he' s not here but he's out in california for the summer,,, we started yelling and Michael stands up in the dark of the theatre and yells,,, That's my father !!! everyone is laughing and as we leave people are patting him on the back, never forget that either.

I was 15 in 1969 and had admission tickets, back then they were sold on WNEW radio. we had tickets for the Art show admission, not the Music show. I was an artist and those were the only tickets we could get. anyway by the time we got there, taking the back roads, the tickets didn't matter much. so we parked the car near the Press area which was on the road up to the amusement area, they had some rides and a Snow Cone Vendor. well, on Friday nite, just around sunset, Sly and the Family Stone came on, took us some time to get settled up the hill, CCR came on with Born on the Beyou, played for 3 hours, then Janis came on with a backdrop by Jonathan Light Show, she did songs without Big Brother. the evening slowly ended, back to the car and the rain came. a total mess in the morning. walking around all day, heard "don't eat the acid" warning around the time Country Joe came on. day went slow, sound system was bad, Richie Havens was amazing, sun was out . evening with CSN&Y slowed the pace. Sunday morning was the best, hazy damp and Hendrix.
well, this was the best I could remember, some stuff may be out of sequence, except it was an experience I live with every day. still wearing the peace sign my dad had made for us , well I wish I had my tickets today cause so many people dont beleive I was there, well I was and nobody used the Port-a Potty, we used the woods. also, the people that owned the house on the corner of the road leading up to the grounds, let everyone use their water tap. trucks with watermelons arrived on Saturday, Nuns were giving out sandwiches, State Troopers were very kind.
well, 40 years ago , it has gone by very fast. I could write volumns of those 3 days.......................

I took the "Magic Bus to Woodstock" from Baltimore MD that left at midnight Thursday and we arrived to the sound of the driver telling everyone they had to get off the bus as he had gotten as close as he could get. Everyone gathered up there stuff and began walking with the crowds along the two lane road where cars were very slowly creeping forward and when they moved, we jumped on a car. I was 17 and had just graduated from high school and I was hoping to meet a girl that I had met the weekend before in Ocean City. She said she was going to Woodstock, so I told my parents it was going to be like a Boy Scout jamboree. After a couple hours of walking we reached the entrance and walked to the center of a nearly empty amphitheatre hillside where it sounded like they were still building the stage. This was around 9 AM. The hillside filled up with people as the day went on, but I stayed in my area that I considered the best seat in the house. I had never done drugs at the time, but I stayed awake for the next couple days. I enjoyed the lake for cleansing dip, the hamburger tent and I got my first tie-dyed shirt. The music was fantastic and I have impressed everyone I have met every since that I went to Woodstock. Never found the girl, took a bus home from Bethel.

It's all in bits and pieces, no flow or ebb to my memories, or lack of, just the distant feeling of pure amazement, fun, and wonder, too young to be affected by nature's conditions, consumed by the pure awe of it all. recreating my account follows..... i'm a 15 year old rebellious tomboy, a young hippie girl hanging with my hippie friends when we hear about woodstock. we HAD to go. I begged and lied to my parents, who finally caved and said yes, for my sixteenth birthday, if i got a job. I told mom that my best friend's older brother landed a job there and he backed me up and assured her i'd be in good hands. he wasn't even going. five guys and two girls in a van, the clan, the true adventure to be. a friend landed us a job painting a house in andover, mass, just north of Boston, where we lived, and to the owner's dismay, we blasted music, some got stoned (i opted for the tan), and we swirled our paint brushes yellow and played and laughed and sang on the roof and the ladders, and slowly the house was completed to their satisfaction(after threatening to fire us several times). we finally got paid. $75. in my pocket to burn at the concert.

now the fellow who owned the van was a few years older than us, we called him the general. he did all the planning for everything we did that summer and last, whether it was doing acid at hampton beach with led zeppelin playing at the casino (sold out, it only held 500 if that) the windows were all open so we sat right outside and listened to the whole show, peaking. i digress, or whether it was to go to harold parker forest to get stoned at the pond, or in the bird sanctuary at phillips academy, eddie(the general) led the way. he had just moved back home from Los Angeles where he had been working for the Doors. his older bro vince, was a sound tech genius, way ahead of his time, catching the wave of sound system layouts for bands, and they hired him to take care of theirs. their family business was the organ factory in town, where vince used to work for dad and started there and began working with speakers and sound as louder rock music progressed. another friend of ours had moved to la to work for the doors also in their office. Rick Arthur Tangway, RAT, known to us, who had the looks of keanu reeves and street smarts to boot. he grew up in lawrence. RIP, he died of a heroin overdose out there, go figure, with that crew. well, for some reason, eddie came back home, and he was legend in our minds. the general.

