Woodstock Nation: Where Were You (Or Your Parents) During the Summer of "69?

The signposts of my life are not graduations, weddings and deaths, but memories born of music -- a life-changing concert, a crush on a rock star, a song in heavy rotation on AM radio all summer.

By 1969 I had already accumulated a few of these musical milestones: The Beatles on Ed Sullivan; 'Paul is Dead'; "Ruby Tuesday". I loved John Lennon and Davey Jones (the cute, English Monkee) in equal measure, and had fallen head over heels for a crooner in white tie on a family trip to Bermuda.

The summer of '69 began inauspiciously. Gawky and insecure and living in that uncomfortable space between childhood and adolescence, my summer started as usual with bikes and pool parties and running in the woods. At night, all the neighborhood kids played "Scatter!," an extreme version of hide and seek that was not for the timid. Menacing bats would come out and dive bomb home-base at the Fava's house, which made us girls scream. I'm sure the boys were afraid too, but of course they couldn't show it. As it got dark our mothers would call us in, one mother always embarrassing her kids with a plaintive "time to take your bath". Fortunately, it was never mine.

I was intrigued that summer by the Reynolds family. One of the big Catholic families in my small town with a football team's worth of kids, they lived a few streets away in a ramshackle hippy house. Randy Reynolds, in my eyes a "big girl" at fifteen, let me tag along with her; her usual friends from school must've lived across town. She was the coolest person I knew, and she had a twenty-year old brother, Warren, who looked like Dennis Wilson (the cool, dangerous Beach Boy) on whom I had a mad, mad crush. He knew this and was a kind young man so paid me special attention because he saw it pleased me.

All the older Reynolds kids, including Randy, went to Woodstock. I felt left out even though I wasn't quite sure what Woodstock was until I saw it on the nightly news. The coverage was of the immense crowds, long traffic queues, and mud. And I longed to be there. I knew I was missing something monumental -- life-changing for those who were there. They would forever be a part of a tribe. I would not, officially, but I would be in spirit.

The enormity of the event really hit home when my parents took my brother and me to see the movie Woodstock -- 3 Days of Peace and Music the following summer at the drive-in. I mostly remember the "risque" moments -- Hendrix's bent national anthem, Country Joe getting the crowd to scream "FUCK!", and seeing bare breasts on screen for the first time. Of course, the music was barely audible through those little public address speakers we hung on our car window. I think I fell asleep before it was over, coming down hard from candy overload from the concession stand.

In '69 I would listen all day to WABC New York (Harry Harrison and Cousin Brucie) to hear The Beatles' #1 hit "Get Back", usurped later that summer by the Stones'
"Honkey Tonk Women". After a long reign earlier in the year by the White Album, the summer album chart was taken over by Blood, Sweat and Tears, who were in turn pushed aside by the Original Cast Recording of Hair. Blind Faith's one and only album made it to the top of the charts as we were packing up to go back to school.

That entire year was particularly eventful in music. I followed in disbelief the disintegration of the Beatles while wearing out my record player stylus with Abbey Road, the band's exquisite, unofficial swan song. But I remember nothing about Altamont, the death of Brian Jones, or the release of important albums by The Who (Tommy), Dylan (Nashville Skyline), and freshman efforts from Led Zeppelin and David Bowie.

But I would not experience those delights until a few years later. My young girl pursuits took precedence. When I could drag myself away from the radio, I was off in the woods -- running on Indian trails, swinging on vines, discovering the secret remains of a Revolutionary War house we told no one about. I can go back there now with my aural scrapbook, my iPod. To nights filled with crickets, fireflies and (rock) stars.

Comments

[Halsey]

I was 14 and living in friggin Montana ...which is a million miles from anything cool...a year or so later, I met a hippie guy who said he was AT woodstock.­.I was soooo jealous..I mean..I grew up so isolated from everything­..2 TV channels..­that was it..but I remember..­.when the movie came out..I did go see it with a friend and a couple guys...the­y had strong pot and we drank some Pink Catauba...­well...I spent most of the movie run IN the bathroom with my head in the toilet..(n­ever mix pink catauba with anything)

when I can find the DVD...(not easy)..I do like to rent themovie..­and pretend I was there..but­..a dream it will always remain...t­oo bad we didn't make the progess toward humanity that summer tried to bring...we blew it..

[superlive]

If I wasn't in my crib, I was probably in my stroller -- or being carried around.

[NoSillyName]

Just getting out of high school.

[raker]

I was twelve. I saw the pictures on TV and thought it was the skeeviest thing I'd ever seen. Three days of rain, mud and hepatitis. Dodged a bullet on that one.

[larstein]

Here on the West Coast it was all about Altamont. I related to Woodstock because of "Music from Big Pink" the Band's album of the previous year, and because Dylan lived there, recuperating from a motorcycle accident of late 1966. Woodstock was pretty much an East Coast thing until the movie came out. But Altamont, the Manson story, and that spooky Abbey Road album, gave the last half of 1969 a late night flavor. That, combined with all the lsd that was available - the last of the original batch of Owsley White Lightning was still around - made it very very strange. We were rooting for Woodstock, and I had a friend who actually made it out, but its significance had to wait for the movie.

