August, 1969

"By the time we got to Woodstock
we were half a million strong
and everywhere was a song and celebration

- Joni Mitchell

On Friday morning, August 15, Dave Fisher and I put the top down on his car and headed East and South towards Bethel, NY, site of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. We had with us tickets, sleeping bags, a bit of food, cigarettes, and some 8-track tapes Dave had for his car player. Dave had an 8-track of the first Crosby, Stills, & Nash album and we listened to that several times - I particularly remember grooving to Marrakesh Express and we drove along.

It was a bright sunny day, with few clouds and good vibes in the air. Of all my friends, I could only convince Dave to go. And we will always share that bond, though truth be told I don't think I ever saw him again after that weekend. Here's to you, Dave.

We drove south on Interstate 81, then East on Route 17, likely turning off on Route 97 and finally to Route 17B. Luckily for us, we we traveling down from the north, so we totally avoided the major traffic congestion that folks from the New York City area experienced. I think that we arrived in the general area around early afternoon, were able to get within a mile or less of the site, and parked his car in a field along with hundreds of other cars.

We joined others hiking towards the festival. We walked along 17B for some distance, then turned left down a road my memory tells me was dirt, though when I visited the site a few years ago it was paved.

We soon came upon what was left of the fences that were erected to keep non-ticket holders out. Now, there were thousands of people rather than hundreds. Then there were tens of thousands of people, and when we pushed forward out of the woods and into the great open hill, where a stage had been erected at the bottom, there were hundreds of thousands of people. It was sight one likely will never see in a lifetime; I know that I won't see the likes ever again.

My memories of the festival are hazy at best, or more correctly - so deeply personal and visual, that it's hard to express them. We first wandered around, back towards the woods. We came upon the Hog Farm encampment - I remember multi-colored banners and buses. We ran into a child of god - a couple of them, actually. They wanted to know where the music was and we excitedly told them. In thanking us one said "Hey man - do you want some bread?!!. We were hip to the lingo, of course, and said no, no money was necessary. He said, "No, BREAD!" and pulled a loaf from his back sack and shared it to us. That bread was possibly the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. Those guys were immediately brothers to me.

Wandering back to the hillside, we found a place was towards the back and made ourselves at home for the day. The vibes were great, people were friendly, stoned, happy. Looking back, it seems impossible that such a huge gathering could have been as peaceful and happy as Woodstock was that day. But it was. I clearly recall Richie Havens, who I knew nothing about at the time, leading off the music. His version of Freedom that day is well known and featured in the film; but he did several Beatles songs as well - Strawberry Fields Forever and With a Little Help from My Friends I remember and loved. I thought he was terrific and I was forever after a fan.



I of course knew about drugs from television and magazines, but until that day had never seen any or been around them. They were everywhere and available in the spirit of the day - but I was still reluctant and confused about the drug culture, so did not partake. But I wanted to. At one point, a very tripped out guy wandered through our area happily trying to sell acid - in his druggy voice that I so clearly remember and can't reproduce here. It was a bit like an old-time street vendor, updated for the times. But he stumbled or fell and his wares scattered "Ah man, I just spilled all my acid all over." Seemingly unconcerned, he strolled away telling us" If anyone wants some acid, it's all over the ground there."

It was hard to pay close attention to the music with all that was happening around. I kind of remember John Sebastian that day, Sweetwater, Ravi Shankar for sure, Arlo Guthrie, and most definitely Joan Baez singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot as I tried to go to sleep much later. A light rain had begun to fall late that evening. The rain soon became a big problem. The other was food.

We brought hardly any and the size of the crowd quickly overwhelmed the available food services, though if you were patient and were willing to wait in line for a very long time at one of the food stands at the top of the hill, you could get food - I remember half-cooked hamburgers that tasted wonderful once you finally got your hands on one. We were hungry and had to do what needed to be done. We might also have gotten some free food to the Hog Farm camp, but I could be wrong about that. I was intrigued by the Hog Farm folks and images of them have stuck in my memory.

If the first day was groovy, the second was less so. It was raining lightly when we went to sleep - we'd moved into the woods and found a seemingly good spot on a small hill to lay out our sleeping bags. When we awoke the next morning we were now hungry and wet. It was raining much harder. So much so that we'd slid in our sleep down the hill in the mud. Our sleeping bags were completely useless now. Yes, the famous mud of Woodstock lore was now a reality, made worse, I expect, from the hundreds of thousands of people trampling the ground literally everywhere.

So, my only memories of the second day are of being cold, wet, and hungry. We did hang around for music and I'm pretty sure I remember Janis Joplin, but even though I had not taken any drugs I might have well have done so. I was on a kind of drug free trip that day. Finally, Dave and I both had had enough by the afternoon sometime, or maybe the evening. We struggled back to his car and headed out. Somewhere along the line, we took a detour - he suggested we go to Gettysburg (for some reason), I topped it by offering Washington, DC. So, off we drove towards DC. We arrived, burst in on my sister's and cousin's apartment, stayed the night, then drove back home the next day.

During the night, someone broke into Dave's car and ripped out the 8 track; no Marrakesh Express on the way home. But I had music in my head, and now - in my soul.

In 2007, I made a brief return to the site of the concert. It was raining....

British super-duper group Blind Faith releases its one and only album, which I buy immediately - and am lucky to get a copy with the original, highly-scandalous cover (which I still have).



Actress Sharon Tate and four others are murdered in her home in Los Angeles on August 9 by followers on Charles Manson. Tate, who was married to Polish film director Roman Polanski, was 8 1/2 months pregnant. Manson and most of his followers were arrested for the crime, and others, later in the year.