Thursday night, I was dropped off at my girlfriend's house, with a bikini, towel, a change of clothes, toothbrush and hairbrush, and my $75. Elation. Freedom. Adventure = Woodstock, here we come, no tickets, no GPS, just wait for the general to pick us up get on the mass pike and away we go. the energy and excitment fueled us into the night when the traffic on the pike slowed us down eventually to rushhour pace. stop and go. a seven hour drive turned into fifteen. we stayed up all night. eddie exited off the pike at one point to a relative's house, an uncle i think, and we were all invited inside for a few minutes. he owned a liquor store and eddie went down and purchased some wine and beer, nothing extravagant. the family was all very nice and wished us well on our way.

I experimented, but really didn't like drugs. pot made me paraoid, acid scary, and didn't like the taste of alcohol, but my bestfriend was on heroin. i think she and phil, who was eddie's age were both doing it in the van, but not in front of me. phil grew up down the street from me and was very protective. my friends derrick and jamie wreden, were the two i was closest to in the van. jamie, the younger bro, and i had a crush on each other and derreck was in love with my friend jill, the heroin user. another kid we went to high school with, billy cohen, was also with us. but he didn't hang with us all the time, there was a little distance, but he was a nice kid who enjoyed pot. very amicable crew. lots of conversation and laughter, same ideologies.

when we get back on the highway, it was about 3 am and bumper to bumper traffic. all the people started looking like us, which was wild, everyone started passsing joints and beers and smiles, and yeah, we're all going to woodstock. the rest areas and gas stations were all perpetual parties, with people stopping and going, but the party went on.

it's morning and we're too in awe to be tired, but we wanted to get there and evenutally we were on a county road, bumper to bumper, and you started seeing people walking down the sides of the roads, and acres upon acres of tents and parked cars on farmland. we knew we're getting close. suddenly, derrick who's sitting shotgun in the fan, spots two friends of ours as we pass, they're walking down the side of the road, we pull over and pick them up, they're soo happy to see us. it's the alternate goalie of our hockey team that derrick is also goalie for and his best friend. i see he has a can of coke in his hand and i'm parched from not having anything to drink for hours. "can I have a sip of that?" which he happily handed over, thankful to be picked up, tired from walking, and said pass it around. so i did. someone asked if they had any drugs and they slyly smiled and pulled a HUGE bag of acid, at least i don't know, 500 to a 1000 hits? and offered it around the van. i declined, but laughed because that's why they had been walking, to sell acid along the way. rollins, RIP, (he commited suicide 10 years later, educated, worked for a tv station), who's holding the bag announces," by the way, i dumped the residue of the pills in the coke can you drank, but shit, it shouldn't do anything major". i breifly panicked, but believed him. we took a corner down the road and dropped them off saying good bye, to look for a campsite, it was around noon, i think. the acid was just setting in as i was standing on the back of the van with the doors open, when we go over a huge bump on the farmland we were on, and i suddenly went flying about 15 feet into the air and land in the wet grass. they stopped and came back and asked if i was okay, which thankfully i was, one of the doors was slamming shut on me as a started my ascent, but oddly, i felt no pain. about five minutes later we decide on a spot and park, and i'm sitting on top of the van, taking in the sites, when derreck comes over and says why don't you get down? he looked like he was 20 feet below me, and i was scared and laughing at the same time, telling him i couldn't , i was up too high and he was too far away from me and i couldn't. he started laughing because he knew and i knew at the same time what was going on, the acid from the coke was kicking in, and i'm starting to hallucinate, my depth perception was shot. after laughing for about fifteen minutes he and his brother finally coaxed me down. jill and i decide to go find the stage is, already hearing that the fences had been torn down and it was now a free concert. the guys were too tired and too high, so off we went, we get out to the main street and jill says come on, let's cop a ride on this truck. well, this truck turned out to be Mountain's equipment truck and the roadies were all very nice. we thanked them for the ride, we were right at the stage. so then, we decide to go back and find the campsite, which was really challenging, because there were miles of the same vans, cars, tents, people, roads, but somehow jill managed to get us back there. we ate and rested awhile, yeah, right, high as kites, there was a faucet farmers used down the road where people were cleaning up, so i decide to go wash my hair. that water was freezing cold and i was peaking, that's the rush i remember about that. the water being ice cold.

