45 years later
August 14, 2014
The summer of 1969 was exhilarating for my family and friends. I was barefoot and pregnant with my second daughter, my family spending the summer at a bungalow in Monticello, NY in the Catskill mountains. Other friends were at neighboring bungalow colonies to get away from the city for two months.
Memorable Moments:
On July 20 Apollo 11 landed on the Moon ... and then there was the electrifying moments of the Woodstock Festival. Saturday, my husband and I went with another couple, Linda and Alan, to see what all the commotion was about and enjoy the music - being concert goers. We were amazed at the size of the audience and energies of the performers having never seen anything this extensive before. At the time, we didn't realize history was being made.
Did people smoke weed? Of course they did but we didn't. I've never done drugs and don't drink. Were people friendly? Yes. Were they and from all across the country? Yes. Were they "Hippies"? Many were. Were they pointed as young people are today? Of course! Were there sanitation issues? Yes. Food and water? Could have used more but we brought our own.
How awesome life would have been if we had today's technologies. Think of all the Instagrams I would have posted and Facebook posts I would have sent - about events as they happened. I would love to revisit Bethel, NY one day, but not this year. I'm not interested in revisiting the farm, but more about meeting people my age and seeing what has happened to them through the years. On occasion my age group visits Burning Man in Nevada, but it's too hot for me in the desert.
This year the 45th Anniversary aligns with the same days of the week as the original.
Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally, Woodstock) was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition", held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York. Thirty-two of the best-known musicians of the day appeared during the sometimes rainy weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history and was listed on Rolling Stone's 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.
Woodstock 45th anniversary events set for weekend The Times Herald-Record - August 14, 2014
Events are being held this weekend in the upstate New York town that hosted the original Woodstock festival 45 years ago. The activities range from a "Hippie Thanksgiving" being offered Thursday at a restaurant in the town of Bethel to a Friday night showing of the Academy Award-winning "Woodstock" documentary on the field where the three-day music festival was held.
Some 400,000 people gathered on Max Yasgur's Sullivan County farm from Aug. 15-17, 1969, to hear such acts as The Who, the Grateful Dead, Santana and Jimi Hendrix. Jeryl Abramson owns Yasgur's Farm. She tells the Times Herald-Record of Middletown that she's welcoming visitors to her property to enjoy music, camping and other activities. The nearby Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is hosting the film showing to commemorate the 45th anniversary.
Woodstock celebration on tap Festival's 45th anniversary this weekend Record Online - August 14, 2014
Hippies and partiers from all over the country, even from around the world, are making their way to the town that hosted the original Woodstock festival 45 years ago this weekend. They're trying to recapture the peace, love and musical spirit of the festival that packed this Sullivan County town with a crowd of nearly a half-million back in 1969.
