Were You At Woodstock???

nope too young

Me too and my parents were into that stuff. They had 3 of us back home.

Did your parents go off to Woodstock, then, and leave you guys at home? What was that like? What did your parents tell you about Woodstock? I just posted a discussion on Woodstock's legacy, and I'd love your input into that discussion. Here's a link. Thanks so much!

I wasn't yet even a teenager then.
But I wish I could've been there if I were a bit older at the time....

I have three copies of the album, I love the music, the artists that were there and the whole mindset of what they were trying to communicate to the rest of the word....
peace with music....way coooooooool!!!

I was too young, but at one point I had an 8-track tape from Woodstock and
loved the music, I would have went if I'd been an adult, I'm sure of it.

I'm too young, too, but how awesome would it have been to be a part of it, right? Just that indescribable feeling of total unison. Awesome. So, what do you think Woodstock meant at the time? What's it meaning today? I just put of a discussion about it, and I'd love your input there. Here's a link. Thanks so much!

I was to young also but I would have been there if I was of age ; )
P A R T Y

I was too young. I would probably have loved it though.

So I guess I am the old one who got there and had a great time. Too bad you all missed it . LOL. Yes at the time it was the biggest thing happening, and the worst depending on who you were.

I am too young, but I don't think it would have been my thing...

No,Vickie.I just missed a ride to get there.Was old enough and I am still kickin myself I didnt try to find another ride.My life encompassed everything that woodstock was and still is.You are right about perceptions; there was just as much pressure with drugs then as now.I also believe that cultures today have slipped a cog or two,compared to the reserve that existed then.We are saying,about the kids of today,what our parents said about us back then.

"My life encompassed everything that woodstock was and still is."

I'm really diggin' that quote, Cindy. You obviously have an acute sense of the meaning of Woodstock, and I just published a discussion about that, so I'd love your input into that discussion if you have time! Here's a link. Thanks so much!

I to was at Woodstock It was a Great Time and one I will always remember.
It was frantic for some there were first aid stations but crowded naturaly.
There were many of us that talked people though rough spells but it was more freeing rhan one can imagine.I had ccamped out a lot and was prepared it was great a lot of things have been said that were wildly blown out of proportion.It was love It was Music
and It was peoples coming together in a space that for the amount of people was small
But it was heavenly to me and my friends that I made there are still my friends

Hey Jules! It's so awesome you were really there. I just published a discussion looking back on Woodstock after 40 years, and I'd love your input into that discussion. You'd definitely add a lot as an attendee! Here's a link. Thanks so much for considering it.

Not me. I was only three, and my mother wasn't a hippie. Plus she and I both never enjoyed crowds so I doubt it would have even been a remote possibility!

Not THE Woodstock, I was just a tad too young. But I did visit Woodstock the town once many years later. There were still a bunch of hippies there, but they were old like me.

I was just a baby, so no. I have visited the area as a young adult, but that's about the extent of it.

Woodstock did not take place in the town of Woodstock. It took place in Bethel, New York, rural Sullivan County, in the heart of the Catskills, on Max Yasgur's farm.

My grandparents owned a house about 2 miles away from Bethel for over 40 years in the town of White Lake. On the weekend of the festival teenagers began arriving at my grandparents house asking for food. Being the good hostess, grandma served them cake and coffee and some sandwiches she whipped up. She said that they were nice, polite well-behaved kids and they had no problems with them.

Now, this is a perspective on the festival I've never considered. You always hear about those who participated, and rarely about those who helped to host them. Thanks for opening my eyes to this! I just posted a discussion about what Woodstock means to certain people (looking back after 40 years) and what people think its legacy is, and I'd love it if you'd lend some of this perspective to that discussion, Elizabeth. It would add an interesting dimension! Here's a link. Thanks so much for considering it.

I worked at Woodstock '94. I met Carlos Sanata, Les Claypool, Ricky Rachtman and Bill Maher!

I AM AN ORIGINAL WOODSTOCK 1969 SURVIVOR. MY NOVEL "THE CLOSER'S SONG" IS ALLABOUT HOW THIS EVENT IMPACTED MY LIFE. HERE IS ONE OF SEVERAL ARTICLES I WROTE ABOUT THE EVENT AND TIMES:

Woodstock a Survivors Story
by Christopher Cole

Author of The Closer's Song


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. With assassinations of our liberal leaders, civil unrest, discrimination and the questioning of all authority, The institutions of this country were being rocked to their 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. I also liked the later Beatles, Temptations, Dylan, Lovin Spoonful, Rascals, Kinks etc. Aside from the Temps and Four Tops, which were, feel good groups; the other music 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 search for truth and a better world, the power of 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 Vietnam War was an evil war. Perpetrated on a foreign people by industrialists and government determined to advance their capitalistic and political agendas, with total disregard for human life.

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.

