Summer appeared to arrive today. In fact, that long-ago summer of 1969 came back to keep us company today as we set off from our soggy camp in Saugerties, New York. We traveled beneath a canopy of blue skies and fluffy white clouds along New York Route 212, as it plunged headlong into the Catskill Mountains.
I don't think either Concetta or I had ever ventured into the densely forested slopes of the Catskills before. Of course everyone has heard the legend of Sleepy Hallow and the headless horseman. And I suspect that as many have heard the fanciful story of Rip Van winkle who went into the woods and fell asleep under a tree for 18 years. But aside from those familiar fairy tales, we found the Catskills simply lovely. Some of the time you're in the deep, dark forest as trees crowd in from both sides of the narrow roads. Other times you're cresting tall hills with stunning views down to the Delaware River far below. And everywhere the vistas are just grand.
The route we chose was the same road on which our evening's camp was located, and it looked convenient to use that same road since it crossed the Catskills from east to west. To make sure that we found the right path through the mountains, I had programmed the GPS to take us to the town of Woodstock, little realizing that I had just chosen as my "guide-on" one of the most celebrated villages in America.
As we approached Woodstock, we both began to wonder just where the "real" Woodstock was located. We knew that the four days of music and counter-culture togetherness had taken place in Farmer Yasgur's cow pasture. Looking around at all the forested hillsides, we couldn't believe that the Woodstock that lay just down the road from our camp was the famous one. But could the state of New York actually have more than one Woodstock?
As we entered town, the first thing that hit us was all the wild and crazy colors that shouted at us from the buildings on both sides of the road. And if it wasn't whole buildings painted in bright oranges and purples and yellows, it was the wildly colorful signs on each building that announced the products being sold therein. And what were the products? Well, as you might expect, they included candles, tie-dyed shirts, and a myriad of different forms of artwork, as well as everything from antiques and books, to bakery goods and a variety of services. We even saw on sign advertising a specialist who could talk to animals.
By the time we had driven from one end of Woodstock to the other we knew, convenient cow pasture or not, we had actually found that most famous concert venue of 1969. I immediately suggested that we find a place to park and work on our 10,000 steps by walking both sides of main street from end to end. This we did. After parking the RV next to the local post office, off the side of a lightly-used access road, we set off with cameras in hand. Though we might have missed the original event, we were certainly not going to pass up the opportunity that serendipity had bestowed upon us.
Naturally, we walked along and enjoyed all the spectacular sights and sounds and (next to the bakery) smells, I began to realize that I would just have to find a t-shirt shop and bring home a honest-to-God Woodstock shirt. We perused one shop that came complete with the Blues Brothers in the front yard (photo above right), but moved on in favor of one further down and across the street that appeared to have a much larger selection.
The t-shirt shop is where our cultural bubble got pricked. I asked the owner if she would tell me just where the actual cow pasture was located, hastening to apologize since she was probably asked that same question about 42 times a day. She nodded, looking a bit glum, and told me that she certainly did.
"So," I continued, "north, south, east, or west of here?"
"Sort of southeast," she said, and then, after a beat or two, "about seventy miles from here."
Well, I guess you know that answer took me by surprise, and I'm sure I showed it.
So the owner hastened to add, "Don't feel bad. Just about everyone thinks it took place here. In fact, the fifty-year anniversary concert in 2019 is going to be held here, but I'm not very happy about it."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"It's because no one knows how to behave anymore," she said, in a sad tone. "I'm afraid that they will turn the town upside down."
We both agreed that today's young Americans seem to lack any sort of civilized deportment, and that was about all we could say on the subject. By then she had rung up my new t-shirt, and I left the shop in search of more atmosphere. It would be a shame if the cute and quiet little town of Woodstock should suffer any damage or vandalism if the town had to host the kind of numbers that attended in 1969.
From a web site called "The60sofficialsite.com" I learned that: "The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was an event held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969. For many, it exemplified the counterculture of the 1960s and the 'hippie era.' Many of the best-known musicians of the time appeared during the rainy weekend, captured in a successful 1970 movie, Woodstock. Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock," which memorialized the event, became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Though attempts have been made over the years to recreate the festival, the original Woodstock festival of 1969 has proven to be unique and legendary."
"Woodstock has been idealized in the American popular culture as the culmination of the hippie movement. What started as a paid event, ended being free with over 400,000 attendees or flower children. Although the festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and conditions involved, the reality was less than perfect."
"Woodstock did have some crime and other misbehavior, as well as a fatality from a drug overdose, an accidental death caused by an occupied sleeping bag being run over by a tractor, and one participant died from falling off a scaffold. There were also three miscarriages and two births recorded at the event and colossal logistical headaches. Furthermore, because Woodstock was not intended for such a large crowd, there were not enough resources such as portable toilets and first-aid tents. As a matter of fact the original plan for holding the festival in Wallkill, NY was scrapped because the town officially banned it on the grounds that the planned portable toilets wouldn't meet town code."
"Woodstock began as a profit-making venture; it only became a free festival after it became obvious that the concert was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for, and that the fence had been torn down by eager, unticketed arrivals. Tickets for the event in 1969 cost $18 a ticket in advance, and $24 at the gate for all three days. Ticket sales were limited to record stores in the greater New York City area, or by mail via a Post Office Box at the Radio City Station Post Office located in Midtown Manhattan."
"Yet, in tune with the idealistic hopes of the 1960s, Woodstock satisfied most attendees. Especially memorable was the sense of social harmony, the quality of music, and the overwhelming mass of people, many sporting bohemian dress, behavior, and attitudes."
The balance of our day was decidedly anticlimactic after Woodstock, though we drove the rest of the afternoon along the banks of the Delaware River through some of the most magnificent scenery we've seen on this trip. We passed loads of RV camps, had we been seeking one, as well as at least a dozen cute river towns and villages. We even passed a tourist railroad that would not be opening until after school was out for the summer, so we didn't stop to check it out. According to the map it's called the Delaware-Ulster Railway.
Tomorrow we'll be headed west again, this time into the wilds of the great state of Pennsylvania. We'll be staying away from the Interstates, so we could be running across just about anything. Tonight at the inimitable local Walmart store we scored a copy of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's CD album with the Woodstock song on it, so we'll be playing those boys as we head toward the sunset tomorrow. Stay tuned, it's sure to be interesting, and remember, we wish you Happy Traveling.
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