By the time I got to Woodstock

This coming Sunday, August 13, a few days shy of a thirty-seventh anniversary, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young return to a stage at Woodstock, albeit a brand-new one. The four of them, the audience, and all of us are older - and some of us wiser - than we were in’69.

I drove to the location of the original festival earlier this year, a mile down Hurd Road, a right turn off of Route 17B in Bethel, New York. This place calls me back every ten years or so, even if I didn’t make it that 1969 weekend - or because I didn’t get there then. I feel like I missed out on something momentous, and I like to go and see if there’s anything I can soak up, anything I can hear on the wind. It’s just a pretty field to look out over, one of thousands in upstate New York, but something dramatic happened here, and one wants to imagine the sights and sounds of so many people in one place.

But change is in the air. You can no longer just park by the sculpture where previous pilgrims have placed flowers, photos and guitar picks. It’s cordoned off, and just over the first ridge, condos are being built. Just up the road, the pristine new Bethel Woods Center for the Arts promises a slate of classical, jazz, country and pop performances, all with comfortable seating and easy parking, both a distinct change from 1969. (The parking issue is such a marketing obstacle these many years later that the Bethel Woods website lists as one of its five essential qualities: “parking in close proximity to the main entrance.”)

I was one of thousands of Long Island kids who did not make the journey to Sullivan County in ‘69, either because our parents didn’t approve or we couldn’t marshal a car full. I don’t think anyone from Southold went. Too far? Too scared?

We were in good company, us no-shows. The names of the musicians who declined the invitation to play are now as legion as those who did. Bob Dylan, The Doors, Jeff Beck, and Led Zeppelin all said no. Joni Mitchell either got stuck on the Thruway with all the others or withdrew to appear on the Dick Cavett Show, depending on whose version you believe. Still, she got a great song out of it, one of the few songs that sound good both as a slow dirge and an electric anthem. According to Wikipedia, Tommy James and the Shondells were just told that a farmer wanted them to play in a field. They said no -- then saw in the news a few days later what they had missed, just as we did.

That farm is now gone, as is the way in America now, going under the bulldozer and hammer for new homes, and I am both saddened and realistic. It isn’t as if Woodstock is like Gettysburg or Valley Forge, truly historical places that are also under siege by developers. And any nameless wetland or forest is more vital to the quality of life today than where 500,000 kids smoked and drank for four days.

It is incredibly sad that, on August 13, 2006, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young will once again have to, need to, want to comment on an overseas war. The difference from 1969, however, is that all who attend this year’s performance will go back to dry, clean beds, with friends or family around them. That, too, is what our soldiers deserve.

Peace, soon.

Comments

[Noelle]

Beautiful post! I missed Woodstock as well, due to of my lack of existence in 1969... The hippie in me does consider it sacred land, just like all the beautiful fields and empty spaces up here. There was a great article in this week's Poughkeepsie Journal (Out in a Wilderness of Laws) about what a wetland really is and what happens when you put a house on top of it, and the flawed laws trying to curb the destruction. I'm going to have to schedule a visit up there before the McMansions come up.

[A Fan]

It is incredibly sad. To me, the tragedy is not so much that we are repeating the same mistake we made in Vietnam or that condos are threatening the shrine or that the farm (like many of the small farms across our nation)is gone, it's that a concert event like Woodstock that galvanized a generation and drew 500,000 young people together in one place would be impossible today. Homeland Security would prevent it; jobs, time, lack of motivation would preclude it.

Just a thought, but wouldn't it be great to have Al Gore give his global warming presentation before CSNY take the stage?

Great blog. This should be a NY Times editorial.

[A Texan]

Thanks for the great blog . . . I need to go home and get out my CSN&Y albums. Missed Woodstock, but saw and read a lot about it and evied everyone there. As of yet, have not been to the northeast US. It is, however, on my list of "things to do during this lifetime."

[Joyce]

The NJ Highway patrol was pulling over anyone who looked like a hippie. I was arrested!

[Lyn]

Well, I lived in Southold in 1969 but I was only 10 so unlikely to get the parents' permission to swan off to Woodstock. Nice blog. (SHS/1977)