<a href="http://www.newsday.com/videos-summer-of-69-1.1356458">Click here to see all the videos of the Summer of '69 series in Newsday.</a>

Long Island

LI Life

ny-summer69-woodstock

BETHEL - Woodstock veteran Rich Walka of Bayville ushered his 5-year-old son to the monument commemorating the 1969 Woodstock music festival and tried - in vain - to explain why the event was so special. 
"You know what brought us up here?" asked Walka, 58, who was making his third visit to Max Yasgur's former farm since attending the original gathering 40 years ago. "Peace and music. There was a good vibe." 
Richie Jr., who said he liked rock music, was more interested in filling a discarded soda bottle with blades of grass he plucked from the ground. 
But thousands of others who flocked to the site Saturday were consumed with interest in the famous concert, whether they were here for the original or not. There was a line of people waiting to be photographed at the monument. While they waited, they were entertained by three guitarists from <a href="/topics/New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> singing 1960s rock music as others sat in the shade and traded anecdotes and shared photos and memorabilia. 
Others filled the Woodstock museum at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts at the top of the natural amphitheater while waiting for a 5 p.m. concert with remnants of some of the original acts including Country Joe McDonald and Mountain, whose leader, <a href="/topics/Leslie_West">Leslie West</a>, was married on stage during his set. All 15,000 seats were sold before the weekend. 
Lorraine Lapinski, 55, of New Hyde Park, came back for her third time since 1969. "It looks very different," she said, because while the original bowl stayed the same, having the museum and related buildings on the hilltop changed the look and feel of the site. 
Richard Younger from Sunnyside, Queens, walked 10 miles to get to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969. He decided to repeat that walk yesterday despite the hot weather to raise money for cancer research after three friends died from the disease. "It wasn't too bad," he said after arriving at the monument before 1 p.m. And he collected more than $4,000 in donations. 
The celebration this weekend drew 150 media outlets from around the world. Carolina Stapleton from the <a href="/topics/Brazil">Brazil</a>ian Public TV Network, Cultura, said she came to cover the anniversary because "<a href="/topics/Brazil">Brazil</a>, like everywhere else, had the '60s. They really appreciate those dinosaurs from Woodstock like <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>." 
Bethel residents mingled with Woodstock veterans at a Friday night reception at the town historical museum, a small temporary facility featuring Woodstock memorabilia, such as an original security jacket. Rich Klein, 48, a former Massapequa Park resident who became a permanent Bethel resident three years ago, said he was attending summer camp here in 1969 when the sounds of the festival a mile away filled the mountain air. 
"I thought the music was coming from heaven when I heard <a href="/topics/Joan_Baez">Joan Baez</a> at 8 years old," he said.

Nassau

LIWOOD16

Thousands flock to Bethel for Woodstock anniversary

BETHEL - There'll never be anything like Woodstock again. But there could be. 
Participants and others who gathered Friday to celebrate the legendary music festival's 40th anniversary were divided on whether such a groundbreaking concert could occur once more. 
"There's absolutely no way it could happen again," insisted Leni Binder, a Sullivan County legislator who campaigned to preserve the site from development and helped erect a monument on it. "Woodstock was a place in time. Today everybody would be stopped [far from the site] because of the traffic jam and the public safety hazards. You can't repeat it because the people have changed, the mood has changed." 
Sam Yasgur isn't so sure. The son of Max Yasgur, who owned the dairy farm where the concert took place, said, "It was an organic event. It just came together. You couldn't produce it to come together that way." Then again, he added, "It might come again someday. Who can tell?" 
On Friday, a steady stream of concert veterans and others who missed it visited the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and its Woodstock museum, which now occupy the concert site. Singer <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>, the festival's opening act, and others involved in the 1969 event spoke to dozens of media representatives from around the globe. 
Havens sang "Freedom" - the song he made up on the spot in '69 at the conclusion of a 2-hour-and-45-minute performance - for the gathered media at the top of the natural amphitheater before performing in concert at the new museum Friday night. 
There "absolutely" could be another festival like Woodstock, said Havens, who added that one was held in <a href="/topics/Brazil">Brazil</a> later the same year. 
Nick and Bobbi Ercoline of nearby Pine Bush, who became instantly famous when a candid photograph of them huddling under a sleeping bag on the muddy field became the cover of the Woodstock documentary soundtrack, differed on the question. 
"They tried twice," said Bobbi, 60, referring to previous anniversary concerts upstate in Saugerties and <a href="/topics/Rome">Rome</a> that, for her, didn't match the vibe of the original. 
"I think it's possible," Nick countered. "But it can't be a planned thing. It was the ultimate happening." 
Mary Ellen Landi, 59, of Merrick came back to Bethel for the first time since '69 with the same friend she attended the original festival with, Gary Hoffman of Rocky Point. "We had to," she said. "It's surreal." 
Asked if she thought someone could replicate Woodstock, she said, "Absolutely not, because of the mentality of the human condition today." She said the two subsequent anniversary concerts were not the same because "you had to buy water." 
Havens remains unabashedly upbeat about the ongoing potential of what Woodstock set in motion. Thanks to the political and cultural movement launched here four decades ago, he said, "We can definitely stop some things we are doing to the planet."

