With apologies to Cheech and Chong.
This month marks the 40Th anniversary of the 3 days of peace and music festival known as Woodstock. (Why it's know as Woodstock is beyond me. It was held in Bethel New York which is 43 miles from the town of Woodstock.)
"Well I came across a child of God, he was walking along the road and I asked him where he was going and he told me. Well, I'm going down to Yasqur's farm, going to join in a rock and roll band. Got to get back to the land, set my soul free.
We are stardust, we are golden, we are a billion years old carbon and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong and everywhere there was song and celebration. And I dreamed I saw the bombers jet planes riding shotgun in the sky, turning into Butterflies above our nation." CSNY
All the big names were there, Jefferson Airplane, The Band, Janice Joplin, Richie havens, John Sebastian (without the Lovin' Spoonful) The Who, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix and my favorite who just stuck out as being at the wrong venue, Sha-Na-Na. Swami Satchidananda gave the invocation, which I hear was "heavenly."
Almost as fascinating as the performers who showed up were the ones who didn't. Acts like The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, The Byrds, Tommy James & The Shondells, Bob Dylan, The Moody Blues and Joni Mitchell whose manager convinced her to do the Dick Cavett Show instead.
On the last day, the crowd was awoken to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix playing the National Anthem. In between there were the crowds literally over flowing and people were parking their cars miles away and walking to the farm. Soon it was evident that the promoters didn't have a handle on the crowd and were unable to collect any admission fees and so it became a free festival.
I know several people who went there and I myself regret not going, not for the music as much as the "free love" that was abundant. After all, I was a young teenager with raging hormones. But as an adult you look back on the festival in a different light, although believe it or not, I had pretty much the same political views as I do now. While I wasn't an Alex Keaton, I wasn't buying all the anti-war stuff.
As a teenager, the "free love" stuff was a huge attraction.
A lot of the music has become classics and too many of the performers of that time are now gone which is a testament to the hard and fast living they were doing. Tripping out on acid, LSD and other drugs was probably "groovy" at the time, but it really ruined a generation and quite frankly has contributed to the decay of our country. The "flower children" are now parents and their parenting skills have been less than desirable.
Woodstock was an event that probably couldn't be replicated in a million years. It was an escape from the world. It was as Timothy Leary said, "Turn on, Tune in and Drop out."
Fantasy is always better than reality.
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