Your Woodstock Memories?

Subject: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: harpgirl
Date: 09 Feb 00 - 10:10 PM

...several of you have mentioned your attendance at Woodstock. Would you share your stories? I myself stayed in Ann Arbor for a protest march. Robbin Fleming, UofM president at the time attended the march and was also gassed...

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: The Shambles
Date: 10 Feb 00 - 06:08 AM

At the very end of the festival, watching when all the weary souls were picking their way home through the mud.

The lights then went up and I was sitting in a warm, comfortable cinema in London's West End!

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Easy Rider
Date: 10 Feb 00 - 01:39 PM

I was there. What a time that was! I went back there, 25 years later, and I could still feel the energy in the place.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 10 Feb 00 - 01:53 PM

The week before Woodstock, I attended my first Fox Hollow folk festival. Mostly traditional music; had a great time. (Now *there's* a festival whose memories should be collected!) The next weekend I was back at my summer job. However, for the rest of the summer, and a bit longer than that, I had to reassure many elderly relatives that I didn't go to "that horrible thing in Bethel!"

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 10 Feb 00 - 02:11 PM

I remember going there with my dad, and coming back with my mom...

;-)

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 00 - 02:41 PM

They did the operation there?? Wow!

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Feb 00 - 06:06 PM

Lots of good memories. I got there more or less by chance - I was over there for a pacifist conference due the next week, and someone offered me a lift to some kind of festival that was going on.

I remember waking up smashed in the morning and wandering over to the Hog Farm free kitchen, where I found myself working stirring up peculiar messes of food and serving it to lines of survivors, holding the tent down when the rainstorm broke upon us and nearly blew us away, and joining in a jug band when night came around. Better than any of the music on stage. And some of that was pretty good.

The someone comes round wirth boxes of chiocky bars and that that was supposed to be thrown out to people wedged up the front, and I got in for that, up on stage while Fefferson Airplane were playing, before we got to do our throwing act. SomI wasn't just at Woodstock, I was on stage there!

Come the 25th anniversary someone on our local paper thought they'd find a local angle on it, and came and interviewed me about it. (Well there aren't many Woodstock survivors in West Essex, I think, and my son had told him about me).

Thinking about it afterwards I wrote a song:

The Great Music Show

When I got there, all around
you could feel it start to grow.
There were thousands upon thousands,
people moving to and fro,
and the roads were blocked behind us -
there was no way you could go.
We were cast away, so far away
in that Great Music Show.
(Ch)And I stood in the rain,
and I wondered through the show,
and I saw what I saw,
and I know now what I know,
and it's all been so long
and so very long ago -
but I'm glad I was part
of that Great Music Show.

Well the smoke and the sunshine
nearly felled me like a blow,
but I rose like a salmon
as my mind began to glow,
And I was heaving like a sailor
when the tent began to go,
and the wind and the rain
they were walking to and fro.
(Ch)And I stood in the rain,
and I wondered through the show,
and I saw what I saw,
and I know now what I know,
and it's all been so long
and so very long ago -
but I'm glad I was part
of that Great Music Show.

And the music on the mountain
in the morning when we rose
seemed to open up a wiondow
that could never quite be closed.
And the brightest and the best
they may have died so long ago,
but I saw them there all shining
at the Great Music Show.
(Ch)And I stood in the rain,
and I wondered through the show,
and I saw what I saw,
and I know now what I know,
and it's all been so long
and so very long ago -
but I'm glad I was part
of that Great Music Show.

And you can ask me for the reasons
why we ever chose to go
to those hills so far and foreign
to a place we did not know.
But the reasons they are hidden
in the days of long ago,
when the world stood amazed
at that Great Music Show.
(Ch)And I stood in the rain,
and I wondered through the show,
and I saw what I saw,
and I know now what I know,
and it's all been so long
and so very long ago -
but I'm glad I was part
of that Great Music Show.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 01:48 AM

What a great song, McGrath! I'd love to hear it. I have two Woodstock memories. First were the commercials on our "underground" radio station WMMR in Philadelphia, for the "Woodstock Music and Art Fair" -- I imagined people walking around forested groves looking at art displays while guitars strummed sweetly all around. Then I was in the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC that August on my way to a B'nai B'rith youth camp in Starlight, Pa., and looking at all these impossibly muddy people with packs and ponchos, coming back from Woodstock. That was as close as I got, at 15.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 10:37 AM

I missed Woodstock. I was otherwise engaged in services I was rendering for the government after they were unable to give me a good reason why I should run off and kill people. My buddy Donna did go and I heard all about her experiences, not a lot of which related to the music. But she loved it and as I read McGrath's experiences, I believe that he may have met her.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: GUEST,Jack
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 10:42 AM

I loved the one where Snoopy helped him build a nest.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:01 AM

I have this image in my mind now, forever linked to that time, of McGrath rising up like a salmon. You know what salmon look like...thick and sorta pink...A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:08 AM

LOL-Amos! Kevin, that is a beautiful song! Thanks for sharing it with us.

