Half a million strong

 

 It's been far too long since I've updated this blog with a fresh post.

That's because I'm immersed in August 15th-17th of 1969, at The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, where the characters in my upcoming novel are spending their time. I've been fascinated by Woodstock for many years. It's irresistible; music to tickle any eardrums, bell bottoms, peace, love beads, counterculture, protest, headbands, campfires, hippies, flower power, downed fences and free admittance to a horde that swelled to almost half a million.

It was a loser from any business standpoint, but oh, what a moment in time Woodstock marks. We'd gone from the boomtastic Fifties to a decade of unrest. The war in Vietnam divided our country to the point where, by 1969, young people wanted nothing more than a few days among their own kind, a congregation, a gathering, a sharing, a communal experience with Sly and the Family Stone causing boys to dance like they were performing slow-motion karate attacks. An almost-unknown kid named Carlos Santana rocked everyone's world with a distinctive new brand of Afro-Cuban drums and wailing guitar. Country Joe McDonald introduced an anti-war anthem for the ages and a cheer that melted the ears off multitudes with its singular vulgarity. Creedence Clearwater Revival reminded everyone that a bad moon was indeed rising.

I've casually referred to it as the Mac Daddy of music festivals, but Mac Mommy is more accurate.

It rained. It was muddy. There were food shortages, inevitable against the tide of unexpected attendees. The people around Bethel, New York did not welcome this invasion. Their properties were overrun by hippie campers and cars. The generation that arrived on the doorsteps of local residents looked scruffy and druggy.

But those folks did the unthinkable: they banded together and made thousands of sandwiches to hand out to these kids. They donated fresh produce and meat and milk. By the time it was all over, Max Yasgur, owner of the dairy farm where the entire spectacle unfolded, said, "The important thing that you've proven to the world is that a half a million kids — and I call you kids because I have children that are older than you are — a half million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music, and I — God bless you for it!"

God bless Max for providing the venue for a seminal moment in musical and cultural history. It was a weekend when political differences between attendees and locals could not have been more pronounced, where the lines drawn were almost neon-obvious, and people reached across them to show love and acceptance.

We could take a lesson or two in 2024.

Love and peace from Delta.