I was twenty years old and a seminary student in the summer of 1969. I was a loner, a peripheral man on the fringes of
both the counterculture and society at large.
It was a turbulent time in America with wars raging on both the foreign and domestic fronts. With assassinations of our
liberal leaders, civil unrest, discrimination and the questioning of all authority, The institutions of this country were
being rocked to their foundations. In this environment the counterculture took on added appeal. My favorite group was The
Doors. I had a record player that played single records. The only record I owned was "Riders on The Storm" which I played
over and over. I also liked the later Beatles, Temptations, Dylan, Lovin Spoonful, Rascals, Kinks etc. Aside from the Temps
and Four Tops, which were, feel good groups; the other music acknowledged our underlying feelings of alienation and angst.
The Hippie movement was more than bell bottom pants and long hair. It was a state of mind. A world view. A philosophy and
lifestyle. It was so pervasive that it crept into and finally overran the mainstream culture. We were all part of it to some
degree. We shared common values such as basic human rights for all people, the sanctity of life, the search for truth and
a better world, the power of change, a distrust of those in power.
Civil unrest was the first wave of change to sweep the country. Demonstrations quickly turned violent. Hatred and division
ran rampant. Then came women rights and the counterrevolution. The "hard hats" (Middle America) and government were terrified
and struck back. Black people were beaten and hosed in the streets. Mayor Daley's police at the 68 Democratic Convention savagely
beat student protesters. Our fellow young men were being brought home from Viet Nam in body bags by the thousands. Daily bombings
of Vietnam and Cambodia. Assassinations of Presidents and Civil Rights leaders, all of the above brought to us in living color
each night on the 6 o'clock news.
The Vietnam War was an evil war. Perpetrated on a foreign people by industrialists and government determined to advance
their capitalistic and political agendas, with total disregard for human life.
The drug scene was a way out (not a real good one) of the day to day oblivion and despair many of us felt. I began riding
motorcycles, studying philosophy, visiting a friend in the town of Woodstock regularly, riding the subways of Manhattan alone
late at night and spending time in Greenwich Village.
I attended the Woodstock Festival in 1969. I was barely twenty years old. I followed a girl I had met the week before in
Tarrytown N.Y. She was in a Camaro with her girlfriend and two guys. One looked like Jimi Hendrix, the other like Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I followed on my motorcycle, with ape hanger handlebars and a sissybar to which was tied a very large duffel bag. I stayed
the three days. Pretty much. I was a loner but followed a car with four people in it. One was a girl that intrigued me.
I lived in Sleepy Hollow, i.e., Tarrytown, New York. I was single and in the seminary as I stated. I also went to Woodstock
79, 94 and 99. At Woodstock 69 I did a few things I shouldn't have. I rode my 1979 Triumph to Woodstock 79 and no one was
there. At Woodstock 99 I went around telling the young people to be careful. At last years reunion (2004 - 35 yrs later) I
rode up from Philly on my Yamaha Vstar.
Here's a recap of my Woodstock story. I had my motorcycle against the curb on Beekman Avenue in Tarrytown in August of
69 when a pretty girl pulled up in a new Mustang. She noticed me admiring her car and asked me if I wanted a ride. I said
yes if I could keep my helmet on because I didn't trust female drivers. We drove around Tarrytown for two hours and became
friendly. She invited me to follow her and her girlfriend up to Woodstock the following week. I met her and her girlfriend
and two guys at the foot of the Tappan Zee Bridge that Friday, and we headed up the New York Thruway. When we got within 15
miles the traffic began to back up. The girl jumped out of the car wearing only jeans, a top, and no shoes. She made me throw
my gear in the trunk of the car and we rode along the edge of the highway into the festival site and waited for the car to
catch up. It never did. All the cars came to a stop and we realized we would not connect with our friends. I turned to her
and asked if she had any money? She had $60, which was a fortune in 1969! I told her that the rules of he road dictated I
watch out for her the entire weekend but she would have to split the dough. She agreed, and jumped back on the bike and we
got a bottle of wine and rode into the Festival. She was barely seventeen. So there I stood on the edge of the grassy oval
looking down upon the stage, with this pretty girl with hair down to her waist (she looked like the girl on the Mod Squad
TV show), a bottle of wine and my bike, surrounded by 400000 soul mates. It doesn't get any better! Then we watched as a tractor
drove along a cleared portion of earth (all the grass was trampled and the mud and 500 years of cow manure were coming to
the surface). I watched as the tractor ran over what appeared to be a mound of earth, as a human hand flung out. It became
evident that a person had been inside a mummy sleeping bag and had been run over. I ran to the trailers and banged on a door
until the doctor came out. I told him he had to come and help because someone had been run over! "What do you want me to DO!"
