Woodstock

I was 17 in August of 1969, heading into my senior year of high school, when I saw an ad for a music and arts festival up in New York. I immediately started lobbying my Mom to see if she would let me go. I’d take my younger sister, borrow the car, camp out, and hear some nice music.

I mean — the lineup was stellar! Jimi, Janis, Country Joe, John Sebastian, the Dead! I’d even bear up under Joan Baez to see CSN&Y, The Band, and Blood Sweat and Tears.

Mom was not easily convinced. I’d never driven that far before — over five hours from home. The farthest I’d ever driven was Ocean City, and even then Mom or Pop was in the car too. I kept pitching it, though — it would be so much fun for my sister and me! We could camp! It would be educational!

I almost managed to wear her down, but she was just a little too leery of letting us take her car and go all the way to upstate New York all by ourselves.

So she talked to Pop and suggested that he might take us to the festival. He might like to go camping with his daughters, wouldn’t he?

Pop inquired politely if Mom had gone and lost her mind.

So much for that!

A week or so later we packed our bags and headed off for our usual two-week family vacation in Ocean City. On Sunday, August 17th, Pop went out to pick up the Sunday Washington Post. He came into the kitchen of our rented cottage and plopped the paper down on the counter. There was the headline:

400,000 Jam Rock Festival in Catskills

Smack dab on the front page was a huge photo of a sea of naked, mudcaked, stoned hippies.

“Take a look at this!” he said to Mom. “THIS is what you wanted me to take your daughters to!”

After Mom and Pop finished recoiling in horror, I looked at the picture.

“Damn,” I thought, “I shoulda hitchhiked!”