Woodstock at 40

Old Max Yasgur had a farm
e-i-e-i-o
and on this farm he had a festival
e-i-e-i-o

Max’s farm was actually in Bethel, New York, a rural town, about 43 miles southwest of Woodstock. And yet, we are about to commemorate a very significant 40th anniversary. TheWoodstock Art and Music Fair. That was the original name and concept.

Organizers figured they could convince a few bands to play, there would be arts and crafts, some food booths and maybe, just maybe, they could get some people to come and enjoy the weekend on the fields of Max Yasgur’s dairy farm, but they surely couldn’t fill the 600 acres at their disposal. Actually, the original venue was a 300 acre farm in Middletown, N.Y. where the organizers promised there would be no more than 50,000 people coming. The town was zoned for 5,000 at one time and they weren’t going to have a special vote to patronize a group of Hippies….. bunch of long haired leaping gnomes. They then met with Yasgur, who gave the go ahead, but the townfolk were having none of it. They organized a campaign to boycott any milk that came from his farm. The permits were issued anyway….and, all hell broke loose.

Once word got out, people began steaming in by the thousands. Soon radio and television, who had been announcing the festival began trying to discourage people from going. The roads were becoming jammed and impassible. To add to the problems and difficulty in dealing with the large crowds, recent rains had caused muddy roads and fields. Finally, at about the half million mark, an announcement was made from the stage, perhaps by Wavy Gravy, the clown prince of rock & roll, that said, :”This has now become a free concert.” It was a free-for-all with some great rock & roll that worked.

I have quite a few friends who attended Woodstock and I have a cousin who played there. I had to miss it. I was half way around the world slogging through some different mud, yet, there are some basic similarities. At Woodstock, large groups of young people were together in the mud and the rain, there was the smell of marijuana wafting through the air and some great music providing the soundtrack. In Vietnam, groups of young people were together in the mud and the rain, there was the smell of marijuana wafting through the air and some great music providing the soundtrack. OK, so they were getting the music live and we were encouraged to keep our heads down because we were getting shot at…..technicalities.

This was a time in our history that defied definition as to who we were as a nation. It was a transitional period from where we had been to where we were going and who we were about to become. We, the then youth and future of America, were trying to find ourselves morally ethically and otherwise. We didn’t buy what was being sold and we weren’t about to travel the same roads. Our roads took us to Bethel, N.Y. to hear Joe Cocker sing “I get high with a little help from my friends” or to places named Hue, Da Nag , Bien Hoa and Saigon, where we got high and stayed alive with a little help from our friends.

Whether we became better off as a nation because the era or, in spite of it, remains to be seen.

A short time later, the Vietnam war ended, we came home and the Vietnamese were left to clean up the country. I’ve always wondered….who had to clean up Max Yasgur’s farm?

THAT’S HOW I FEEL WHAT CAN I TELL YA’