he said, explaining that thousands of people were overdosing, having babies etc. "Are you kidding?" I said "I'll knock you
out, damn it!" "
I'm sorry," he said "but I will call a medi-vac unit." The helicopter flew in and removed the young man already dead. It
was like a replay of the 6 o'clock news. Then the rain came. We were cold and wet and found refuge in other people's tents
was we slept briefly an hour at a time. We sloshed around together the entire weekend, listening to the music and taking in
the scene. My friend stepped on glass and cut her foot. She got help in on of the medical tents. In between the music played
and everyone got along- no assaults or murders. People loving each other. Saturday night Sly and The Family Stone came on
stage and sung "Gotta Get Higher" and 500,000 young people working out to the beat on car rooftops, shouted the lyrics at
the top of their lungs.
By Sunday I was sick and thought I had pneumonia. So I decided not to wait for Hendrix and took my friend home. Riding
down the Thruway in torrential rain I had a premonition of a crash. Just then the memory of my roommate from the seminary,
entered my mind to remind me he worked in a camp somewhere in the Catskills. I turned off the road and stopped at a store
and asked if they ever heard of St. Vincent's camp. It was just down the road! I pulled in to the camp with a full beard and
leather jacket, a big knife strapped to my waist on my black bike. The young girl on the back was literally in tatters. The
old Irish Catholic nun at the gate was mortified when I told her I was seminarian. My roommate identified me and was let in.
I collapsed under ten covers in a big log bed while news reports about the disaster area we had just come from, blared over
the TV.
The next day it was sunny and clear as I drove down the NY Thruway. I dropped my new friend of on a corner in Tarrytown.
Tears welled up in her eyes as I explained I was headed back to the seminary. Once back at school in my vestments, I opened
my prayer books and the picture of that sweet girl with tears in her eyes would appear. I put up with it for three months
before I cranked up the bike and rode back over the Throggs Neck Bridge to tell her I just maybe I might be able to see her,
once in a while. PS: Thirty five years later we are still married! A very true story.
There was no police harassment at Woodstock that I observed. Just the opposite. They left everyone alone and were friendly.
I felt a camaraderie with the downtrodden and oppressed. I was poor, strong willed, and a fiercely independent thinker.
I was a philosopher and an existentialist. When I ultimately decided to leave the seminary (I had studied since age 13 for
the priesthood) I underwent a religious and moral crisis. It was a time of deep emotion and psychological soul searching.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever be selling luxury automobiles years later!
I think a lot of us became disillusioned back then just after Woodstock, with Altamont and Kent State. We all went on with
our lives and buried our ideals. We became jaded and cynical. We pursued wealth and power. We ultimately matured (how horrible!).
But there is a reawakening, a resurgence beginning to sweep the country, I feel. A lot of us including myself are beginning
to look back to those times and question the paths we have taken. We are trying to recapture the magic and the light we left
behind.
The experiences of the past were both liberating and debilitating. Many of us who experimented with mind altering substances
for instance, may have actually changed who we were, the very makeup of our own brains and personalities. There is something
sad in that I think. Maybe that explains the comical situation I put myself in at the twenty-fifth reunion at Woodstock in
Bethel were I walked around at night telling young people smoking pot that "you really shouldn't be doing that". Being a parent
now myself; I wished I had taken it a little easier on my own parents.
To borrow a phrase, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." To be fair I have enjoyed the fruits of my labors
to some extent in my adult life. I bought my first house at age 25, and drove fancy cars most of my life, but I never became
a slave to money. I did become a slave to the retail business, however. A workaholic, putting in 12 hour days for thirty plus
years. I took few too many vacations, and smelled few too many flowers. Yet for what reason, I now as others ask myself.
