Still Living the Summer of Woodstock

It has been fifty-five years since the Summer of 1969. I graduated from Floral Park Memorial High School that June. The Jets won their only Super Bowl that previous January. We saw men land on the moon in July. We saw a Kennedy destroy any chance to become President two days earlier. We saw the unlikely Miracle on Flushing Bay, when the New York Mets won the World Series in October.

For me, I made the first of many adult life choices, as I decided late that summer to delay going into the Seminary (I never did). I even wrote about it in my book, The Coming of Age – The Summer of 1969 (available on Amazon).

But there is one event that stands out head over heals above all else that affected so many of us: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, held at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel New York from August 15 to August 18. It has been estimated that a half million people showed up to hear Richie Havens begin it and Jimi Hendrix end it.

In between, some of the performers included Santana, Melanie, Joan Baez, Sha Na Na, Ravi Shankar, Country Joe and The Fish, Janis Joplin, CCR, Mountain, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker and CSNY, who documented it in a song written by Joni Mitchell, who was Graham Nash’s girlfriend at the time, called appropriately, Woodstock.

Later on, the film which was taken that weekend was made into a documentary. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film and was nominated for two others, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

Even Woodstock, Snoopy’s bird friend, got into the act after he first appeared in Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip, but he wasn't named until June 22, 1970, after the 1969 Woodstock festival.

There was music played to enjoy and satisfy everybody’s tastes. Rock, Country, Psychedelic, Accoustic, Electric. Even Strings, if you can believe that.

Ultimately, that weekend, that place, affected and defined a whole generation, even if you weren’t there. The music still lives, the memories of what we did at that time are a little more vivid than others, the lesson we learned about ourselves and each other has clarity.

While we are now as Boomers (mostly) today’s Senior Citizens, we still have a younger-minded outlook on all things; more so than the generations which preceeded us and certainly more relatable to those who came after.

As Joni Mitchell inspired us so long ago, we can still sing them loud and proud:

We are stardust, we are golden

We are billion-year-old carbon

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

Stay young, My Friends!