I was stuck in semi-rural Colorado, at barely 16, madly in love, I thought (more like "lust"), and the closest I came to Woodstock was going into the local headshop, wearing a bandana with a daisy stuck in it around my head, throwing off my bra, and prancing around in a city fountain without getting caught by the "pigs".

kat

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:16 AM

Man, what a picture, kat! "Bra-less bandanna'd daisy-wearer found in fountain!! No pigs around! " -- Headline from the SemiRuralColorado Bugle, April 23, 1967.

I was already treading on steel decks when Woodstock occurred; but I had been running my own private version for a number of years in the back fields of Fairfield County. My mother told me she thought I should leave town. I just can't remember why she thought that :>)...

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:20 AM

1967??????!!!!! I thought it was 1969!!!! In that case....14?? Sheesh, what a blah year..no pigs, nothing! Are you sure about that, Amos??? Oh and the paper was what we actually called the "Daily Senile", still there.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:27 AM

Old TImer's Disease, dear ... if it was 1969 I was even further removed from my wicked days of delirious dissipation. Sorry. It's a residual side effect of all that "stop" I was smoking back then. Weird, huh?

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:33 AM

Whew! You old bat, ya had me worried, er, weirdied,:-)

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: annamill
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:56 AM

I was in WOODSTOCK that weekend. My first husband grew up in Woodstock and we went down to visit his family totally unaware of what was going on 50 miles south of us. We were coming down from Syracuse by way of 87 (NY Thruway) and at one point, as we were going 65 mph, two vans were riding in front of us. First the back door of one van opened and then the back door of the other opened. Out came two men(one in each doorway) obviously on their way to Bethel. As they stretched across the highway passing a joint between them, my husband and I almost got into an accident from laughing so very hard. We, in Woodstock, got a lot of the residuals from Bethel. Even in town, there was that feeling of love. My ex-brother-in-law was the town police chief and he told us some very funny stories of that weekend.

There was a poet/protester at the time that was well known in Washington Square and Woodstock, if not to the rest of the world. His name was Big Brown. Well, one day he comes to town and parades out on our green all wrapped in the American flag. This didn't sit well with Billy, the Chief of Police (also my brother-in-law) who promptly took him into custody. As Billy drove Brown up to the Police station he happened to notice that our town flag out on the green was pretty ragged. Weelll..they made a deal. If Brown would donate the flag to the town, Billy wouldn't charge him. Brown made the donation and Billy had him stand and watch while the ragged flag was lowered and Browns flag was run up. There it was, blowin' in the wind, so to speak. Brown was pretty proud and Billy, the pig, made a friend.

Billy also stopped Doc Watson in his car (chaeufer was driving) for speeding and instead of giving him a ticket, brought him home to show him a few licks on the guitar. Billy also played Folk. Mostly the modern stuff though. So Doc's driver got out of a ticket and Billy had the honor of having Doc teach him a few.

That was Woodstock! That was why it was so great! I try to keep that feeling near to me. It was dear.

Love, annap

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: GUEST,mullet
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 03:53 PM

I was camping out at a place called the Rockpile.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: bbelle
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 07:15 PM

Summer of Love was 1967 - Woodstock was 1969 ... moonchild

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 07:46 PM

'68 was the Moratorium and King and Kennedy......'70 was Kent State.

Just to fill in the time line,

Spaw

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: bbelle
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 08:15 PM

Spaw ... thanks ... for filling in the dominoes ... moonchild

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 08:40 PM

Didn't get to hear a lick of music didn't even get withi eye sight of an instrument or stage. Ended up swimming in some nearby pond. Only thing that stands out was the Digger's tent & I don't even remember why that is. My guess is that if I remembered it then I couldn't have been there. Did have a good time though. Was 1 year late for the summer (67) of love out in San Francisco ), hey it was a long hitch hike from Boston, more like a long walk. Barry

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:16 PM

Lived in FIllmore and hung out in North Beach in 1963-4, earned my beer singing folksongs around, but there weren't any flower children there yet -- it was kind of like water just before it boils -- the notion was beginning to float in the air that something was gathering momentum, but no-one could quite say what it was.

