The Woodstock Photo
Note: Cross-posted from you-know-where.
About 20 years ago an old and dear friend from my youth showed me a photo I had forgotten existed. It was an old time-ravaged black and white of me and my old friend, Bobby Hall. It is the only photo, as far as I'm aware, of us at (or near) Woodstock in 1969. You'd have to google the sign to know it's Woodstock (we're still not quite there but we're close, maybe 50 miles, not sure). It's poor quality and taken from too far away, but at least it has maximum peace signs.
That's 17 year old me on the left – though it would probably take forensics to prove it. I don't remember whose camera it was. It must've been Bobby's. I didn't have one. I went to Woodstock without a fuckin' camera. I'd love to be able to do that one over. Oh well.
My friend, Nancy, who showed me the photo, had been Bobby's girlfriend in '69 and somehow wound up with the photo. I had called Nancy back when I was about to finish my book, before the data disaster that set me back a year, thinking it would be nice to have the photo for the book. She wasn't sure she still had it, she'd have to look.
I have thought about that photo from time to time over the years. I'd become increasingly annoyed at the meme that has risen, that anyone who mentions having gone to Woodstock is most likely bullshitting. I understand the skepticism and all, but the whole thing is really annoying, that if you went to Woodstock the whole world thinks you're a fucking liar if you mention it. A lot of people did go to Woodstock.
Most recently, in Costa Rica, some guy was talking about going to Woodstock. I mentioned I had gone too. He says, so you lived in the Northeast? Like, who do you think you're bullshitting? So even people who went to Woodstock think that anyone else who claims to have done the same is a liar. I had a primitive urge to smack him – but of course I didn't. I only admit to the urge in the interest of full disclosure.
Nancy called the other day and said she was attending a seminar nearby, she had found the photo and did I want to come get it? Well, I surely did.
Yeah, only people who lived in the northeast went to Woodstock. If he was there he should have realized that there were people there from all over the world. The whole Hog Farm was there from the west coast and Europe was well represented. There were hippies from everywhere. There's two Huntsville, Alabama boys right there.
I know. What does it matter?
I guess it's about credibility. No one likes to be thought a liar. And about a precious memory – though there was a real dark side to my personal experience at Woodstock. It was everything you might imagine and more but it marked a turning point in my life, a turn for the worse. Woodstock is where I found heroin. My life was never the same after that.
Getting my hands on the photo was a bit anticlimactic, it's of such poor quality and not taken actually at Woodstock. It's not date stamped and not actual proof of anything I don't guess, but it's a fine token of an amazing memory and I'm glad to have it. I lost track of Bobby years ago, though we went on to have some great adventures together.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/05/1116929/-Glenn-the-Pot-Smoking-... I hope he's well. He was a good guy.
All I can say is it's too bad that the hippies didn't take over the world. Things sure would be different.
Comments
This is my first post here.
Thanks to JtC for the nudge. Hope youse guys are doing okay.
Thank you...
for posting this OPOL, it's great to have you here, my friend. I was 15 when Woodstock happened, I knew all about it but it just didn't happen for me and that still bums me out to this day. I was there in spirit though.
My pleasure, JtC.
It's the spirit that matters.
Doing OK?
This place offers the best of both worlds. All the upside, none of the down. No loyalty oaths, able to disagree or agree. Think out loud, explore thoughts. Yep, best of both worlds.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Thanks, dk. I'm doig alright.
The usual struggles and continued alienation. What else is new?
yeh, me too
and I *was* from the Northeast!
We drove up all the way from New Jersey. Shockingly, because there were 400,000 people there, we ran into friends as we walked the last part of the way.
We had a great view of the stage for Richie Havens, Swami Uptown, Bert Sommers, Tim Hardin, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez. We made it back to our tent as the rain poured down. When we woke up the place was a mess. Worse, when we walked back to where the music would be happening it seemed like 350,000 jumped ahead of us. There was no way we were going to get close again. We were uncomfortable, far away, couldn't see. I suppose if we just wanted the social experience it would have been fine. Instead we packed up and went home.
I don't regret missing the rock acts. I had a good enough time the first day and have some fun memories.
I didn't see all that much of the music.
We were camped miles away from the stage and I spent most of my time wandering though the campsites jamming with other hippies, smoking, hanging out, skinny dipping, etc.
Yo dude. By the time I got to Woodstock,
it had been over for forty years. Oh well. It's a cool thing to have gone to Woodstock, experienced something
so iconic. Great you got a little token of the trip after all these years.
I was just growing into my hippieness and not quite old enough, 13/14 in 69. I'm definitely more of a hippie
now than I was back then even though I had the long hair and smoked the evil weed. Peace, love, dope.
Wish I could've taken you with me.
You would have loved it.
Did you do that on purpose?
By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong......
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
I was aboard the USS Boxer
sweltering in the middle of the Caribbean... which was better than sweltering off the coast of Vietnam...
I would have gone to Canada
at that point I was still in school. And I was still in school when they changed the system so I wasn't going to get drafted, at which point I dropped out. But if it had come to it I'd have been gone, like my brother-in-law, shaharazade's brother.
You needed money to go to school
In my blue collar neck of the woods you couldn't even get a job if you were One-A. I was active in the antiwar movement and the armed forces union movement while I was in. Got in a fair share of trouble. There were many of us who put our asses on the line resisting while in the military. Different strokes for different folks!
My Divorced single Mom cleaned bed pans
and saved $1500 for my "Canada Fund". I didn't know about that untill 75 or so, when I turned 18. I am an only child and I was quite humbled to find out what she had done in an effort to prevent her only son from potentially being drafted.
My PHd Tenured College Professor Father was no help, and he wasn't exactly a support of the war, he was a bit of a fook up though.
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
I heard guitar Saturday night
My Parents divorce was final, my Mom had taken the settlement money and bought some land with an airstream trailer with a large room attached, 24x36 IIRC. In Cuddebackville NY, very near where the Neversink River crosses Rt 209 north east of Port Jervis. So we were cleaning up the place for a house warming party the next weekend. Sunday afternoon we went to leave and Rt 209 was jammed with parked cars, we could not leave. In fact we couldn't leave until Monday afternoon.
Jump forward to the House Warming party, one younger couple said something like "we were just up here last weekend for a big concert". So at age 11, I wasn't at Woodstock, but at 6 or 7 miles away I did hear some electric guitar that Saturday night. Maybe it was Hendrix?
Great pic & memory OPOL, and welcome, pull up a chair and rest yer bones.
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.