Entertainment

Music

LIWOOD15

Bethel, N.Y., event celebrates 40 years since Woodstock

BETHEL - Sam Yasgur, whose father's dairy farm was the site of the 1969 Woodstock music festival, does not recall the event fondly. 
Yasgur, 67, now the Sullivan County attorney, remembers it as "one of the worst weekends of my life. You've got irate neighbors . . . trapped in your home by people who had parked on your lawn . . . making it impossible to work or take care of your cattle or crops." 
Plenty of rural residents here four decades ago shared Yasgur's opinion that the "three days of peace and music" was far from peaceful. But on the eve of the 40th anniversary celebration this weekend, it's difficult to find anyone with a bad word about the impending return of thousands of concert veterans joined by others who missed it. 
"I have breakfast every morning at the town diner, and they're all raving about it," said Duke Devlin, 66, a self-described former hippie who came from <a href="/topics/Texas">Texas</a> to attend the festival, remained to become a farmer and now works as a site interpreter for the Woodstock museum. 
The field that served as an amphitheater for <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a> and <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a> is little changed except for the addition of a perimeter fence and a monument. The fence was erected when the concert site and surrounding acreage was acquired by local cable TV magnate Alan Gerry to create the 6,000-acre, $100-million Bethel Woods Center for the Arts three years ago. The center, which includes an amphitheater on the top of the hill and a Woodstock museum that opened last summer, is widely seen as an economic boon for the Catskills still hurting from its demise as a resort destination. 
The weekend activities include a sold-out performance Friday by <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>, the festival's opening act, in a 400-seat hall and a sold-out 15,000-seat concert Saturday with original festival artists including Mountain, whose leader, former Long Islander <a href="/topics/Leslie_West">Leslie West</a>, is to get married onstage. 
Thursday, early arriving tie-dye-clad Woodstock survivors gathered by the monument for photos and set up tents in what seemed like a time warp outside Hector's Inn, a bar in the hamlet doing brisk business selling tie-dyed 40th-anniversary shirts. 
"It's definitely an economic boost for the area," said Daniel Sturm, Bethel town supervisor. The town boasts of hosting the festival on its entrance signs. 
"We need more tourism," Yasgur said. "This is a county that once had more than 500 hotels. Now there is only one major hotel." 
Roberta Lockwood, head of the Sullivan County Visitors Association, said, "To the tourism industry here, it's a huge deal. The 40th anniversary has a domestic and international appeal." More than 150 media outlets from as far away as <a href="/topics/Brazil">Brazil</a> and <a href="/topics/Norway">Norway</a> are coming. All hotels are fully booked. To deal with the traffic, Sturm said town officials, the county sheriff and state police will implement a one-way system for local roads used for large events at Bethel Woods. 
While the welcome mat may be out for the anniversary, county Legis. Leni Binder, 67, said that largely wasn't the case in '69. Binder thought Woodstock was positive at the time because "I knew it was almost a world-changing event." But it became clear how few people agreed with her when a month after the festival she joined the county historical society and suggested it begin accumulating information on Woodstock. "You could've heard a pin drop," she said. 
But Devlin, who has the Woodstock logo tattooed on his left arm, saw opinions change even during the festival. "People had a lot of fear," he said. "Once they came out of their houses and met the concertgoers and were bombarded with 'Thank you' and 'May I please' and all the politeness and great kids, they fell in love with it."