In North Beach the scene was still coffee shops, poetry reading and folksinging. The Beatles had made the charts wanting to hold your hand, the Cuban Crisis was well behind us, and "poet" and "struggling" were synonyms, except perhaps for Robert Frost -- GInsberg had had "Howl" out for --- I guess-- a few years; Corso was renowned, but I don't think even Ginsberg was making much dough. They still did poetry readings at the City Lights in that time.

Christmas was coming, and I had left home fairly abruptly, so I bought nice knickknacks at Pier One to mend my bridges with family.

In those days, I did piece-work for Manpower to buy smokes and hotdogs. After a while, with a girlfriend's help, we decided we could afford a Lambretta, and I loved that little scooter and tootled all over the hills of San Francisco.

That November, I was slowing down behind a pickup truck on one of those steep hills that ends in a traffic light, balancing the Lambretta and shivering slightly, and a strange guy in a red baseball hat opened the door of the truck and hollered back to me, as though we had known each others for years, "Hey buddy! They just shot the President!!!""

An hour later, I began to shake, and all that day the strange and terrible understanding of what had happened was still sinking in.

That was more than thirty-five years ago, and sometimes I think it still is.

But you woulda had to've been there, I guess. Kinda like Woodstock, which I missed from far away at sea. Sorry for the thread creep, guys.

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:31 PM

Thread drift. Or you could say, organic thread growth.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: bbelle
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:35 PM

Amos ... those are the memories that bind those of us who "lived" the era. It's totally unique and totally difficult to explain to those who didn't live it. What has always amazed me is that I can meet someone for the first time, who is around my age, and the conversation generally works around to the late 60's and there is an instant bond. And, even though we may be on opposite sides of the issues at that time, there is still a bond. How do you explain it to someone who wasn't even born then. I was living in Washington, DC, dealing with being watched and protected by feebies because my father was a spook. I did manage to sneak away and join the candlelight march across the 14th Street Bridge and I was dying inside because my fiance' was Navy Intelligence, stationed in Vietnam. I was almost leading a double life. The love story didn't end happiliy. When he returned stateside, something had died inside him. I think it was his heart because he couldn't love anymore ... moonchild

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 10:51 PM

Despite what the numbers say, I think the sixties started with Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and ended with the Watergate break-in in 1972. In between, there was this feeling for a while that things really could be different, that maybe there could be a new revolution. I don't know if that kind of feeling could capture the whole country again as it did then, now that everything that happens anywhere is instant-messaged everywhere and coopted by Microsoft and McDonald's. But hey, we still have the memories -- and the music! And Seattle showed that "power to the people" isn't dead yet, so who knows?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:45 PM

moonchild:

I think he was ground in an emotional, mental, spiritual gristmill; the price millions who paid even if they never lost a finger in SE Asia. Those who built and bought and sold the machinery of it were not immune; those who gathered and assessed the information of it could not turn off their minds when the files were closed; those who were captured, wounded, broken in battle one way or the other with nothing but their own resilience to fall back on, and too little of that...I skirted it all, because I would not subscribe, one way or the other; but your life was in the middle of it. What a tale! Thanks for sneaking away to hold that candle.

I think perhaps in our world, we have built up technology to serve where we used to use conviction, passion and individual courage. Courage today means leaving your salary to risk it all on an Internet startup. In broad media terms, anyway. But what difference does that make. The newspapers neither knew much about and certainly never provided or nourished courage, because it doesn't sell papers until it collides with something. No more would it ever come from technology.

Sometimes the hardest question is which path courage would truly choose. For some, going to Woodstock meant breaking every bond with their home environments.

For others, not going to Vietnam meant inviting a lifetime of doubt and possibly castigation.
ANd for sure going there meant swallowing more doubt, more terror, than the rest of the world combined.

I don't think individuals are really any less courageous today than they were then. I just think we are making different stories, featuriong different virtues (if that is the word).

Seattle is a good example. It would take something extraordinary to capture the minds of a large number, and in fact it may be that we are less liekly to experience that because of the multi-threaded high-speed nature of communication today; the mainstream media are no longer the unifying notion of what is real -- we all belong to our colonies and islands.