I attended the Woodstock Festival in 1969. I was barely twenty years old. I followed a girl I had met the week before in Tarrytown N.Y. She was in a Camaro with her girlfriend and two guys. One looked like Jimi Hendrix, the other like Lynyrd Skynyrd. I followed on my motorcycle, with ape hanger handlebars and a sissybar to which was tied a very large duffel bag. I stayed the three days. Pretty much. I was a loner but followed a car with four people in it. One was a girl that intrigued me.

I lived in Sleepy Hollow, i.e., Tarrytown, New York. I was single and in the seminary as I stated. I also went to Woodstock 79, 94 and 99. At Woodstock 69 I did a few things I shouldn't have. I rode my 1979 Triumph to Woodstock 79 and no one was there. At Woodstock 99 I went around telling the young people to be careful. At last years reunion (2004 - 35 yrs later) I rode up from Philly on my Yamaha Vstar.

Here's a recap of my Woodstock story. 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. We drove around Tarrytown for two hours and became friendly. 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. 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 made 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 and we realized we would not connect with our 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 the entire weekend but she would have to split the dough. She agreed, and jumped back on the bike and we got a bottle of 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 hair down to her waist (she looked like the girl on the Mod Squad TV show), a bottle of wine and my bike, surrounded by 400000 soul mates. It doesn't get any better! Then we watched as a tractor drove along a cleared portion of earth (all the grass was trampled and the mud and 500 years of cow manure were coming to the surface). I watched as the tractor ran over what appeared to be a mound of earth, as a human hand 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'm sorry," he said "but I will call a medi-vac unit." 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. 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 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.

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. 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. PS: Thirty five years later we are still married! A very true story.

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.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever be selling luxury automobiles years later!

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 reason, I now as others ask myself.


christopher cole
author of
The Closer's Song

Awesome recount of your experience, Christopher! I don't have a lot of time to read at the moment, but I'll definitely check out you MySpace at some point. I just posted a discussion about Woodstock, what it meant at the time, and what it means now, and someone as devoted as you I think would add a lot to that discussion! Here's a link. Please join in! Thanks so much.

For more info on Woodstock visit (myspace.com/thecloserssong)

My next door neighbor went - one of my best friend's older sister. We idolized her for being able to go and couldn't wait until we could hear about it when she came home. Honestly, I don't even remember talking to her about it afterwards. But we ALL loved the music - knew all the words. The music helped us become more involved politically as we matured and were able to participate in voting. It was also a question at that time of who was going to Vietnam - both my older brothers had draft numbers and everybody knew that it could hit their family at any time. Young people were MUCH more aware of their government and what was going on in the world.

I wish that was the case with today's youth. Many don't even know who their representatives are or what the major issues in the world are today. They are much more in tune with Hollywood than Washington. Maybe we need some music leaders to stand up and start being politically responsible in their music again.

Great comment, Sheryl, and perhaps too true what you say about today's youth. I just posted a discussion in honor of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, and I'd love your input into that discussion. I ask what it meant at the time and what it's legacy (or lack thereof) today is. Please join the conversation! Here's a link. Thanks so much.

Sadly I was too young. I have visited the area a couple of times, like the cool shops and yes the people who work the shops seemed to be old hippie types. I loved it! If I remember right Prince either lives near there or has done studio time around the area..I could be remembering wrong, it was in the 80's when I was in the area.

No, I wasn't there. I knew some friends who went and the one thing that stood out for them aside from the music, and they did love being there, was being hot and dirty and hungry, but they stayed.

No, but how I wanted to be!

Why not, Kimberly? In your words, what made Woodstock such an iconic concert? What's it's legacy today? I just posted a discussion asking these questions, and I'd love your input into that conversation! Please join in - here's a link. Thanks so much!

Sadly I am to young, that would have been the concert of a lifetime though.

Too young. Not allowed to go. :-(

Born to late.. but im a hippie at heart.. i definitely should ve been there. I ve talked to alot of people that were.. and they said it was mind blowing.

I was a little too young, but m late husband was there. I heard tales of "the best 3 days of my life" for 20 years. He and some pals hitch hiked there from Ohio, stoned on acid and pot the entire time. Where one's memory became vague, anothers' picked up. Making love in the open, the sense of comeraderie, and mud, mud, and more mud were the essnetial themes.

This sounds amazing, donna. So sorry to hear about your husband, though, as well. But I just posted a discussion about the meaning of Woodstock and it's legacy, and I was just wondering if you might have some of your husband's and his friends' pearls of wisdom about the event to lend that conversation. I'd really appreciate your input! Here's a link. Thanks so much!

Yes, I was there and it was a great experience. Luckily I was too young to care about all the missing comforts, the music and atmosphere was so great that I really didn't care. You had to be there and of the generation to really understand the emotions of the time.

It's so mythical, and so impossible to recreate. How lucky you are to have been there! Really, awesome. What do you think the festival meant at the time? What is Woodstock's legacy? I just posted a discussion asking these questions, and I'd love your input into that discussion! Here's a link. Thanks so much!

I wasn't born then! However I think had I been old enough I would have gone! :)

No, not old enough. But these are some interesting stories.