LIWOOD14

Rural residents look forward to Woodstock festivities

The mythology of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair overtook its reality years ago. 
Mountain's <a href="/topics/Leslie_West">Leslie West</a> jokes, "If you count all the people now that say they were there, there had to be 10 million people there, not just 400,000." 
The magic of those three days of peace, love and music from the biggest and brightest stars of the time can never be recaptured because it was something unique. 
All the massive festivals that have followed, all the attempts to link music with politics, all the plans to create "the next Woodstock" fall a little short because they lack the element of surprise. 
"We didn't know what was going to happen," says Martin Perry, a business consultant from Massapequa who went to Woodstock more for the experience than the music. "Who could have expected all of that ahead of time?" 
Perry says he attended other festivals shortly after Woodstock hoping for a repeat performance and was disappointed. "People were not as friendly," he says. "The experience was much more brutal. Woodstock was really a singular moment." 
That may be why people get nervous about anything that might tarnish the Woodstock legacy. 
Woodstock promoter Michael Lang recently dropped plans to celebrate the original festival's 40th anniversary this year with a free concert in <a href="/topics/Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a>'s <a href="/topics/Prospect_Park">Prospect Park</a>, after he wasn't able to find enough sponsors. (Considering the problems of Woodstock '99 in <a href="/topics/Rome">Rome</a>, N.Y., which reportedly lost more than $10 million and ended in riots, fires and looting after four days of blistering heat and $4-a-bottle waters, the Woodstock plan of regular anniversary festivals every five years have been put on hold since 1999.) 
It is a testament, actually, to how cherished the Woodstock Experience still is that so many are still eager to tap into that "singular moment." 
A walk through any bookstore this summer will find more than a dozen new books about the event. There will be a new <a href="/topics/Ang_Lee">Ang Lee</a> movie, "Taking Woodstock," about preparations for the festival, as well as a new <a href="/topics/VH1">VH1</a> documentary "Woodstock: Now and Then" from <a href="/topics/Barbara_Kopple">Barbara Kopple</a>. 
And, of course, there's the music. <a href="/topics/Sony">Sony</a> Legacy has a new 10-CD boxed set called "The Woodstock Experience," while Rhino Records is offering the six-CD "Woodstock - 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm," which will include 38 previously unreleased tracks and the entire festival set list. 
But it doesn't stop there. You could put your Woodstock coffee mug on some Woodstock coasters made from the vinyl albums of Woodstock artists, while you fold some Woodstock psychedelic origami and put together a thousand-piece Woodstock puzzle, while wearing some Woodstock T-shirts, naturally. 
&nbsp; 
A single idyllic moment 
Cocooning in that moment becomes important, since it didn't last very long. What Woodstock succeeded in creating was idyllic, but it was also short-lived. 
"It was a high point," says Jim Henke, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's vice president of exhibitions and curatorial affairs. "For a moment, it was the center of pop culture. It showed a huge number of young people rebelling against the social norms of the time, and it showed the hippie movement to be as big as it was. And it all went off pretty smoothly. Then came Altamont, and that sent almost the opposite message." 
The violence at the Altamont concert, along with the substance-abuse deaths of <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>, <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a> and <a href="/topics/Jim_Morrison">Jim Morrison</a> shortly after that, quickly overturned the "sex and drugs and rock and roll" idealism that Woodstock had built. Reality had overtaken the myth. 
Slowly but surely, the balance began to shift again. Henke says all the attention that the anniversaries bring to the original Woodstock add to its importance, as does the recently rereleased "Woodstock" documentary. 
"For many people, when that movie came out, that was the introduction for many people to that ethos, that lifestyle," he says. "It all helps spread the word." 
&nbsp; 
West's wedding plans 
And for artists like Mountain's West, who became a star after performing at the festival and plans to return this week to play the 40th anniversary show at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Woodstock's positive aspects will always outweigh whatever negatives that followed it. 
"I'm really looking forward to the show," says West, who plans to wed his fiancee, Jenni Maurer, onstage at the end of the band's Woodstock set. "It's such a beautiful place." 
West, like a lot of people whose lives were changed by the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, see the potential. 
For three days, 40 years ago, 400,000 people joined together to show that the hippie ideals of peace and love and mutual respect could not only work, but could lead to an unforgettably good time. Since then, we have seen numerous examples of how this could break down. But it happened once. Maybe it could happen again. 
Maybe that is the true legacy of Woodstock. 
Hippiefest and Heroes of Woodstock 
&nbsp; 
WHAT Hippiefest with Mountain's <a href="/topics/Leslie_West">Leslie West</a> and Corky Laing, Vanilla Fudge's Mark Stein and Vince Martel, Three Dog Night's Chuck Negron, The Turtles and more 
WHEN | WHERE 6 p.m. Sunday 
INFO $25-$37.50; 631-451-8010; brookhavenamphitheater.com 
&nbsp; 
WHAT Heroes of Woodstock with Jefferson Starship, Canned Heat, Country Joe McDonald, Ten Years After and others 
WHEN | WHERE 8 p.m. Thursday, The Capital One Bank Theatre at Westbury, 960 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury 
INFO $51.50-$61.50; 516-334-0800; livenation.com

ETMUSIC09

Woodstock truly was something special

It was neither a rally nor a protest. 
But Woodstock was, in the most basic sense, a demonstration. The festival stood in opposition to years of American violence: the police brutality of the Southern civil rights marches, the assassinations of two Kennedys and <a href="/topics/Martin_Luther_King%2C_Jr.">Martin Luther King Jr</a>., the urban race riots and the bloody chaos of the 1968 <a href="/topics/Democratic_National_Convention">Democratic National Convention</a>. Hovering over it all was the muddled, maddening <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a> War, whose escalating body count punctated the evening newscasts. 
And while Woodstock was not an overtly political event, the implications of several hundred thousand young people gathering peacefully were hard to ignore. At a time when the country seemed to be falling apart, Woodstock offered a rare vision of unity, cohesion and solidarity. 
"The way I looked at it, the event was something that was going to change everything," says Bill Frohlich, a 60-year-old executive manager at <a href="/topics/Nassau">Nassau</a> BOCES who attended the festival. "We were exhibiting, if you will, the way that we wanted to live and the way that we wanted to conduct our lives, which was in complete opposition to what we saw going on in the world at the time. This was a way to come together and represent that to the culture." 
That was the aerial view. On the ground, the crowd looked more like a mosaic. There were politically engaged students and anti-societal dropouts, agrarian communists and urban bohemians, soldiers and pacifists. 
The galvanizing issue of the day, however, was <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a>. And with thousands of Americans dying there each year, anti-war sentiment wasn't limited to longhairs and radicals. Paul Dallara, 60, never considered himself a hippie, but by the time he attended Woodstock he was on his way to becoming a conscientious objector to avoid the draft. "My father was a World War II veteran and he supported me," says Dallara, an assistant principal at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School. "He didn't want to see me fight." 
At Woodstock, artists denounced the war from the stage. <a href="/topics/Joan_Baez">Joan Baez</a> talked of her husband <a href="/topics/David_Harris">David Harris</a>' imprisonment for resisting the draft. Country Joe and the Fish sang their rollicking protest song "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag." And there was no mistaking the anguish in <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>'s wordless, eloquent version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." 
"If somebody had a political agenda and they translated it into their music, I didn't have a problem with that," says Jim DeCesare, a 59-year-old musician in Bay Shore. "Now it's just, 'Stick to the music, don't be opinionated.' " 
<a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a> dragged on until 1975, by which time more than 58,000 U.S. troops had perished. And on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, America now finds itself mired in two unpopular wars. But to say that Woodstock failed to achieve its goal is to miss the point. The festival was the goal. 
"People acting out peace and love, acting out the opposite of war, acting out the way they wanted to see the world - is that protesting?" says Frohlich. "Is that political? Yeah, I guess it is."