Somehow, the act of standing up and singing reverses that, and restores the clarity of one voice reaching one ear clearly, touching one handful of hearts, and showing courage. Mudcat is like that...that's why I lov eit so.

I am rambling -- it's gettin' late. I just had a real<.Guinness, and even though it had arrived in a can, the young man was kind enough to pour it into a proper tall slope-sided glass, chilled. Quel plaisir, ca! Thanks for your thoughtful post.

Soon,

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:55 PM

The underline above should end after "real" where the broken bracket can be seen lying amongsat the letters like a rusted plow. Good night, Gracie...

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: MarkS
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 12:07 AM

I was not able to attend Woodstock, I was on a Landing Zone near the Cambodian border at the time. Made it pretty hard to get away for the weekend.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 12:37 AM

Jesus, Mark. Tell?

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 02:14 AM

Moon, your post and then the one by Amos are very hard to get out of my mind. And I agree with the Hawaiian beachcomber...the period can be extended by a few years in either direction. Perhaps it is our age now which draws us together...I don't know. All of us have a tale to tell. And I know that some anger still resides in some, but considering the devisiveness of the period, there is now an odd unity that exists.

I believe it exists because we came of age together in a very troubled time. It isn't VietNam, or Civil Rights, or the War on Poverty, or any one thing. It exists because we were forced into the difficult decisions that young people have always had to make, but during one of the greatest periods of change in this country's history. It was a long and winding road between Camelot and Watergate.

Unlike our parents who shared the generally "unifying(?)" experience of WWII, we are unified by the very things that may have divided us back then. Its much like the aftermath of the Civil War and I'm often struck with the number of our generation who are CW "buffs." In many ways we are all equally troubled and enlightened by our experiences of that time...and we all served the country. If you rode a bus through Alabama, ran a Community Center in Chicago, fought in Asian jungle, fought for land ownership in the Appalachians against big business, walked a picket line in Detroit........All of these things served to move us forward, if not to a better time, at least away from a time of less compassion and understanding.

I suppose my concern today is that courage and commitment are now seen in the terms Amos describes so accurately, and on the subjects which seem more tied to money than "movement." The problems of race and civil liberties, poverty, homelessness, and war, have not left us, but too often they are skimmed over by the phrase, "Well, things are a lot better now." They are better, but problems still exist and the job is unfinished. We become bitter about today because we no longer have the energy of our youth. But we can focus on one area and concentrate our remaining energies and passions toward making a difference there.

And we can also try to pass on the spirit of that decade of social upheaval. Song is an excellent way of doing just that. But we need to choose the songs that tell of the courage and passion and not those which divided us then and encourage those same divisions today.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 03:04 AM

I was playing cars wth the boy down the road, whilst my sister and brother went to school, and my mother cleaned for a living. Dad was working for the REME (Army Engineers)and all I remember was desperately wanting to get to school so I wouldn't have to play with this boy (his name was Mark)again..... When I did start in September, dammit if he wasn't in the same class!

Besides, I was told that if you remember Woodstock, you weren't there!

LTS

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 03:37 AM

"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 incredulity, 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 direct to to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 05:06 AM

That's the start of Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, which you likely knew anyway. (Pity he spoiled the brilliant opening by the arch style of the last couple of lines.)

The thing is, though in a sense that's true of any period, there are particular times of upheaval which have a peculiar quality, the French Revolution being one, and the Sixties another. And we're probably getting into another one now. The peculiar quality is to do with a conflict that binds opponents together, and separates them from people who aren't involved in the conflict.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:08 AM

This is very interesting and I am enjoying reading everyone's thoughts. A kind of funny thing is Rog, my SO, was stationed in the Phillipines, in the Air Force, working in communications. Because of his high security clearance he was one of the "chosen" who had to help unload bodies, at night, so that no one would know the true numbers and he was sworn to secrecy. The funny thing is that while serving there, a huge hurricane hit. For his service and bravery in the face of such, he has a piece of paper, an award, from Marcus, plus a bronze medal. When Imelda was doing her *thang* we had a chuckle over that.