it's getting later into the day and derrick and i decide to go down to the concert because it had to be starting. again, everyone's too tired and stoned to attempt it, so off we go, still tripping our brains out we get out to the road and tell derrick we have to cop a ride. everyone was riding on the hoods and trunks of cars, trucks etc. derrick claimed to be too high to even attempt jumping on a moving car, and i was too tired from walking not to, so i decided to jump on and said i'd meet him at the concert. brilliant. down the road i run into another close friend of mine, bert kates, a huge pot dealer who was from north andover, RIP, bert went missing 20 years later from a small plane crash, never found the body, only of a dead DEA agent, rumor has it he's been living in Antigua ever since. i jump off the car, meet the people he's with see his tent, ask him if he wants to come down to the concert and he passes, he's too high, and we say our good bye's and i hop on another car. in the back of mind mind i'm trying not to think about how i'm never going to find my way back to the campsite and may never see derreck, as i reach the site and the place is packed with people. ravi shankar is playing and bouncing off the hills; the energy surging is just incredible as i walk past the top of the hill and down into the hill where there's a sea of people and tripping, it was like waves and people i was walking on and over and thru, everyone was sitting down, so i was, and i'm looking for derreck, all over for derreck, a hundred thousand people and i'm going to find derreck? i walk all the way down to the middle of the front and around eyeing other people who are walking, no derreck. doom is slowly taking me over at the prospects of what am i going to do without my friends? when suddenly, out of the blue, i look to my right about twenty yards up in the crowd, our eyes meet. we were both elated and agreed to go back home to our camp site, if we could find it. at this point he was tired and we jumped on a car, and he miraculously found our road. my woodsto

In 69 I was a 16 year old in search of a deeper meaning of life. I walked in all the anti-war rallies and attended the war moratoriums. Lost a cousin in that war. I was experimenting with pot and acid in those days.
I was getting into the psyhcadelic music scene. From the summer of love in 67 to 69 , I started going to lots of concerts. I was enjoying the hippie culture scene.
In 69 when I heard about Woodstock, I said I have to get there. The line-up was incredible, many of my favorite bands were coming. I hitched a ride with 2 older friends and made the journey to Woodstock.
Day one , Friday arrived about midnite after sitting in hours of traffic and walking 10 miles. It was raining, we found a barn for shelter. Inside I was exposed to my first experience of "FREE LOVE".
Day two. Sat. ,I remember Creedence Clearwater, Santana, was sitting on the right side of the bowl. One of my hi-lites was being one of those people on the tower during Canned Heats performance. Actually saw a dude pissing off the tower right on people! At nite I moved to the left side looking at the stage (where the monument is today). Janis was fine, Sly really got the place hoppin, I danced to the music! I saw the Who close out the nite with an awesome show.
Day three, Sunday Lots of heavy downpours of rain, remember Joe cocker , I was covered in mud by now. Found a hippie camp with big bags of pot being shared, at leaset they said it was weed, it was very harsh!
Ten years after, Johnny Winter.....
Day four, Monday this was the first time I had eaten since Sat morn hog farm oats, I had a can of spagetti. Well I was waiting for my hero the whole weekend. I was afaid I missed Him but not to worry, I headed back to the stage, saw Sha Na Na and then my man Jimi came on. Oh yea!
The Experience blew me away. Actually Jimi called his band the Gypsy Sun and Rainbows (nothin but a band of gypsies) I'll never forget that show. This was my only chance to ever see Jimi Hendrix. I am so, glad I stayed till Monday to see him.
They have been calling me Purple Haze ever since! (Real name is Hayes) I left Woodstock with a better perspective on life. How to get thru tuff times how to share and care about people around me.
I left with the Woodstock Spirit, and I live it every day of my life.
I go back to Bethel every summer. starting with the 5th anniversary, the 10th, 15, and then the big one the 20th! that was awesome and still free, Since then I go back every year, so this will be my 24th trip back to the garden. Not alowed to camp their anymore, maybe on Yasgurs farm (Roy and Jeryls) or Hectors, but I will find a patch of land to rest on. I would love to go to the 40th anniv. show (Heros of Woodstock)
I originally did not want anything built on this land But now realize what they did is better than having an office building on the site.
So HEY ..Did I win a pair of tix for my story?
Thanks, Peace, Love , Music, TPH