I took my maiden voyage June 26, 2004 on my first new motorcycle in twenty-five years. I don’t have much hair these
days, but it’s true that what’s between your legs is what’s important. My Yamaha V Star 1100 is a bikers
dream! What a machine. It’s wide with a big gas tank and so much chrome right from Jump Street. The power band is phenomenal,
and I was careful not to get too carried away in break-in-mode as I roared North on Rte 413 in Buckingham, Pennsylvania, toward
Lake Noximixon. I immediately felt comfortable in the ample seat. Many things crowded my mind as I tried to concentrate on
what was important. Memories of a prior accident a week before my wedding thirty-four years ago lingered until I realized
I don’t drink and drive anymore. My sense of smell had been compromised from that event, and I was surprised to realize
all of a sudden, that the smell of cow shit in the morning was a beautiful thing! I now once again smelled it, along with
the mixture of freshly cut grass and the early summer pollen. A miracle! I drove along at a steady clip remembering to look
ahead for any stray deer or errant motorist. Sufficiently confident I could easily control the metal beast beneath me, I lapsed
into a Zen-like revere, only to be startled by a woman in the middle of the road holding a stop sign. "Wow, slow down keep
alert!" I downshifted and came to a full stop just in time. Seems they were repaving the road. “Look at that large swarm
of bugs behind you” she offered as I sat there, “they’re gaining on you”. I cranked the throttle and
was flying up the road again. Several miles up I pulled into an old diner on Rte 412. I parked my machine and admired it from
a few feet for a second and entered. There were a few truckers inside. The whir of the ice machine coupled with the window-mounted
air conditioner hummed away as I eased in. I knew I had already traveled back in time, because the people inside seemed well,
friendly. Maybe they were amused seeing and old biker with a big grin on his face, obviously enjoying life. A local started
talking to me about the cicadas infestation and how bad it had been up at the lake and to be careful that one didn’t
fly into me on the ride. I asked for the nearest gas station and was told it was a few miles up the road toward Springtown.
I remembered I had once eaten in a restaurant in Springtown proper, which had a gas station a few blocks from it. I motored
on up on snake-like Rte 412 and came to the realization that unlike in my youth, the posted speed limit was a fine rate of
travel, sufficient to excite my sense of adventure, and was actually my friend keeping me happy and safe. There would be plenty
of time to open her up under optimum condition on the straight-aways when the coast was clear. As I pulled into the Gulf station
on Main Street in Springtown I noticed the annoyed look on the attendants face. “Another yuppie pain the ass”,
he probably thought. I pumped my own gas, and although trying to be exceedingly careful, managed to overfill it and spilled
gas all over the tank. Luckily I had a do-rag in my back pocket and quickly soaked up the spilled acidic fuel. As I walked
up to the office I noticed the attendant who was sitting on the steps, was missing a few teeth and his entire right hand from
the wrist up. “Nice bike, what kind is it?” he said.” Yamaha”, I answered. “How big; looks like
a Harley”. “It’s 1100cc”, I replied. “Harley’s cost twice as much”, I continued.
“Yeah, he ventured, you need to be a doctor or lawyer to own one of them. What are you?” “Oh, I’m
just and Indian Chief”, I said. “Suites you fine”, he said. “Yeah I said, I think I’ll ride
it back to Woodstock, been thirty-five years. That’s where I met my wife. Still married to her and they said it wouldn’t
last!” “I’m surprised she let you buy it”, he said. “So am I. She’s quite a girl!" Now
if I can only convince her to ride back with me"...
