THREE DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC !

August 15th begins the three day, 40th anniversary of an event that changed or at least marked the lives of thousands of young people. A muddy cow pasture in rural Woodstock New York hosted almost a half million kids of the "drugs, sex and rock n roll" generation.

I married my first wife in February 1969 before the "Summer of Love". We finished the spring semester at the University of Colorado in Boulder which was then a hotbed of radical thinking. In May we moved back to Colorado Springs to embark on our lives as pretend adults. I searched for and found a job in July.

Sandy, my new wife, had friends who were true hippies. Her closest friend, Terri Lee Burton invited us to join her and a friend and ride with them to Woodstock in a red VW micro mini-van named "Panama Red" It sounded like a real happening, but with a brand new job, I didn't dare ask for a week off to go to a concert on the other side of the country. They went, we stayed, and missed a chance to be wet, miserable, tired and probably stoned for three days.

A few musings about those times. Panama red was the name of the bus but it was also the name of a specific strain of reasonably good marijuana (so I am told) Others were Acapulco gold,& Maui wowie. All those names and others were secretly patented by major tobacco companies for the time that MaryJane became legal, if ever.

Sandy and I considered ourselves to be week end, or fringe Hippies. We wore tie died shirts, peasant blouses, bell bottom pants. We rode bikes with little babies in back packs, and hand made bell bottom snap trousers for him.

In my old age, and in the vein of the title of this blog, I tell people who ask, that "yes, I was at Woodstock in 1969" With a good understanding of the history of the event, I can convince most folks that even though conditions were miserable, it was worth it to see the music Icons like Hendricks, Joplin, Airplane, Country Joe, Arlo and all the others.

So on the fifteenth of this month, find some mud to squirm around in, wear the same clothes for three days, carry a cooler full of beer for two or three miles, and think of your parents who are about to receive their first social security checks. Also try to think of an entertainment event in recent times that will be remembered as significant forty years from now.