I was 15 when Woodstock happened and I lived a world away from it. All my gods and heroes were there at the time. Then the record came out with the unforgettable gatefold cover and then the movie. Nearly a lifetime later and I still dream of being there and the opportunity I missed. Once, I even met someone who was there at the time and he related to me all the events which he could recall quite lucidly which brought it even more to life. One of the most memorable things he told me was that he still cries when he recalls the event and the sense of happiness and elation he experienced there! I dont want to miss this opportunity now 40 years later to live my dream and go there for this 40th anniversary and one way or another plan to "get myself back to the garden" for it! Love and Peace - Michael in Australia

I did not get to attend the 1969 festival but one of my memories of it is my father and I watching a news video of the concert-the video from the helicopter in the Canned Heat movie trailer-and my dad who was a WWII navy vet, makes the statement to me " They need to drop a bomb right in the middle of the s.o.b.s "and I am standing right next to him,high, thinking God I would give any thing to be there. God bless my Father! 1918-2004. I love you Dad. (However my wife and I have our tickets for the Heroes of Woodstock Concert @ Bethel Woods on 8/15)

Yes, I was there with the Crisis Team, from the Family of Woodstock organization. I can tell you that a "Love In" this was not. An ecstasy laden rave with George Clinton, food that no one could afford, a lack of sanitary facilities, total disorganization of the tent area, children separated from parents, heat stroke..and that was the good parts.

I was lucky; I had housing, indoor plumbing, free access to most areas, all the food and water that I could want, and a central place to re-organize. As a member of the crisis team my job was to intervene and assist when needed in whatever capacity was required. Most often this was to comfort some kid who was lost from his group, or to provide a resource for someone who was injured or not handling their trip well.

It was going okay, albeit all the problems until the last night. The Red Hit Chili Peppers were on and someone had passed out candles to hundreds of the kids that were gathered. The concert area was strewn with paper garbage ( services had broken down by the second day) and some of the kids started these massive bonfires with the garbage. One thing led to the other and things started to burn..I mean everything. The Chili Peppers were ushered offstage, the lights went out, the speaker towers were toppled by the kids, and anything that could burn was already burning. Innocent peoples cars were overturned and torched, and the vendor areas were ransacked and destroyed. Being on the crisis team meant that I was able to go to a secure area "behind the lines" while National Guard Troops were called in with full riot gear and tear gas. The medical team had created a triage area in a firehouse ( Woodstock 99 took place in Rome, NY on an old air force base that was being dismantled) and I was part of that team.

Thankfully that triage area was not utilized as the troops were able to get the kids under control with little injury to either party.

What a mess! But, if given the chance would I do it all over again? You bet your ass I would! I hope they do have another festival and that they contact me once again to participate. I would in a heartbeat!

Wishing I could have been there, but was in Vietnam at the time, just was able to read about it, being bummed that I could not be there, still love that era, always a hippie, will never change, not much else I could say, hope to make it to Bethel on august 15th.

Jim

First and foremost, thanks so much for the groovy site...I love it! I was 13 years old when Woodstock changed our world. I lived in Arizona at the time with my picture perfect, stay at home, June Cleaver type mom, my retired 28 year military, anti long hair, anti bell-bottom dad, and a handful of obedient siblings.

My hemp induced friends (mostly a couple of years older than me) and I were the neighborhood rebels that loved rock and roll and hitch hiking to Encanto Park to play Frisbee and hangout with other hippies. Although my dad insisted that my hair stay short, I was a long-hair at heart. I kept a small 20x20 foot freedom zone behind my dad's shed in the back yard with black lights, posters of Easy Rider, peace signs, and Ann Margret sitting on a Harley. My friends and I would sit together in "my world", listen to music and dream and try to figure out how to get to Woodstock.