I returned after 35 years. I set out on my Yamaha V Star Sunday, August 22 2004 at 5am from New Hope Pennsylvania (a Woodstock-like
town of artists and shops in Eastern Pa.) with Francis Theuer a friend who drives a Harley Davidson Road King. It was cold
and damp as we set out at 5 am, but my spirits were high because I was returning in style with hopes and anticipation of recapturing
some of the magic I had experienced the first time around in 1969. After all it was where I met my wife and spent a purely
magical weekend. My friend although my age had not been there, and I filled him with stories and folklore the days prior,
of the original event. It was a long 150+-mile trip first up Rte 287 through Jersey to The NY Throughway to rte 17b and finally
Hurd Road. When we finally arrived, the lower half of Hurd road had homes that weren't there in 69 and made the place look
quite different. I blew right past the original site without recognizing it, although the dip of grass off to the side of
the road sparked a little glimmer of remembrance. I turned around two miles past and finally retracing my ride arrived at
the site. I didn't realize the monument had been erected to the lower side near the stage area (from photo's I thought it
was on the upper end). No one was there at 9:30 am. We parked the bikes and read the monument. I looked toward the field where
I had sat thirty- five years ago, and played back the memories in my mind. I found it hard to determine where the “Hog
Farm” (Hippies from California who prepared food and helped talk down those of us who were too stoned on brown acid
and needed their assistance) had been set up. I marveled at how pretty and manicured the lawn was now kept (unlike the muddy
field I remembered) and how different it seemed surrounded by the wooden fence that shouted "STAY OUT!” I thought about
the expensive new homes that had been built all around the place since my last visit and felt sad that the solemnity of the
original landscape had been altered. I wanted to stay and play it all back again, but after only a few minutes of reflection
we set off for Yasgur's farm. I stopped in the General Store (shown in the film) on 17b to ask directions and saw the headlines
"Peace, Love, and Two Stabbings!" blasting out from the newspaper on the rack. It sickened me. I also found out that this
incident plus a heavy downpour over the weekend had cleared a lot of people out. When I arrived at the farm around 10am Sunday
there were only about a few hundred people (unlike the 25th reunion which I also attended at the original site were I estimated
about 60,000 people had turned out). We parked our bikes on the driveway of a neighbor’s house and walked over to one
of the coordinators of the event named Paul and I signed the wooden table reserved for the veterans of the original festival.
We had a cordial talk and reminisced about the old days for a while. My buddy and I walked around a bit and decided to leave.
We smelled the long gone familiar aroma of pot and my friend joked that we were probably the only two people without any.
I added that we would probably scare the hell out of any of the kids (thinking we were narcs) if we asked for some. I was
hoping to catch my brother Peter there who had restored an old Triumph I once owned, but we never connected. Francis and I
drove through the back roads through Ellenville to Newburgh (almost getting literally run over by the Hasidim who were all
over the roads), stopped in New Paltz for lunch and drove up to the town of Woodstock fifty miles from White Lake. We drove
up Meads Mt, to the old Church Of Christ built by Fr. Francis (a colorful renegade bishop in the 60's) and went in. The church
is very rustic with many icons, and on the back wall also the picture of Fr. Francis, Fr. John the present Deacon, and the
bishop of the Western Rite Orthodox Church who now owned the place. It brought back a flood of memories of my stay there many
years ago. I soaked up the aura inside the church and visited the graves just outside. I scanned the landscape and recalled
the anti-war posters that once were tacked to the trees when I had first arrive in 1969. My friend shook me out of my Zen
like state, and asked me to leave before it got too late. Then it was further up top of the Mt. to the Buddhist Monastery
built twenty years or so ago which overpowered the Church, and then back down to the town of Woodstock. We parked our bikes
and sat on the steps of a store and watched the tourists pass by, many of who erroneously thought this is where the festival
was originally held. I took note of the commercialism that had begun in the Sixties and was now full blown. My ass was real
sore by this time and I was exhausted, so I leaned up against a pillar, closed my eyes for several minutes, only to open them
as my buddy yelled out that I should look up. It was Father John the new Deacon of the Church on the mountain, dressed in
his long black cassock and full beard and long hair walking down the street. What a coincidence! I had always wanted to meet
him. I called him over and we spoke of FR. Francis, the Church and Orthodoxy, and my seminary days and the book I wrote about
Woodstock, which I once left with his caretaker a few years before. Fr. John is a gregarious fellow and had a keen sense of
humor, but something was troubling him. He spoke about how the Buddhists and some town officials were trying to close the
Church and push him off the Mountain. [DON’T LET IT HAPPEN!] How ironic I thought. At 4:30pm we started our machines
and headed for the New York Through Way South and the last 150-mile leg of our journey back to Pennsy. Pulling out of Woodstock
and flying down Zena Road I couldn't help feel that something had died. Perhaps fifteen years into the future at the 50th
reunion we may have been able to recapture some of the spirit of Peace and Love once again. To be fair I have also changed.
I had grown hard and callous after Altamont, Kent State, the assassinations of our leaders and all the trauma of our generation.
I copted out and embraced the society I once reviled. I left the seminary, got married, turned my back on organized religion,
floated aimlessly in a self-induced alcoholic self-pittying cycle of pleasure and pain for countless years. But a spark of
hope, once experienced so intensely at that Concert in 69, kept me hanging on all this time. And with tears in my eyes I will
never let that ember die, because the MUD OF WOODSTOCK STILL SQUISHES BETWEEN MY TOES.