Sorry, I wasn't even close to being a "twinkle in my dad's eye" at that time.

sorry, my post made no sense. they were not into woodstock as they had 3 kids at home! LOL

I didn't make it. I think I was too young. But I remember it well.

I was too pregant

I missed that....I could have gone to Roskilde though....which is kind of legendary though, but the thought has never appealed to me.

Thank you for submitting your article to !!!Today's Top Photos and Articles!!!


Don't forget to check out yesterday's Top Five Photos, and please help me give them exposure by leaving a comment at their photos

&

Don't forget to check out yesterday's Top Five Articles, please congratulate each of them on their articles

I wasn't born yet

Too young here :)

I was 20, married, and living in California.

I was only 8, but in 1978 I wrote a fictional story for English, in which I interviewed someone who was there ...my story wound up on the principal's desk and I got an A+

That's awesome, donna! What did you learn about the event from the person you interviewed? What do you think it meant at the time, and what is its legacy? I just posted a discussion asking these questions, and I'd love your input into that discussion! Here's a link. Thanks so much!

I was only 9 YOA, but I really love to hear and read the stories of that era!!!!

NO, like you, was not born yet. I heard it wasn't all that great and if it was as chaotic and dirty/unclean as they say it was, I think I could have done without. Don't like crowds anyway. On the other hand, it's neat to ask the people who were there. Wonder what our generation's big thing will be....

Interesting, pragmatic perspective, Kim! You only hear about the love, the not caring about all the mud and the dirtiness, but you're right - it was probably pretty disgusting! But you also balance it well. I just posted a discussion looking back on Woodstock after 40 years, and I'd love your input into that discussion! What's its legacy? What did it mean at the time? And I'm really interested if you have any ideas what the next generation's big thing will be. Here's a link. Thanks so much!

DON'T NO MUCH ABOUT WOODSTOCK

I was 12 yrs old at the time and wanted to go, but at last I could not drive;-)

I missed it.

I worked with a girl that went there. I remember her talking about all the mud.

I WAS THERE AND I'M DEFINTELY GOING BACK NEXT YEAR FOR THE FORTIETH REUNION.
40 YEARS - IT SIMPLY BLOWS MY MIND!!!

I'm still a philospher, a square peg in a round hole, and a fiercely independent thinker. I still ride motorcycles, and I can still laugh at myself. I can't wait. The mud of Woodstock still squishes between my toes!
Christopher Cole
author of
The Closer's Song

Yes I was there and got the film clip of Hendrix to "prove" it. Saw the Who from inside the wooden security fence (had to look up to watch) thanks to nature's invisibilty cloak (lol). Spent Thursday to the following Wedsnday morning and it cost me $4. I worked cleaning up and loading trucks and got a check for 34 dollars plus change which i cashed at a bank in Montecello without id. I bought a steak dinner and a pack of Pall Malls. I think Santana saved the show but that Sly and the Family Stone put on the greatest exhibition of psychedelic soul I have ever seen.

One of the defining moments of my life as I saw how crisis intmcy worked and that with enough of everything we could all "have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music".

I was born the summer of 70, so I missed it. I would've been uncomfortable with the crowds, but I like the idea of all those artists in one place.

I was born in 78, so, nope. If I were around then though, I SOOOO would have been there!

No I was too busy in Cleveland.

Yes, I was there. I had just turned 17 at the beginning of the summer, and my parents thought I was at my friend's house who was about to enter her junior year at Skidmore. We worked together at a summer job, and I stayed with her at her parents' house a lot because she drove me into work. She was far more sophisticated than my high school girl friends, and much more fun. Her parents were gone on vacation and we were bored. We took her Kharmann Ghia and a bag of peanut M&Ms and headed off to Woodstock.

The only reason I wanted to go was because Bob Dylan was going to be there, but he didn't end up being there. I hated it, except for the cute boys from MI that camped out next to us. It was unbearably hot and I thought the people were just plain weird. I had never as much smoked a cigarette, but I think I was high just from the smoke that was all around me, and I thought mostly everyone was just plain weird. There were people stoned out of their gourds, on acid trips, women having babies, and nutcases who had climbed these very high towers that looked like pyramids of scaffolding. The next day it rained in torrents, and I was a muddy mess and wanted nothing more than to bathe. I had to pee and held it for two days so I wouldn't have to use the smelly porta-potties where I was sure I'd contract a disease. Most of the music sucked, and if any of it didn't, I was much too disgusted and irritated to notice.

Wow, I've never heard this brutally honest an account of Woodstock before, Sue. Way to go! I just published a discussion looking back on Woodstock after 40 years, and some of the questions I ask are what it was like of those who were there, and of everyone what it meant at the time and what it means now. I'd love your input into that conversation - here's a link. Thanks so much!

You'd think that would have stopped me from going to Watkins Glen a few summers later, but it didn't.

Well, it took me quite a few years to be that honest about it because everyone thought it was so cool that I had been there, so I couldn't tell them how much I hated it.