The upcoming event was all the talk in my circle of "brothers and sisters". We decided that hitch hiking was our best option because we were already experts. Then there was the money issue. I was quite the entrepreneur even at 13. My best friend (now my brother-in-law) and I walked the neighborhood with a wheel barrel and gardening tools and trimmed palm trees. We actually did pretty good and saved a couple of hundred bucks. Out of about 10 of us that wanted to go, now there were 3. At that age, excuses are plentiful. Some of the classic excuses were; "I'm grounded", "I have football practice", "My girl friend won't go", and so many more. It was never "My parents won't even consider it" or "I'm only 13!". Regardless of all the excuses, I REALLY wanted to go. Unfortunately, I would have been alone in my travels which scared me enough to reconsider.

Forty years later with grandkids just about the age I was then, makes me laugh at what we were attempting to do. The dream and desire to go then is still alive in my soul. My family constantly reminds me that I never left that time maybe because I still listen to my 600 album collection, kept some of my peace medallions, still have hair down to the middle of my back, and still drive a 1968 VW bus.

I have most all of the memorabilia like unused tickets, ticket order form, magazines of the time regarding Woodstock and other fun items that keep me reminded of that special time. I chose not to attend the 94 and 99 events because I didn't believe that the bands scheduled and the venues represented the original event. I have now added to my collection a custom made Woodstock motorcycle (Kodak site attached). I would love to attend at least one of the 40th anniversary events with the motorcycle for others to enjoy as well.

If you like, cut and paste this rather lengthy address into your favorite browser which will show you the motorcycle I spoke of through the Kodak Gallery site.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=nmm3nir.5g8f864v&x=0&y=-ek5yyw&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_button

If this doesn't work, and you would like to see my pride and joy, please let me know and I'll try something different.....

I hope you enjoyed my story. I sure did because it took me right back to this special time.

Don’t forget …my fellow Woodstock Sojourners…the world, and the times we came from…growing up in the relative innocence of the 1950’s …followed up by one of the most tumultuous and violent decades in American History. This decade brought forth.. multi-faceted social upheavals on a massive scale.

To borrow from Charles Dickens…and applied to our time then:

“It was the best of times… It was the worst of times…It was the age of Wisdom…it was the age of foolishness…it was the epoch of belief…it was the epoch of credulity …it was the season of light…it was the season of darkness…it was the spring of hope…it was the winter of despair…we had everything before us…we had nothing before us…we were all going to heaven…we were all going the other way..“…etc..

The politics of war..…the politics of poverty, race, and injustice,... the politics of the freedom of women…..and the freedom of thought,..through our music, brought us all together that August, back in 1969...Driven by an unknown force,.. still not fully explained…a calling for all the tribes to gather…from every direction…on Yasgur’s farm.

It’s rather like the Steven Spielberg movie ”Close encounters of the Third kind.” Where all those people are called upon…to answer a calling… and are driven,... to get to some place they have never been…and get there no matter what. …To a happening.

Mary Johnson was her name, …A beautiful little blond …cute smile… and Oh,.could she dance. …She was from Buffalo NY, and I was from Wolcott, NY…We met each other on a beautiful warm Saturday night, along the shores of Lake Ontario, where we danced,..and walked on the beach,... and fell in love.

All us young guys from school, would “go to the Point”…Sodus Point NY, our summer hang out …to the Arcade there, where we would try to meet pretty girls, and dance the night away…hoping….hoping.

Mary and I kept in touch daily from that time on…sneaking phone calls to each other whenever we could …

I used to read the” Village Voice“ when I could. ..It's where I first saw an ad for the concert…I could hardly believe the line up …Joplin,.. Hendrix, ..Jefferson Airplane ..the Who …Richie Havens and so many more…I had to go…no matter what… I sent for some tickets for Mary and Me.
My parents were against my going to some “Hippie Camp out”…and wanted me to stay home and keep working on the farm…but the calling was too strong …I had to go then, ...tickets or not.

Fortunately, in the end, my tickets did not arrive before I left with Mary, or they never would have survived the devastation's of rain, mud,and mass humanity. Thankfully, I still have my original tickets today., because they finally arrived a week after Mary and I had already gone.

I conspired with my girlfriend, for us to meet up early in the morning, ...we were gonna run away together…even though the concert wasn’t for nearly two more weeks yet…I couldn’t remain at home any longer…those teenage things... we all went through, ...had caused a major blow out between my parents and me, ...so I decided to leave.

I went through the house… and stole every can of soup, every can of food, …packages of dry soups, and rice…stuffed it all in a couple of duffel bags with my clothes…met up with Mary…and both ran off …to Woodstock,.. to what would be the most magical adventure of our lives.

