I read somewhere that a polling company recently did a sample survey asking who had been to Woodstock.
By statictical extrapolation the attendance would have been 2.6 million.
It appears a few people would like to claim they were there when they weren't.
I was too busy being the sterotypical college cheerleader and chasing the star pitcher on the baseball team to hop in a VW bus and head to NY.
Deborah Horn In a previous life I was an Umbrian sunflower farmer. I want to do a past life regression and stay there. ----------------------------------- www.petsburg.com My blog: Old Shoes - New Trip
Posts: 5026 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: 04 September 2001
Oh! the hippie-wannabe in me wanted to be ther so much, but I was newly married, 6 months pregnant, and in KY, so it never happened! I still love to watch the movie!
And Robert, you lived to tell the tale of Altamont....WOW!
O.K. - I'll confess - although it all is still a "purple haze" in my memory. I was living in NYC and took off driving with a male friend - we got a few miles out and the cars were moving so slow it felt we were going backwards, so I jumped out and said I would walk - leaving my sleeping bag, spare clothes, etc in the car...and my famous last words were..."I'll see ya there". Never did.
It was a heady mixture of fear in the midst of so many people -along with excitement - "hey - this is my tribe, man!" along with the logistics of food, sleep, comfort, bathrooms with nothing but the $10.00 I had in my pocket of my ever so slightly see through indian blouse.
At the end, utterly exhausted I cadged a ride back down to NYC from someone...no idea who now and crashed back at my apartment at around 7pm on Sunday - in early prep for going to work next morning. The next time I woke, the light was creeping in my windows low, so I jumped up to get ready for work in the sunrise, but it was actually the SUNSET...24 hours later.
That has never happened since in my life. In many ways, I feel living through that time, I dodged a bullet for a variety of reasons, but it certainly left me with stories, most of whom I do not relate to my nieces and nephews...
Hmm...I think I was enjoying our first summer in our new home in the suburbs, swimming in a local swim club, playing at the park. I remember having Dr. Pepper for the first time, and a chunky candy bar (always food oriented). No Woodstock because I wasn't yet 4!
I have never gotten over being too young to go to woodstock. I was old enough to go to Watkins Glen a few years later, but conservative parents did not allow me to go. I am rock and roll scarred for life.
My husband was there for his 15th birthday!! When asked what he wanted to do for his birthday that year, he told his mom there was some kind of a concert in Woodstock that he wanted to go to. Not knowing what she was getting into, she agreed to drive my husband and his brother (14 years old) from Pennsylvania!
They were there for the whole thing. He had the time of his life and his stories are priceless. My mother-in-law remains a very broad-minded woman to this day......
Joan
Posts: 469 | Location: Chicago | Registered: 25 April 2006
I was in Atlanta, in my last couple of weeks at Georgia Tech preparing for my last finals. I was so "head down" in my books that didn't even know it was happening.
My husband is a sportswriter....at the time he lived in NY & was up in New England covering a game. He headed back to NY in the Woodstock traffic....decided to pull over....took him 24 hours to drive a normally 4 1/2 hour trip!
Me...I was in Arizona. But I did attend my share of Doors concerts in the late 60's. So much second-hand smoke I could barely see the stage!
Posts: 171 | Location: Mountain Lakes, NJ USA | Registered: 05 August 2003
Yes, I was there. I was 16 years old and my girlfriend, Julie and I told our parents that we were going to each other's house for the weekend. We were good girls and they believed us. We hitch hiked from Staten Island to Woodstock, well, outside of Woodstock, because of all the cars. We hiked along with all the crowd for about a mile and made it to the back of the stage when it started pouring. We huddled under a tree with our sleeping bags until the rain stopped, then enjoyed the music. My mom still doesn't know I was there!
gloria
Posts: 976 | Location: San Francisco bay area | Registered: 12 May 2003
I was at the Atlanta Pop Festival - I didn't see you there. I remember sleeping in a tent and seeing a couple of naked people. I can't remember how we got food or used the bathroom, but I do remember being so tired when I got home that I thought I would never wake up. And the music - loud, but so fun.
Callie
Posts: 655 | Location: Maine | Registered: 23 November 2002
I was there. For me it was just an amazing weekend. It would have been amazing for the music alone, but I have so many other great memories as well.
Confession time ... I was one of those people who actually bought a ticket. To top it off, my girlfriend's father loaned her his car for the weekend (heck, we were just going to a concert, and not that far away, at that). The traffic jam to the site would give a whole new meaning to "slow travel" , but we arrived in style. Amidst all the VW bugs, mini-buses and other vehicles painted in psychedelic colors, we were in a new BMW -- nothing like sticking out like a sore thumb!
Sharon
Posts: 207 | Location: Silicon Valley, California | Registered: 08 November 2003
Wow, double WOW to all of you that "were there!" It's really something when you can say that you were at Woodstock on that special weekend. I remember in those years my sister and I had long straight hair and wore torn jeans. That drove my quiet dad crazy. He would always say,"I don't know why you girls have to wear torn jeans when your mom buys you nice clothes!" We would burn incense and candles in our bedrooms and say, "Yeah, we're hippies!" but of course we were just dreamers living a comfortable life in our parents home. Barb Cabot
Posts: 587 | Location: Long Beach, California | Registered: 27 August 2007
Oh how I wish I was living on that other coast, but like Barb, there I was living the high school life at home. And I was only 16 that summer. But I can tell you that whenever the first big peace march in San Francisco was (seriously can't remember the year, maybe it was '68), my friends and I were there. It was so heady, and my mother had no clue what we were doing - we went with the "lefty" dr. parents of a friend down the street, stayed in the Berkeley Hills (Berkeley!!!) with relatives of theirs, and they dropped us off in SF and said they would meet us at the end of the march. OMG, I was in love with life, SF, Berkeley, probably why I ended up going to UC Santa Cruz a year or so later.
Forgive the slight digression, but this just brings back memories of that era all around.
Slow Travel Talk 