Category 5 Hurricane Camille slams into the Mississippi Gulf Coast, killing 248 people and causing billions of dollars in damage. The storm has sustained winds of 190 mph.It remains the strongest storm on record to strike the U.S. mainland.

Woody Allen's film Take the Money and Run premiers in New York City on August 18. It is Allen's first film with total creative control - as actor, director, and writer.
On August 14, the Chicago Cubs, winner of the 1908 World Series and winless ever since, held an 8 1/2 game head over the St. Louis Cardinals and a 9 1/2 game lead over the New York Mets. What happened over the next month haunts Cubs fans until this day.

The last weekend of the month I headed north to Potsdam to begin college.

July, 1969

Man walks on the moon - July 20. I wish that I could say that I followed this monumental event with rapture and awe, but that weekend I was attending summer orientation incoming freshmen at Potsdam State. I managed to see small bits and pieces of the unfolding drama on television, but my memory is that they kept us pretty busy, and honestly - I don't think that I was all that interested in the whole thing. I was busily plotting my future. I don't even think that I actually saw the initial moonwalk "live." I do recall looking up at the moon that night and thinking how wondrous it was that two men were actually on its surface.

And to be honest, the event seemed somewhat anticlimactic now that that old dog Nixon was in The White House. The space program was started by John F. Kennedy and continued by Lyndon Johnson. I had followed the whole time with great pride and fascination - from the launch of Alan Shepard in 1961 (which I heard on the radio) through the dramatic circling of the moon at Christmas in 1968. Now Nixon was in office when the moon landing finally took place and it did seem fair. Did I mention ever here that I was not a fan of Nixon?

They did issue us with beanies that week in orientation, which I suspect was the last time this tired old ritual was conducted at this or virtually any other college. They were never worn. It seemed to me that many older people did not understand that by this time the times were no longer changing. They had changed.

Other vestiges of typical college life one might see in films from the 1930s and 40s also still existed - segregated dormitories, curfews for girls and not boys, a strong-willed Dean of Women - all these would be soon gone - certainly by the time of the student strikes following the killings at Kent State the following Spring.

I remember that Summer as being very hot - at least by typical standards of upstate New York. Mindy and I went one day on a steam train excursion for a lark, and we sat listlessly in the car simply fried by the heat and humidity. No one I knew at that time had air conditioning - either in home or auto. It was generally a rare time when it was needed in upstate New York.

That summer we spent a lot of evening playing miniature golf at an Arnold Palmer putting course in nearby Penfield. It was a fun thing to goof around and pass some time. I was pretty good at it, and wound up qualifying for a locally televised tournament that summer. First prize was a small color television. I don't believe our family had yet made the switch to color, so winning one would have been sweet. Oddly enough, I played the "round of my life", at least for the first 16 or so holes. I was leading. Handily - I started hearing the television announcers saying "get the camera on Donovan, on Donovan." Sadly, the pressure got to me and my lead began to shrink. Some guy caught me on the last hole and we went into extra holes. I missed a short put, finished second, and won a radio. Wow.



Firesign Theater releases its 2nd album How Can You Be In Two Places At once When You're Not Anywhere At All, which features Nick Danger, 3rd Eye” in episode #666 Cut ‘em Off At The Past. I spent far too many happy hours listening to their extremely funny albums over the next years, usually in a stoned revelry.

On July 18, Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, on the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard. Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in the car, dies in the accident. Kennedy did not report the accident to authorities the next day. He later plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was handed a suspended sentence.



In his first news conference since becoming President Nixon's chief legal officer, Attorney General John N. Mitchell announces that the incidence of wiretapping by federal law enforcement agencies had gone down, not up, during the first six months of Republican rule. Mitchell refused to disclose any figures, but he indicated that the number was far lower than most people might think. "Any citizen of this United States who is not involved in some illegal activity," he stated, "has nothing to fear whatsoever." The nation sighed in relief.

Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones dies on July 3. Found motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool, the cause of death was famously noted as "death by misadventure" by the local coroner. That same month, the band releases one of the greatest singles of all-time, Honky Tonk Women. I thought that the guitar intro riff was absolutely spectacular and that July would turn up my car radio whenever it came on.

AM radio still ruled the airwaves back then. We listened mainly in those days to stations WBBF and WSAY, both featuring Top 40 songs. I am pretty sure that by then, or at least soon after, we had our own "underground" FM station in Rochester that played album rock - WCMF-FM. My car had only AM and one had to rig up an FM receiver, which I did the next year when I bought a used Post Office Ford Econoline van.

Born on July 24, actress Jennifer Lopez.

Reaching number 2 on the U.S. pop charts that months - Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat & Tears. The band's self-titled album went on to win a Grammy award for Album of the Year.

The Doors release The Soft Parade LP on July 18.

On July 24, Muhammed Ali is convicted on appeal for refusing induction into the armed services. As he famously said in 1966: "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong ... They never called me nigger." The conviction was later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

I had answered the advertisement I'd seen in The New York Times and had sent - I think $48.00 - for two tickets to the Woodstock Music and Art fair, to be held the following month downstate. I talked to a number of friends about the idea of going, but could only find one other brave soul who was up for it - Dave Fisher.

I kept my useless tickets for some years, which weren't needed there once the crowds exceeded the capacity of the Festival to control admittance. They were safely in a drawer in my room at home until, like much of the stuff that might be collector's items today (hundreds of comic books, Mad Magazines, baseball cards, etc.), they were disposed of my my mother, who - in her usual term - "gave them the pitch."

On July 30, President Nixon makes his one and only visit to South Vietnam. Pictured below is a man wearing a Nixon rubber mask and Peter Sellers dressed for his role some years before as Dr. Strangelove. I'm not kidding - You be the judge.