It was a real shame…three of my best friends from school…saw us hitch hiking near my home town…and decided to go ahead…and drive us both…all the way to the town of Woodstock…a pretty long and tiring drive of about 200 miles…. Where John Weber, Andy Wadsworth, and Paul Reed, my good friends,... decided to turn around and go all the way back home, so not to get in trouble with their parents…and no matter my pleas…I watched them as they drove off…leaving Mary and I behind…in this little town called Woodstock. …and missing the time of their lives.

I think it was in a little coffee shop there in Woodstock…that Mary and I found out that the concert had been moved…again… to some little place called Bethel …We had no idea on earth where it was…but a truck driver we asked…told us that he was going through Bethel…and he would give us a ride there…If we would help him load up his truck, with hundreds of heavy masonry tile blocks, from an old corn silo, that was torn down, that he was to haul away… we agreed to help him. …It was very late at night, and we were fully exhausted, when we actually arrived at Yasgur’s farm… Finally,...the concert site!
We just threw our tent on the ground…not bothering to put it up…crawled into the collapsed tent…tired from the very long day….made beautiful love…and fell asleep together.

The sounds of people walking around, firing up the campfire for a pot of morning coffee, …the smell of burning wood in the chilled morning air,.. woke Mary and me. …It was the first time we had ever been so far from home...…we got out of our tent…and stepped out,.. into history being made.

Hippies to the right of me… Hippies to the left of me …as we set our little tent up, and tied it up to the chain link fence that ran down the length of our camp site area… The guy camped on one side…from Scotland… and Boston on the other, smoking a morning joint in his plastic sheathed lean-to. …Hippies everywhere we went. Hippies on "Gentle Path".Hippies on "High Way".. How wonderful.

On our way from the tent,… passing the psychedelic painted buses of the Hog farmers, Mary and I walked towards the pond to bathe with so many others " Au Natural", …trying to absorbed the wonderment we saw everywhere around us…on that beautiful farm. We had food we shared…and when we ran out…those incredible Hog Farmers fed us... I think it was the best rice and Beans I ever ate.
It was kind of odd though, that every day there …we met more and more people that, like us, had no tickets…some had paid…some had not. …We thought of the possibility of all of us .. just “storming the gates”…..Ha ha,.. who knew,.. the day we all finally began "the invasion of the bowl” …that the gates were wide open, and the concert made free.

At the time, I remember being pretty upset,.. that I had lost my High School ring, somewhere on Yasgur’s farm in the mud, where our little pup-tent was set up... After all, the genuine Gold tone finish, with it’s simulated Emerald stone, cost me a whopping $88.00 or so,… a lot of money back then,...for a high school kid.

As the years went by,.. and life went on,… I sort of forgot about it,… forgot about the ring… But these days, I am so happy that it was lost on Max’s beautiful farm …where “The Gathering” made such history. .. In many ways…I never left Woodstock…Wearing the title proudly ever since of “Woodstock Hippie”… It has always been in my heart… and leaving the ring there…is like leaving a small part of me there…in that sacred ground.
One door closing…another world opening…the same with the ring…Ironically, on it “Leavenworth Central High “, the name of my school…sounding much like the penal institution to us teenage rowdy dreamers,.. that wanted to break away…to break out of one existence, and into another. …To me that silly little ring, became a symbol of my change between those two worlds… Teen aged.. seeking adulthood... Pre-Woodstock/ Post Woodstock.

There is little need for me to comment on the extraordinary music there. It was all incredible. .. We all have our favorites we remember… we all heard the music in our own way…listening to our musical hero’s ...sharing all.…with the music echoing,.. all around the rolling wooded hills…the night sky filled with the meteorites of the August Persiad meteor belt…the cool mountain summer air, filled thick with the smell of Weed, incense, and wooded camp fires …”We must be in heaven, Man!”

Late that Monday afternoon, after Hendrix’s earlier performance, Mary and I finally connected with a ride going south…they were headed to Virginia… I was headed for DC. I wanted to be there…I wanted to be in the political epicenter.. of what was about to happen there,…as we finally confronted…Nixon.!
Leaving, …staring out the rear window of the car…seeing Yasgur’s farm fading into the distance… we felt a little sadness that it was over…but a huge sense of excitement… to tell everyone I met…what really happened there.