ETPOL09

Woodstock was a statement on nation's direction

When Walter Mills first arrived at Woodstock, he couldn't believe his eyes. 
"There were all these people running around naked and swimming naked in this muddy water. I yelled over to my friend to hurry over, 'You're not going to believe this,' " said Mills, days after graduating from the summer session at Floral Park Memorial High. "I was 19, but I was still pretty naive. I remember looking out of our tent and there was this couple who just did it right there on the ground in front of us. I didn't know what to do. Later, she was still naked and came over and started talking to us. I think I needed a shovel to get my jaw off the ground." 
In the years before Woodstock, religious groups and conservatives had railed about the dangers of "sex, drugs and rock and roll." In the late '60s, the hippie movement had embraced all that as a lifestyle, culminating at the festival, where thousands frolicked naked, lived out the tenets of "free love," took any number of drugs and rocked out to 31/2 days of music. 
Thousands more, like Mills, got to see this lifestyle up close for the first time, a discovery that would be replicated for millions more through the Woodstock documentary, which for many in future generations marked the first time they saw drug use or even naked people together. 
"I'd have to say it's the one thing in my life that I'd like to do all over again and not change a thing," said Mills, who admits he smoked some pot at the festival. 
Mills, who now lives in <a href="/topics/Altamonte_Springs">Altamonte Springs</a>, Fla., plans to head to Bethel to celebrate the festival's 40th anniversary. 
What Woodstock also showed, though, was that the "sex, drugs and rock and roll" lifestyle has its negative consequences, that are felt even today. And those consequences were apparent then - long before AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and drug abuse became commonplace worries for America's youth. 
"You saw that there were people who lived their whole lives around it there," said Martin Perry, who had just finished his first year of college when he went to Woodstock. "I just never had the urge to be part of that group." 
Perry, now a business consultant from Massapequa, said the part of the Woodstock experience that stuck with him is "live and let live, that your space starts there and that my space starts here." "It really did set the tone for a certain part of my generation," he said. "But no one knew that going in." 
"Anyone who tells you they went to Woodstock for sociological reasons," Perry continued, "they're lying. They went because it was summer, it was hot and it was something to do. It was something that's never going to happen again. Now everyone knows the rules, the boundaries and the results."

ETSEX09

The bare facts about Woodstock

When Chris Zhune hears about Woodstock, he thinks first of wild partying. 
"There were a lot of crazy drugs going on," said Zhune, 21, of Deer Park, a student at Suffolk County Community College. 
Those old enough to remember Woodstock often talk about it as a social movement and musical milestone. But some younger people aren't as convinced. 
"Historical significance?" he said. "I don't really know if it was all that significant." 
Marie Mayes of Lindenhurst, also 21, figures that's what older people do - reminisce about the events of their youth. 
"I think maybe some people over 40 glorify it," said Mayes, a singer who is entering her senior year as a music education major at <a href="/topics/New_York_University">New York University</a>. "But that's part of the allure of Woodstock. There's so much legend and myth around it." 
Mayes identifies Woodstock with "peace and love - but I don't know much about it." 
Woodstock left its share of legacies, but one unexpected one might be a generational divide. At <a href="/topics/Five_Towns_College">Five Towns College</a>, professor Peter Rogine often senses that in his music history class. He can predict the students' reactions to the word Woodstock: 
They will talk about love and peace. They'll mention <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>. And they'll bring up drugs. 
To Rogine, 62, this generation of students does not have a sense of Woodstock's musical and cultural importance. 
"Woodstock," he says, "really was the end of an era - the '60s - which brought about the sexual revolution, civil rights, Native American rights, birth control, divorce, women's rights, the idea of living off the land and rejecting consumerism." 
Rogine's theory about the different perspectives on Woodstock held up during recent interviews of recent high school and college graduates, along with those old enough to be their parents. Some of the older Long Islanders described Woodstock as a landmark event - even if they disliked the music and the politics. Younger ones often said they were dubious of all the attention to a music festival that took place on a farm 40 years ago. 
Old and young did agree on one point: Since the 1960s, music has become too commercial. 
"Woodstock wasn't a product, it was very much the creation of musicians," said Ryan Pratt, 23, of Oceanside, who is studying law at St. John's University. He plays guitar and used to play the saxophone and piano. Like <a href="/topics/George_Harrison">George Harrison</a>, he notes, he owns a sitar. 
"There might be a grain of truth in all the boasting about Woodstock," he said. "What we have now is the commodification of music." 
<a href="/topics/Adelphi_University">Adelphi University</a> history professor Dominick Cavallo teaches a course on the 1960s, and says any mention of Woodstock sparks conversations among students. 
"Almost universally they are enchanted by the music . . . how entwined it became with rebellion and activism," said Cavallo, who also is the author of a book about the era, "A Fiction of the Past: The Sixties in American History." 
Students debate whether something like Woodstock could take place today. "Some of them are rueful that nothing like the '60s youth rebellion is happening," he said. 
Of course, not everyone looks back fondly at the Woodstock era. Cavallo notes that other students dismiss the three-day festival as "unbridled hedonism."