For a ray of hope that there citizens who care and are working at the grassroots level, in a national way, just not out in the streets, you might be interested in www.moveon.org. Here is a blurb from their homepage:

"MoveOn is dedicated to realizing the potential of the Internet to democratize politics. With a system that today revolves around big money and big media, most citizens are left out. When it becomes clear that our "representatives" don't represent the public, the foundations of democracy are in peril. MoveOn and the Internet will be a catalyst for a new kind of grassroots involvement, supporting busy but concerned citizens in finding their political voice.

What does MoveOn do?

"When there is a disconnect between broad public opinion and legislative action, MoveOn builds electronic advocacy groups. Examples of such issues are impeachment, gun safety, nuclear disarmament, and campaign finance. Once a group is assembled, MoveOn provides information and tools to help each individual have the greatest possible impact. As an example, during impeachment, MoveOn's grassroots advocates generated more than 250,000 phone calls and a million emails to Congress. We helped Congress come to understand the depth of public opposition to impeachment."

Whether you agree with their stance or not, it is a very interesting and timely movement.

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:11 AM

"It was a long and winding road between Camelot and Watergate"

And only ... what, eleven years between them? Nicely put, 'SPaw. On the other hand 11 years ago modems came in 300 and 1400 baud, the Berlin Wall was still up, but not for long, and Tienamen Square was in the near future. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and "If You Don't Know Me By Now" was on the charts, as was Bette Midler singing "Wind Beneath My Wings" plus scores of songs I am happy to have forgotten. George Bush was about to be elected and "Batman" , "When Harry Met Sally", and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" released. The technological breakthrough was the ability to make a phone call via radio from a car. There are emotional scenes at the Old Bailey in London as the Guildford Four are declared innocent of crimes for which they served 14 years. The Internet was unknown, generally.

But the eleven years between 1963 and 1974 were more intense, more towering in scale, somehow, than the eleven years since George Bush stepped down. What made it so -- the tectonic nature of events? The intensity of that 11 years was unusual not only subjectively, I think. Itwas a multidimensional watershed of a decade and I for one still have not figured it out .

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: bbelle
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:55 AM

In 30 years, I've never spoken or written of the above. "Saying" it aloud is strangely cathartic and extremely unsettling. So many of the G.I.'s returned stateside in the same state as my fiance. So many of the G.I.'s suffered/continue to suffer from PTSD ... buy nothing has ever been said about the girlfriends, fiance's, wives, families who suffer it as well. I've never married, not because I haven't had ample opportunity, but because I've never had closure with my relationship with Sam. I still think of him and what might have been. There are those who say "That's ridiculous, you have to move on." I harbor such resentment towards the powers that be that put us there. I've never said much outwardly because I come from a military family ... father is retired from the Navy and sister is retired from the Air Force ... and I have close friends who are also retired from military service ... and out of respect for them, I keep it inside. Lately, I don't feel safe speaking my mind on the mudcat form, however, in this particular thread I do. This thread was started asking for Woodstock memories ... well these are my Woodstock memories and they aren't full of being at a great party and smoking pot and everybody loving everybody else. "Whoa, moonchild, get a grip!" ... moonchild

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 10:04 AM

Moonchild,

Seems to me you have a fine grip -- especially in respect of the fact that you know what you have inside and can see it. Pity those whose same turmoil is all locked up in a GLad Bag personality (shiny and modern outside and full of garbage that can't be viewed)! :>)

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 10:50 AM

Hi Moonchild, so many of us lost so much for so little reason & I think worst of all we somehow were split apart & lost each other when we could've found so much together. I refused to serve when my number was called, the brother that I never really had was a "seal on a sub" & came back & had many children with many wives & could never find out how to transfer his service skills (underwater demolition) to a shoreside career & really never came home at all, I've always had the hope that one day he'd find his way back but I don't think so. Some things won't die they won't even fade away. My memories above of Woodstock & the 60's was of loss & an attempt at how to eal & cope with that loss & of being (in hindsight) as a real battleground as my brother's, we all fought & there were no winners. Barry

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 12:03 PM

Still it haunts us. Yesterday in Phoenix, after thirty years of living under an assumed identity, a anti-war protester/student, Howard Mechanic, has been sent back to prison to finish serving the five years he was sentenced to for throwing a cherry bomb at firefighters during protests the day after four students were killed at Kent State.

According to newspaper reports, he has lived a productive life of social activism with integrity. One friend of his, a Vietnam War veteran, "It's an echo of a difficult time in our history. The sentence was way out of proportion...he was a young man of conscience."

