Remembering Woodstock

My estranged husband dropped by my friend’s place at the Jersey Shore on Thursday afternoon, August 14, 1969 to fetch our child for the weekend. I lay in bed smoking pot with my sister’s boyfriend next to the crib where the two-year old slept. The three of us had a grand argument. Grabbing his toddler son, my husband screamed I would never see either of them again as he bolted from sight.

The next morning, I hopped in a station wagon headed for Three Days of Peace and Music in Woodstock, New York, with my sister, the boyfriend and a few merry-making hippie wannabes. The car roof was overloaded with tents, sleeping bags and cases of Rolling Rock. We squeezed a change of clothes, toiletries, hallucinogens and festival tickets into our Army surplus backpacks.

Turning off the New York state highway onto the country road leading to Bethel, we fell in line with a flotilla of vehicles undulating in three lanes up a two-lane road. We shared joints and beer with new friends and danced alongside cars with tunes blaring from their radios. After a few hours we pulled into a roadside clearing and set up camp with other squatters.

Concealing our festival tickets for fear someone would pickpocket them, we stepped into the twenty-minute march to the festival. We came up over a rise to the clear acoustic sound of “Freedom”. There were no ticket takers, no souvenir stands, no fences, no security guards. All of life gently moved downhill toward the music, each group plopping down on each perfect spot with Richie Havens in sight.

Wavy Gravy announced 500,000 people, don’t eat the brown acid and free food in the Hog Farm tent. A lone helicopter whirled in and out of a landing spot near the stage. Cardboard crates full of donated ice cream sandwiches, oranges and apples were arriving on the helicopters and getting passed overhead one to another. 

Paranoia ignited my companions who returned to camp one by one. They believed the government had gathered all the hippies in one place to drop bombs on us. I remained. Rain fell sometime in the night and the day. I crawled under a stranger’s tarp slept off and on, waking for Santana, Canned Heat, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival and then that Texas twang from my hero …take another little piece of my heart.. Janis Joplin. Sly and the Family Stone rocked the muddy land as I wandered through the thinning crowd.

On Sunday morning I found myself among a group of tattooed bikers. I thought I should be afraid but they shared their drugs, food and drink. We were at perfect peace as Jimi Hendrix and his band, Gypsy Sun & Rainbows came to the stage, nine hours later than scheduled. He lifted us all into the fifth dimension throwing down his crazy electric Star Spangled Banner. We claimed Hendrix’s version for our ourselves–our own national anthem because we loved America too.

The party was over. I stood alone on a muddy, garbage-strewn hill. A friend appeared who had stranded his car on the festival road. We laughed and cried moseying along the road with other stragglers searching for their rides. Squinting through the sunny Monday, we drove down New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway landing in the sobering net of the state police. I gulped down a stash of opium saving us from legal harm.

Down from heaven to home, I faced the consequences of my humanity, vowing to clean up my act.