LFLEGA09

Generational divide an unexpected legacy of Woodstock

The road to Woodstock runs through Sunken Meadow State Park. 
It was there, in a badly played round of golf, that Joel Rosenman, son of a Cold Spring Harbor orthodontist, and <a href="/topics/John_Roberts">John Roberts</a>, met. 
Rosenman had come home to <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a> for the summer before embarking on a law career. One weekend, his younger brother Douglas announced he was coming home with Roberts, his graduate school fraternity brother. "Douglas said, 'Why don't the three of us play golf together?' " recalled Rosenman, now a 66-year-old <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> resident. "We met at Sunken Meadow State Park." 
Despite Rosenman's bogeys, he and Roberts hit it off. Within two years, they had ditched their careers, become roommates, and written a sitcom script about two young venture capitalists. 
Then they became those characters, their most prominent - though not most lucrative - investment being the Woodstock Music &amp; Art Fair. It would grow in the collective memory to mythic proportions, and for its 40th anniversary next weekend, the festival is generating more interest among nostalgic baby boomers than at anytime since the summer of '69.Varying versions of ideaHow the festival idea took flight remains the subject of varying versions by those involved. One thing participants agree on is that it was launched at a Feb. 6, 1969, meeting hosted by the relatively straight-laced Rosenman and Roberts at their apartment with two hip Brooklyn-born would-be promoters: Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld. Lang who ran a <a href="/topics/Miami">Miami</a> shop and had promoted a small rock festival there. Kornfeld, a graduate of Levittown Division High School, had been a vice president at Capitol Records and a successful songwriter and producer. 
Lang and Kornfeld were seeking financing for a music studio in Woodstock. The money men weren't interested "because we were in the process of building one in <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a>," Rosenman recalled. But they were excited that Lang thought he could get Woodstock artists to perform at an opening day party for the studio. "We proposed that we skip the recording studio idea and just get <a href="/topics/Bob_Dylan">Bob Dylan</a> and have a concert," Rosenman said. 
Lang, 64, and a Woodstock resident, remembers it differently. After moving from <a href="/topics/Miami">Miami</a> to Woodstock, he said he attended concerts called Sound-Outs held on a farm where people could camp overnight. He writes in his new book "The Road to Woodstock" that he conceived of expanding the scale and shared his dream with Kornfeld. 
&nbsp; 
Woodstock Ventures is bornHowever the idea was hatched, the four created Woodstock Ventures, rented office space and hired staff. Lang envisioned a three-day event attended by 200,000 - far more than had attended any other festival but still less than half the ultimate crowd. His preferred venue was Woodstock but officials there wanted nothing to do with it. So the promoters kept the name and made a deal to use an industrial park in Wallkill in Orange County. 
As the partners offered double the normal fees to persuade acts to play in the middle of nowhere for neophyte promoters, Wallkill grew increasingly hostile. A month before showtime, local officials refused to issue a permit. 
The next day, Lang got a call from Elliot Tiber, whose parents owned a rundown motel in White Lake in Sullivan County, offering use of the property. When Lang took a look and discovered the site was a swamp, he said Tiber suggested a local real estate salesman might find someplace suitable. The salesman drove Lang - without Tiber - by Max Yasgur's spread, Lang met the dairy farmer and arranged to lease some of his property. The amount paid remains in dispute. Sam Yasgur, Max's son, agrees with Lang's version. 
Tiber claims he called Yasgur, arranged a meeting and went along to facilitate. Tiber's account became "Taking Woodstock," a book that is the basis for the <a href="/topics/Ang_Lee">Ang Lee</a> movie that opens this month. 
Because of the last-minute move to White Lake, three days before the music was scheduled to begin, Rosenman said the promoters faced a critical choice: Finish the stage so there could be music or build ticket booths and complete fences to recoup their investment. "It was either bankruptcy or a riot," he said. 
&nbsp; 
Concertgoers arriveRosenman, who decided to sleep on it, woke the next morning to find 50,000 concertgoers sitting on what had been an empty field the night before. The choice had been made for them: it would be a free concert for those who had not already purchased tickets. [The promoters would emerge from the weekend $1.4 million in the hole, Rosenman said, and would not see any profit through royalties until 1982.] 
Despite the difficulties and the investment losses, Woodstock still resonates positively with those who helped make it happen. "It was a reaffirming event that made one feel that there was a world out there that could actually survive and become harmonious," said Lang. "It reflects a lot of what's going on today." 
For Kornfeld, the 40th anniversary isn't necessarily something to celebrate, "with the world and our country in the shape it's in." Still, he sees the spirit of Woodstock in the election of Barack Obama and other encouraging signs. "Time magazine called it "the greatest peaceful man-made event in the history of mankind," and that is what Woodstock really represents."