Friends are collecting signatures on a petition to have him pardoned.

kat

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 12:13 PM

Everyone has a history and a background of experiences which color their lives, no matter the decade or century of their birth. What is obvious too is that certain periods have had a profounder effect than others. The lack of closure is common to the 60's generation.

Certainly there are many who went on untroubled by events and experiences of the times, but for most of us that is not true. It doesn't mean we aren't functional people. It does mean we see the world in a light colored by events uncommon to other age groups. Can we ever completely close the door? No, nor should we, but I recall Jim Kunen writing that "every revolution leaves a trail of screwed in its wake." This particular upheaval left the majority of us "screwed in its wake." We're functional, but we continue to ask what might have been.

Spaw--CEO, Neil Young Center for the Terminally Screwed

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 12:15 PM

Geeziz...Interesting cross post there kat!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: MarkS
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 12:29 PM

Amos - I was a groundpounder between October 68 and October 69. One of the terminal points of the Ho Chi Minh trail was on the Cambodian side of the border by War Zone C. Highway 13 ran through Tay Ninh province to Saigon, and my unit acted as speedbumps for the NVA coming down the trail. Kept on folkin, as they say. One fond memory was doing The Big Muddy on a Vietnamese guitar for an audience of soldiers, surrounded by a sandbag berm!

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 01:38 PM

What a picture. Thanks. I hesitate to ask how your unit "acted as speedbumps". But I sure like the picture of that Big Muddy number.

I went up the Mekong in a long tail boat as far as Burma a few years back, the high point of a visit to Thailand; the Cambodian side was populated with very ragged fisherfolk, with none of the development in evidence on the Thai side; the lil brown kids would gallop along the bank and even swim out to the boat in spite of the risk, to get some pennies or sugar candies from the tourists going upstream.

Amazing area, amazing people, and still haunted with the memories of vilent times.

Thanks for the pictures. :>)

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: GUEST,GUEST:PoppaGatorXIV
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 01:38 PM

I was living at home (i.e., w/ my parents) in New Jersey that summer, working 5 days a week at the chewing gum factory. I was supposed to have graduated from college that June, but I wound up 3 credits short, and my scholarship and draft deferment had both expired.

We'd been reading all through the work-week about the mobs, traffic jams, etc., and I had no expectations of attending Woodstock-at-Bethel -- especially with the NY Throughway and other major highways shut down. But after work on Friday, an old friend called from Long Island, asking if I wanted to drive up and see if we could get anywhere near this big event. He had just acquired an uncle's 1947 Pontiac; first he'd puck up his buddy in Staten Island, who'd spent all his childhood summers in the Catskills and might be able find a way through the back roads to the festival.

It was nearly midnight on Friday by the time these two guys arrived to pick me up, after fighting Friday evening traffic across Queens, Brooklyn, the Verrazano bridge, Staen Island, and central NJ. Plus which, it was raining cats & dogs. I dozed off sometime during the night; they woke me up as the sun was coming up and we were easing into a parking spot alongside a narrow country road. Of course, it was still raining, but just a steady drizzle at this point.

It was easy to figure out which direction to walk -- just follow the crowd. It didn't take long before we came over the top of a ridge and saw the stage, and the huge crowd, below us.

It would be hours before the music would start. It rained on and off throughout the morning and early afternoon; meanwhile, we wandered around, consumed joints, joined a large crowd skinnydipping in a waterfall (with a Japanese camera crew in attendance -- but never saw any film later).

We must have eaten something in the 24 hours we were there, but I have no remaining memory of doing so. I know we did NOT find the Hog Farm free kitchen, although we kept hearing about it. And of course I remember the obinous public-address announcements not to take the brown acid. (Thank God we had gotten the *other* acid!)

The music finally kicked off about 1 or 2 pm with Canned Heat. Performances were interripted during the first few hours due to on-and-off rain. Finally, while Carlos Santana was just getting underway, the clouds parted and the sun came out. Of course my consciousness was altered by this time, but that moment is one of my clearest and best memories of the whole long day.

Because of the late start and weather-related interruptions, Saturday's scheduled acts took all night and into the next morning. After dark, we settled down into a spot way in back, at the top of the hill, but in a stright line from the center of the stage. Highlights included CSN&Y ("we've never played in public before), Sly, Airplane, the Who, and last but not least, as the sun was coming up Sunday morning, Jimi Hendrix.

