The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18001 Message #2699841
Posted By: Jerry Rasmussen
13-Aug-09 - 08:29 PM
Thread Name: Your Woodstock Memories?
Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
I had tickets (and still have them) for me and my first wife. She was 7 and a half months pregnant with twins and her doctor wisely advised that she not go, so I asked a young kid friend of mine if he'd like to come along instead. I was nervous about being gone for the weekend, so I didn't plan to stay any later than the first night.
When we finally got to the place where they wer parking cars, I pulled into this open field with cars lined up to infinity, and my friend Steve and I started following the crowd down an old country road. After we'd been walking for awhile, I asked someone if they knew where the stage was and they pointed, "up there." It was late in the afternoon by then and I could see a faint pinpoint of light on the horizon. I felt like we were on our way to Oz. And as it turned out, we were.
By the time we got to Woodstock, the fences had long since been smashed to the ground and there was no one to take our tickets (which are now quite the collector's item. By then, the crowd was so big and we were so far away from the stage that we had to take everyone's word that someone was actually up there. No sooner had we listened to an hour or two of music than a violent thunderstorm rolled in, almost tearing the stage apart, so they had to stop the concert. I was getting increasingly edgy about being away from home with my wife so close to childbirth, and we were drenched by then. I'd told my wife that we'd come back after the concert that night, and Steve was supposed to be home then, too, so we trudged our way back and miraculously found my car.
On the way back, the traffic was still backed up with cars on the way to Woodstock, even after we'd been driving for an hour. We stopped along the way back about that time to get something to eat and there were some kids huddled around, talking about getting to Woodstock. When we told them we'd been there, they were mesmerized by our conversation, as if we'd just seen Santa Claus. When we left, I didn't have the heart to tell them that they were going the wrong way.
Jerry