LIWOOD09

Road to Woodstock runs through Sunken Meadow

Greenwich Village artist Arnold Skolnick was spending the summer of '69 on Shelter Island when he got a call on a Thursday afternoon from the production coordinator for the upcoming Woodstock music festival. 
A month before the event, the venue had shifted and the promoters wanted a new poster with a new logo, John Morris said. Could Skolnick come up with something by Monday? 
What the artist turned in four days later - a bird sitting on the neck of a guitar accompanied by the phrase "Three Days of Peace &amp; Music" - became one of the most famous graphic images ever devised. 
In his new book, "The Road to Woodstock," Michael Lang, one of the four festival promoters, takes credit for the logo and motto. "I gave Arnold the copy and told him the main message was 'three days of peace and music' and that I wanted a dove perched on a guitar as our image," Lang writes. 
Skolnick, 72, who lives in <a href="/topics/Massachusetts">Massachusetts</a> and owns an art publishing company, insists Lang never spoke to him, had nothing to do with the poster and only saw it after it was finished. Morris and the two other surviving promoters back Skolnick's version. 
Skolnick, who said he was paid $6,000 plus $11.14 in subsequent royalties, recalled "we had a small talk about what they wanted." The artist hired a writer friend, Ira Arnold, and "we sat down and we came up with 'Three Days of Peace &amp; Music.' " 
As for the logo, Skolnick said he had seen a Matisse show in <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> with works in cut paper and had been drawing catbirds on Shelter Island. "So when I sat down to do the poster I just cut out the shape of a catbird," he said. "People assume it's a dove." 
When told other participants disagreed with his account of how the poster was created, Lang said others were not at the same meetings. 
Skolnick, who has designed a 40th anniversary poster (www.internationalposter.com), said the original did nothing for his career and meant little to him at the time. "To me," he said, "it was just a design job."

LIPOST09

Who gets credit for legendary Woodstock poster?

When made right, time capsules define an era — keepsakes that&nbsp; bring back memories of people, places and moments. The summer of 1969 must, then, have a number of time capsules for people to remember it by. 
For Ed Ellison, a young man from Hempstead then and a family man in Stony Brook now, that time capsule turns out to be a car. 
"I was 18 years old back in 1969," said Ellison, 58. "I had just graduated from high school. And I was driving around in this car, and the reason for it was, being a youngster you have no impact on anybody, really. You're never taken seriously. So a buddy of mine and I decided we would paint this car and put some messages on it. It was kind of a statement of how we felt at the time." 
Ellison came up with the idea to paint his 1963 Volks-wagen Beetle, and Tony Fabiano, a close friend and classmate at Uniondale High School, spent most of two months working on it. Naming it the "Elusive Butterfly," they covered their "labor of love" in color and images, writing the messages "Give A Damn" and "Smile On Your Brother," making the car a symbol of their ideas. And when they and Ellison's girlfriend Jean Derenze took it out on the road, they were met with more than a few looks. 
"Driving it around, it was a very polarizing car at the time," said Ellison. "Back then, the reaction was either two-fingered or one-fingered. People knew where I stood by driving it, and they either felt strongly about it in a positive way or felt strongly about it in a negative way." 
The message they were trying to convey came out of their feelings about the tumult of the late '60s. The assassinations of <a href="/topics/Martin_Luther_King%2C_Jr.">Martin Luther King Jr</a>. and <a href="/topics/Robert_F._Kennedy">Robert F. Kennedy</a>, and especially the <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a> War, wore on the two young men. The car became a reflection on what they wanted to say, which was, said Ellison, "to care about people, and care about what's going on." 
"The idea is kids now don't know how lucky they are and how much they have," said Fabiano, 59. "The '60s was a wonderful place for music. But it was not a pretty time if you were different. There was a lot of sadness, a lot of violence. It got really ugly there." 
Never able to part with it, Ellison stored the car away in Derenze's mother's garage in Uniondale for 37 years. In the meantime, Ellison would not see Fabiano for decades after Woodstock, and he and Derenze would marry. Now, Ellison works for the Social Security Administration and has three children. 
This year, the "Elusive Butterfly" has found new life as the focus of a documentary, "The Vehicle," that Ellison is making, trying to recall the feeling of the era and compare it to today. 
"It was pretty bizarre, not seeing it for 40 years," said Fabiano. "It's cool that we kinda took over where we left off. Seeing the car again was strange to me because it was like it wasn't ever out of my sight for that long." 
The new project, which reunited Ellison with Fabiano, involves the car's complete restoration and Ellison interviewing people about how they feel about the car, the '60s, and what they feel now. 
"I don't know if we'll ever see a time like that again," said Ellison. "I mean, for the good and the bad, but at the same time this passion. I want people to tell me what it does for them. As well as young people who have had no experience with this really. What's their passion? Would they do something like this?" 
The car is still being restored, with the hope that it will be ready for a trip to Woodstock this month to commemorate the event and the period. After that, Ellison intends to keep the car going. 
Just having it today is symbolic of our youth, and it's keeping it alive," said Jean Ellison, 58. "We have a lot of special memories in that car. It kind of ties our lives together."