My two buddies and I, of course, had our respective jobs to go to on Monday morning, so there's no way we could stay for Sunday's performances, which wouldn't start until late afternoon, so we jumped up and turned around during the closing notes of the Star Spangled Banner, walked the mile-and-a-half or so to our '47 Pontiac, and beat the crowd on out of there.

The one day I was at Woodstock was the only day it didn't rain. We got in close even though we were days late, and experienced most of same things that the week-long attendees did (except for weariness from days and days of being soaked, etc.) The best aspects of the experience pretty much defy description -- suffice it to say it was a kind of affirmation: We're not crazy to feel the way we do about the world we live in, because look how many other folks are right there with us.

Aa far as all that other 60s stuff: For me, the most intense experiences were yet to come. As a part-time student later that fall, I tore up my draft card in front of about 5,000 people, did NOT get busted (as I more-or-less expected), spent 3 years on the lam singing on the street, finally got corralled by the FBI in late 1972, just before the draft law would be repealed, turned down an offer to go undercover to bust a group of bomb-makers in Chicago, went into the Army prepared to petition for a conscienscious objector discharge, watched the Watergate hearings on TV with a roomful of drill sergeants, went AWOL for a couple of months when my paperwork was not being processed, came back after having gotten married, served out another 6 months as a clerk-typist living off-base, and evevntually got an honorable discharge "for the convenience of the government."

By then it was 1972 and the sixties were over.

Subject: correction
From: GUEST,PoppaGatorXIV
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 01:58 PM

Oops -- I meant, "By then it was 197THREE and the sixties were over."

(not to mention a couple other typos -- but this is the only thing I felt compelled to correct. As noted above in this thread, the "sixties" really lasted only from November 1963 to sometime in 1973.)

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 02:00 PM

Thanks, PapaGator. I greatly enjoyed hearing your tale, understanding the things that went on in the world at the same time I did. Much appreciated.

So many stories to know, so little time!

A

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 03:37 PM

We didn't have Woodstock, but we had the Isle of Wright, Sad Dylan in 69 and Hendrix in 70. We also had that "time" and to tell the truth I don't htink I ever got over it. I still have my hair very long- a symbol of my personal freedom to be who I want. We have had successive governments that have eroded our rights time and time again- we have proberbly the most highly taxed (direct+ indirect taxes)in Europe. We have the criminal justice act. About as right wing a piece of legislation could be. The most centalising governments with the most control over the population, where the police can close down roads and whole areas when and where they like-try being a biker down at Boxhill,or some other places. We are watched at every angle all over town and cities. I never got over the hope and expectation that things would change for the better and that authority isn't always right, but just might. I still believe that personal freedom is a persons right and that government and local councils exist to serve us not control us. We had "Maggie and her cronies" We then had John Major standing up at his party conference and giving open invite to the police and local authorities to harrass and destroy travellers."New age travellers, no way, not in my day" Sig Heil-just about! We have Peter Mendleson!! And Tony Blair etc Those were glory days my friends, our lives changed, but the world didn't! It's sad. Cheers Eric. ps We also have the police and other agencies reading e-mails and probably this site. The Music was good and it influenced many of us.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Feb 00 - 10:16 AM

I like the idea of having police officers whose job is to read this site. Maybe they are contributors. Now which ones which that be?

Though we shouldn't forget there are people in the police who'd be here for the love of the music and the craic. I remember a few postings from "leprechaun", I think it was. And let us never forget the immortal Captain O'Neill, who put together THE BOOK.

Now for me, one thing that colours my Woodstock memories is something I didn't mentioned. When I came on back home to England a few days later we had an appointment with an expert, and learned that our three year old daughter Kitty was autistic. So Woodstock was the end of one life and the start of another. In a bizarre way, Woodstock is the ordinary world, and what has happened since is the odd kind of world. They're both there, balancing each other.

Subject: RE: Your Woodstock Memories?
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 13 Feb 00 - 12:01 PM

I quite agree about the police being able to read sites and I suppose most of us have nothing to fear from it. I would be pleased to find out that more child porn merchants, peadofiles and drug dealers get caught and I hope they will, but even so. (by the way, there are police officers who contribute-that lass in Glasgow/Edingburgh? and I have nothing against the police and have friends who are in the force. By the way I work with autistic, asperburghers and other special needs kids. What I wrote I wrote because I believe that the majority of us are law abiding decent people who look out for each other, I just don't think "authority" gives a dam! Cheers. Eric