Woodstock Memories

I will never forget those three days of Peace, Love and Mud.
I was 21 and living in Brooklyn. Having led a somewhat insular life in that borough, I figured the subway would take me there to that little upstate New York town, Woodstock.
When the subway reached the end of the line, not too far from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, I inquired of a conductor who told me that I only had 250 more miles to go.

I went up the to the street and flashed a thumb. I was come upon by a child of God---she was driving across the road---she told me she was trying to get back to the Godhead--- I realized she looked a lot like Joni Mitchell. I asked her, “Are you Joni Mitchell??”
She said, “Well one of us is and it’s sure as hell ain’t you!!”
I told her that since I was unfamiliar with upstate New York, I didn’t know where this Godhead highway was, but I wondered aloud if she might be going to Woodstock.
She nodded yes. I asked her for a ride.
She said, “Hell no! I’m busy right now writing this song about where I’m goin’ and you’ll just be an unwelcome distraction!”
She drove away. But then she suddenly stopped, backed up to where I was and sang, “Help me I think I’m fallin’, in love again”.
My heart skipped a beat. Joni Mitchell in love with me?? “Joni!” I said. “I love you too!!”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about??!,” she said. “I just wanted to try out on someone a new song I wrote!--- now go take a Big Yellow Taxi!!” she said. Then she drove away with her head thrown back, letting out that same girlish giggle you hear at the end of her aforementioned record.
I bore her no malice though. I had read about her and I realized that I was fortunate enough to be in one her longer lasting relationships.
Anyway, through a successful series of thumbed rides I got to my destination: There was the Jewish Princess whose parents were taking her to Woodstock. On and on she whined, “I’ll be the only girl there with her parents!! I wanna smoke pot, take my clothes off and have sex like the other kids!!”
“Guttenhimmel!”said her mother. Pot and sex you wanna have?? The only pot you’ll have is pot roast. And as for sex, , yeah the day you marry that nice boy Bernard who’s studying to be a Dental Lawyer!! Sex she's gonna have!"


The couple returning to Toronto, and the husband who kept us amused for two hours with his joke about how he was an alcoholic and how he was gonna drink Canada Dry!


The group going to Albany for the annual Atheist Convention. I remember the little statuette of Madelyn Murry O’Hair on their dashboard. They were also very patriotic and sang several choruses of ‘Hmmm Bless America”.


By the time I got to Woodstock, there was no one there. I asked an amiable local, “Excuse me, but can you direct me to the massive rock festival?”
“Sure , ya wanna go about 25 miles yonder over the Catskils to a town called Bethel!”
Thank you I said, and then my inner- Oliver Hardy did a double-take.
“Uhm, if the festival’s not in Woodstock, why are they calling it the Woodstock Festival??” I asked.
"Not sure", he said. "I reckon the Bethel Festival sounded too Jewish!!”


With that I bid farewell to Woodstock and set out for Woodstock.
By the time I got there they were a half a million strong. Well, to be fair it was very hot and humid.
I was so clueless. I asked someone where the box office was.
Richie Havens was sing a song in which he repeated the word “Freedom!” about 68 times. I intuited that the song was some sort of comment on the concept of freedom.

Next someone named Joe Cocker was performing and I thought it was cruel for the people to be cheering and dancing as a handicapped man was having uncontrollable spasms on stage.. It looked like he had just had hands laid on him at a Healing Service and was taking his first steps.

Someone passed me a joint. I was a weed virgin at the time. I ate it.
As I sensed my presence was no longer desired, I skulked away while they repeated, “Not cool, man!! Not cool!!”


I hooked up with a chick named Magnolia. I asked if that was her real name. She said, Not really , but it sounds better than Zelda Lenkowshivitz!” (Note: in those days girls were “chicks” until you started going steady at which point she was your “old lady”---if you got married she almost literally became your old lady.)
It was a bummer that Magnolia and I were so far back from the stage that it took 15 minutes for the singers’ voices to reach us after they sang something.
Bummer man! I mean, while Janis Joplin was on the stage performing, we were still hearing Sha Na Na!!

And then the rain came, somehow ignoring our mystical chant of “No rain! No rain!”
The whole place turned into a giant mud pit.
Everyone was havin’ a blast sliding in the mud, making mudpies. (which after two days without a good meal didn’t taste all that bad!)
Magnolia started complaining, “Hey dude. How ‘bout joinin’ in the fun instead of standing there staring at those two chicks fighting in the mud!! Not cool!!”

I had to agree with her, especially when she and whole bunch of chicks took their clothes off and waded into a pond to wash off.
I volunteered to be towel boy.
Then the boys were going in au naturel too. I said what the heck and joined in.
I’ll always consider it a cruel jest of God that at that exact moment Creedence Clearwater was playing Bad Moon Rising.
That went well for a while, then the Hippie in charge had me thrown out for pointing. ‘Not cool, man!!” he said. “Not cool!!”
(I later read that some guy went around stealing all the temporarily discarded tie-dye shirts, bell bottoms and sandals, and opened up quite a lucrative clothing business for himself! I think hi name was, oh, Bernie, Mo… Ma… somethin’ like that. Anyway, that wasn’t cool man!! Not cool!)

Then that quickly it was the last morning. Jimi Hendrix was up there playing the National Anthem, but as far as I knew there was no baseball game scheduled.
A lot of people had left. Unfortunately, they left about a million tons of garbage. Jimi Hendrix later said, “That’s the first time I played in front of so much white trash!!”

Magnolia and I kissed and swore we’d keep in touch as we exchanged area codes.

It was time to leave Woodstock…or Bethel…or wherever the hell we were, and return to the straight world, but knowing in our hearts that that weekend had set something significant in motion: dozens of acrimonious lawsuits.