LFBUG09

Woodstock: VW Beetle takes him back to the '60s

Do aging baby boomers need a major nostalgia fix for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock? Publishers must think so - they're bringing out a raft of new books on the world-famous music festival.
 
OverviewsWOODSTOCK: Three Days That Rocked the World, edited by Mike Evans and Paul Kingsbury (Sterling, $35). A 288-page hardcover coffee-table volume that is the most comprehensive offering.
WOODSTOCK: Peace, Music and Memories, by Brad Littleproud and Joanne Hague (Krause Publications, $24.99 paper). This 256-page trade paperback covers the entire festival, but its unique aspect is a guide to Woodstock memorabilia.
 
Personal accountsTHE ROAD TO WOODSTOCK, by Michael Lang with Holly George-Warren (Ecco, $29.99). The festival, according to one of the event's promoters. Lang takes credit for aspects of the festival that others agree he had nothing to do with.
THE PIED PIPER OF WOODSTOCK, by Artie Kornfeld (fall release from Spirit of Woodstock LLC, $30). Another of the festival promoters, who was also a successful music producer, describes the growth of the rock culture. But 120 of the 365 pages are about Woodstock.
MAX B. YASGUR: The Woodstock Festival's Famous Farmer, by Sam Yasgur (Self-published later this month, $25; purchase details at syasgur @hvc.rr.com). A 300-page biography by his son with heavy emphasis on the festival.
WOODSTOCK VISION: The Spirit of a Generation, by Elliott Landy (Backbeat, $35). Landy was the official festival photographer and most of the 224 pages showcase his work. Almost half the shots were taken at Woodstock.
TAKING WOODSTOCK: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life, by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte (Square One, $15.95 paper). Tiber is the person who lured the festival promoters to Bethel, and his account, reissued by the Garden City Park publisher, is the basis for the new <a href="/topics/Ang_Lee">Ang Lee</a> movie of the same title.
 
Oral historiesWOODSTOCK REVISITED: 50 Far Out, Groovy, Peace-Loving, Flashback-Inducing Stories from Those Who Were There, edited by Susan Reynolds (Adams Media, $12.95 paper). Enough said.
BACK TO THE GARDEN: The Story of Woodstock, by Pete Fornatale (Touchstone, $24.99). The DJ-music historian interviews festival artists and organizers. 
WOODSTOCK: The Oral History, 40th Anniversary Edition, by Joel Makower (SUNY Press, $19.95 paper). The organizers tell their stories. 
ROOTS OF THE 1969 WOODSTOCK FESTIVAL: The Backstory to "Woodstock," by Weston Blelock and Julia Blelock (Woodstock Arts, $19.95 paper). Transcript of 2008 discussion about how musical "Sound-Outs" in town of Woodstock inspired the '69 event in Bethel.
 
Musical focusBY THE TIME WE GOT TO WOODSTOCK, by Bruce Pollock (September release from Backbeat Books, $19.95 paper). Chronicles outdoor concerts that preceded and followed Woodstock.
 
For childrenMAX SAID YES! The Woodstock Story, by Abigail Yasgur and Joseph Lipner with illustrations by Barbara Mendes (Change the Universe Press, $17.95). The 32 colorful pages explain the Woodstock aura to the next generation of flower children.

News

BKWOOD09

A festival of books about Woodstock

Tom Ackerson 
63, Speonk. Contractor. 
&nbsp; 
The most important thing to me was not actually the music. It was the experience of being with people who had such a great feeling - it was like for the first time you could see where large groups of people could get together and not create any hassles for themselves. 
It was a very - I don't want to use any touchy-feely words like sharing - but people were sharing. Some people had food and others did not. 
The music was all over. It was daytime and it was nighttime. It didn't seem like it would stop. And yet for me the experience . . . it didn't just end there. The experience lasted not only for days afterward, not only for months, but for years thereafter. And many people that I've talked to that were at Woodstock, most have that same experience that changed their lives, that changed the way they felt about people. It changed, to some degree, the way they thought. And that experience has stayed with them. And it has certainly stayed with me.

LVACKER09

Woodstock: Tom Ackerson

Philip Becker, 65, of Port Washington spent a career in advertising and now runs a tutoring service for students. 
&nbsp; 
I was working in the advertising business on Madison Avenue back then, but I was kind of conservative. The music and the politics of Woodstock weren't for me. <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a> and the others weren't my type - I'm from an earlier rock and roll generation - the Beatles before they got really acid. Some Elvis, too. I liked <a href="/topics/Chubby_Checker">Chubby Checker</a>'s "The Twist." 
I was the son of a New Deal <a href="/topics/U.S._Democratic_Party">Democrat</a>, but I respected President Nixon, and his balance-of-power politics . . . and I had a certain loyalty to the government. 
I couldn't understand the politics of Woodstock. There was no structure there. The message was, 'Oh, wow, young people are taking over the world.' That was hard for me to get into. I'm not your typical Elks Club guy, but . . . I didn't even smoke. 
My wife and I took three of our kids to Woodstock Two (in 1994). They were really into it. That was something I enjoyed for the children, but it didn't really reach me.