Thousands of Cars, Trucks, buses, and campers of every description, were abandon, as far as one could see,.. on both sides of the roads in every direction …I wondered about those people… that felt the calling so strongly,… that they just left their vehicles and went the extra 20 miles or so…any way they could. …Nothing would stop them. …Nothing stopped all of us.
I have always considered all of those thousands of people, that were stuck on the New York State Thruway..and all the highways in every direction…That never even got close to the site…to also be members by default…of the “Woodstock Hippies” …they all heard, and answered the call as well.
It was the most incredible time of my life. I have carried those memories with me always…and have always wanted to thank those guys…Mike Lang, and Artie Kornfeld
For what they gave us all…what they gave the world…what they gave to history.
I wanted to see them in person …to say my thanks…and to.. " Shake the hands..that shook the World."

…This is MY Woodstock story…by Allen R.Rowe, class of 1969...Yasgur’s Farm.

I knew it would happen. It's 3:am in the morning and I can't sleep. I'm thinking about the trip I made back to Bethel NY in August 2008, to the site of the original Woodstock Festival. I had arrived here once before in 1969, now 39 years later I embraced the same woman then a girl who had saved my life. I had arrived upon the shores of White Lake way back then, on an old junker motorcycle, a suicide machine as battered and beat up as my own mind and body. The fact that either the bike or myself made the hundred-mile trip the first time was quite remarkable in itself.

I was a broken young man. One who set out to save the world only to become overcome by the waves of evil and despair which pervaded the reality I found myself in, in 1960's America. I was deaf to the phrase "I love you" from those that mattered most, I was dumb to the ways of the world as I emerged from an autistic mind set, and blinded to any possibility of overcoming the deep feelings of angst and alienation which weighed down heavily upon me. It was upon that very bike, stoned and unable to see clearly through darkened sun- glasses I hurled myself at incredible speeds towards wooden telephone poles at night on the winding road that ran through my mind and where I actually travelled in the real world. Knowing that a centimeter closer and it would be all over.

I was a seminarian who had faltered, ill equipped to battle the existential windmills of grief placed before me. I carried the hopes and aspirations of my monsignor, my parish, and the small Village of Irvington NY upon my shoulders: and I was losing the battle. Unable to fathom the chaos before me (civil unrest, assassinations, war) I drugged and drank myself into oblivion falling backwards into locked church doors-ways in the middle of the night.

And as I look at this picture I am brought to tears. There in front of me stands a woman, now a grandmother. Behind her looms the Bethel Woods Museum, on the very spot we spent three days in the mud together. She is checking in on the grandkids - our grandkids! The irony is quite profound.

Stuck in traffic on my bike off 17b in August of 1969 a young seventeen girl opened the door and exited the car in front of me. As she walked shoeless toward me, her waist-long hair blowing gently in the breeze little did I know my life would be changed forever? She asked if I would take her down the side of the road on my bike, to wait for the traffic to clear. I agreed and rode toward the festival site with a shoeless Maria. We waited for hours, the car never made it. After several attempts to locate the car, we embraced each other, and rode together into the concert. The rest is history.

Christopher Cole
author of
The Closer's Song
a Woodstock novel

First of all I would like to say..man, Willits what are u thinking!!

Back in 1994 my sister, Tami, and best friend, Sara, and I took off across the USA. Our goal: Woodstock 94! It took us 3 days to cross, stopping a few times to look for wild hemp..

I grew up with the drummer from Greenday, Tre Cool, and we had this tie-dye banner made supporting Greenday, we didn't know how we where going to fly our banner, so in the middle of the road somewhere in New York we came across 2 pieces of 2x4,and made posts for our banner, this banner saved us a few times from the rain and wind at Woodstock 94, so now I own a great piece of Woodstock 94.

The best part of the banner is Tre Cool signed it for me. I have so much to share about Woodstock 94... pics, video in Bethel, New York... and so many wild stories. I was so happy to hear Woodstock 2009 was going to be in Willits, CA, my home town!!

PLEASE .... let me know how much Woodstock 2009 tickets are going to be...my turn to share with my kids WOODSTOCK!!!

KRISTINA MCGINNIS

One of my most vivid memories while at Woodstock comes back every time I hear Canned Heat's "Up to the Country". I had to use a port o potty really bad! I kept going from one to another looking for a semi-clean place to do my business. Canned Heat was on stage doing their song "going up to the country" the whole time. Every time I hear this song I smile.