[LyndainNY]

I was 17 at the time. Although I only lived about a two hour drive from there, my mother wouldn't let me go.

[GhiaccioPronto]

I had just turned 13, hadn't smoked pot yet, or french kissed a girl, and was trapped in a VW microbus with my parents and little brother, looking!!! for my older brother (16) who had gotten tickets from my village aunt to go to the thing, Me and my brother were looking for naked girls, my parents were looking to put a stop to the fun, and the cops were telling us about dead hippies run over by tractors, That pretty well sums up the 60's for me. None of us ever made it that last couple of miles to the farm, and the 60's never made it where theywere going either.

[GhiaccioPronto]

In a VW microbus with my parents and younger brother, supposedly looking for another brother who had tickets to the thing, but most of the time watching to see as many muddy skinny dipping girls as possible, None of us ever made it the last couple of miles. The sixties never made it either,

[courtney79]

My dad got kicked out of the house for going to Woodstock. His picture ended up in the local newspaper and busted his story about staying at a friend's house. Thirty years later I got to go to another music festival at Yasgur Farm -- nowhere near as cool, but at least less commercial than the "official" Woodstock anniversary concerts they've put together.

[BusGreg]

Agreed. Many consider Michael Lang a sellout for allowing the "Woodstock" name to be used for the commercialized anniversary shows.

[Val Brown - Huffpost Blogger]

from susan brustman:

Was coming down of f a high in the Village and kept hearing beautiful rock riffs floating between promos on Woodstock and realized I had to be there.

Connected with my pal Wavy Gravy. got info on the hotel where my music soul mates – Tim Hardin, Kris Kristofferson, Chris Gantry were staying.

Don’t remember how I got there – but remember I was wearing a bright purple T with gold lame macramé vest with skin tight little jeans – quite a sexy outfit.

I passed hippies bathing in mud, chanting, dancing, smoking weed. Couldn’t believe the immense size of the crowd. It was other worldly or as we said in those days – very cosmic. Got to the hotel, phoned Timmy and roosted in his room. Kristoferson’s band was on the same floor. We smoked some weed and I went with them backstage. It was a huge stage and the reverb was almost deafening – vividly remember the set with Jimi Hendrix – it tore up the crowd. It was so intense I was crying. I vaguely remember Crosby, Still &a mp; Nash – interesting to me cause David occasionally slept on the floor in my living room in Los Angeles and I thought he was just another druggie & kinda burnt out - never realized he was so talented. Loved the Chambers Brothers’ “Time has Come Today,” seemed so inspiring. We thought things would change forever – peace, music, love and drugs would rule the

[lasher]

I was in the Midwest at the time
A card carrying,
Pot smoking, acid dropping, music loving, eastern philosophy studying, anti war marching hippie. Married to a hippie goddess with hair under her arms and a head band. Her family lived in a small town 50 miles south of Chicago and we had our little hippie "our house, is a very very very fine house with 2 cats in the yard, life use
To be sooo hard now everything is Groovy cause of you". (With a peace flag of course) Her Grandmother had the only home on an island in the Kankakee River. We'd sit on the river bank watching Deer sip water while we were tripping on purple Owsley (sp) reading Siddhartha. That is if we not inside listening to Revolver or pepper or Adam Heart Mother or Muddy waters or Trane or Hendrix or stones or then play on or Procol
Etc etc etc.......­..... Men on the moon, Woodstock, (we didn't go but believe me we were there) and Anti war marches in Chicago.
God what a great time to have been 23.... PS I worked in a head shop in Chicago selling incense, papers, poster, black lights
And more...I could go on and on but this flashback was all I could take!!!!

[MightyMeno]

In the Summer of '69 I was 17, fresh out of high school and due to start art school that September. Wish I could say I was at Woodstock, but I was in Florida, walking around in a fog of reefer smoke and cluelessness. My future husband was there, though, with some of his Hell's Angels buddies. And no camera! What a dillhole.

[RobinSeattle]

I was 12. The dominant radio station in SoCal was KHJ (Boss Radio!) and I hadn't yet even heard of FM radio. Really didn't know that much about music back then. In fact, I was a mad baseball fan and cared much more for that than music at the time. I did, though, just start growing my hair long then and it would eventually grow down to the middle of my back. Started smoking at 13 (quit when I was 19) and didn't really start smoking pot until I entered high school.

[Hope2]

I might have been there.....­..I don't remember.

[RobinL]

I was 17 and in the throes of a heavy crush on my first boyfriend. The whole heavy-duty hippy thing seemed very far away---though my older brother's friends were a mild version of it. It had one important ramification, though. In my high school the social order completely flip-flopped junior and senior year and the former "popular kids"---all cheerleaders and football players--were demoted to "jocks". Kids were openly experimenting with pot and acid and how you dressed was becoming much less important. Wearing jeans to school was real freedom to me---esp. given our freezing cold winters. Everything was loosening up. High school quit being such torture.