LVANTI09

Woodstock: Philip Becker

Bruce Binder, 55, Nesconset. Health insurance brokerage owner. 
&nbsp; 
Four of us purchased tickets but none of us had yet shared our plan with our parents. Eric had an uncle who owned a cottage resort in White Lake, right next to Bethel, so he arranged with his uncle for us to stay in a cottage. Eric had an unusually deep baritone voice for a 15-year-old, so he called all our parents, posing as his uncle, to assure them we would be safe. 
After settling in, we walked four miles to the concert site. The fencing was lying on the ground, trampled by the crowd. It was raining profusely and people were milling about and lying in the mud listening to <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>. I sought shelter on a platform used for sound equipment. The view up there was fantastic. 
We stayed a few hours, then headed back to our base. The next morning, Eric's uncle threw us out after expressing his opinion that he did not think highly of our generation. So we walked back to the site and camped in the mud for the rest of the weekend with the exception of Saturday night, when we laid down on some comfortable trash bags piled up in front of the stage. Unfortunately, we were so comfortable that we fell asleep during The Who's performance. 
That turned out to be the story of the weekend: no tent, no sleeping bags, no supplies, no food. Just music, mud, naked bodies and many other temptations for 15-year-olds growing up fast over a three-day weekend, terminating in an amazing set by Hendrix early Monday morning. 
Despite all that was going on that summer, Woodstock still epitomizes the era for me.

LVBIND09

Woodstock: Bruce Binder

Bill Bleyer, 57, Bayville. Newsday reporter. 
&nbsp; 
By the time I got to Woodstock, the crowd wasn't yet a half a million strong. But I immediately began to worry about getting home in time to get my driver's license. 
In the summer of '69, I was a Locust Valley High School junior who played in a local rock band. So when I saw an ad for the Woodstock Music &amp; Art Fair with a lineup that included groups such as The Who and <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>, I had to be there. 
There was just one problem: I had just completed driver's ed and was waiting anxiously for my road test. And it was scheduled for the Monday morning after the festival. But a classmate offered to drive and promised to get me back in time. 
We made one smart decision: to go very early. We avoided the infamous traffic jam and parked across the road from Max Yasgur's dairy farm/amphitheater. What we did wrong was not bring a tent, rain gear or sufficient food because we never thought about rain in the summer - Duh! - and the ads mentioned food booths. 
By the time we arrived, the perimeter fences had already been trampled and the promoters had given up on trying to collect tickets, so we kept them as souvenirs and we were early enough to pick up the now highly prized program booklets. 
When the music started with <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a> on Friday afternoon, the crowd was huge but the magnitude only became clear with stage announcements about its size and the Thruway gridlock. 
Logistics quickly became a problem and worsened when thunderstorms turned the pasture into a muddy, smelly quagmire. It could take an hour to work your way through the crowd from the stage to the top of the hill, where you had to wait another hour for a hamburger grilled about 5 seconds on each side and another hour to get a milk shake from a Mister Softee truck. 
There were also long waits to get to one of the overloaded portable toilets or tanker trucks dispensing water. But plenty of food - and drugs - were passed around. And nobody complained because the music and the vibe were just so good. And at least we could retreat to the car to escape the rain, or to sleep. The only downside of parking so close to the stage was that we never saw any of the ponds where everyone was skinny-dipping. 
The music was amazing, if at times ragged, because of equipment or weather snafus. Many of the acts were unknowns, and some of them like <a href="/topics/Joe_Cocker">Joe Cocker</a>, Santana and Mountain, blew the crowd away and became instantly famous. My favorite music memory was the initial stunned glimpse of tie-dye bedecked Cocker's spastic contortions. 
The music went on all night Saturday and Sunday. While I was determined not to miss a note, I did nod off through half of The Who and Jefferson Airplane. 
By the time Hendrix played Monday morning, there were only a few thousand hard-core people left on the muddy field that had a rainbow hue because of all the discarded sleeping bags and clothes. We left in mid-set to get home for the all-important road test. 
We cut it so close that there was no time to shower or change clothes. Covered with mud from head to toe and smelling like manure, I confronted a motor vehicle inspector who seemed about 80 and sported a crew cut. He sniffed and then grunted: "Been to that hippie festival, huh?" Figuring he would fail me on principle, I relaxed - and passed. 
At the time, even before it assumed mythic status, Woodstock was the most amazing experience of my life. The sense of solidarity and limitless possibilities deeply affected me and steered me toward a career that would benefit the public good. 
Despite Watergate, wars and recessions, the idealistic - cynics would call it naive - spirit imbued in the festival remains embedded in my psyche. What's left of my hair may be short now, but I'm still proud to be part of the Woodstock Generation.

LVBLEY09

Woodstock: Bill Bleyer

Tom Carmichael, 59, Hampton Bays. Maintenance worker at nursing home. 
I had just graduated from Locust Valley High School and had already had my Army pre- 
induction physical. I was sure this would be the last summer of my youth before I went to <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a>. Six of us . . . walked over the flattened chain-link fence and looked down the hill. The view revealed a massive bowl-shaped farm field covered with more people than I have ever seen in my life, all facing a huge stage that was so far away that it appeared to be miniature. We watched Country Joe sing the "Fish Cheer" and <a href="/topics/Joe_Cocker">Joe Cocker</a> sing "With a Little Help from My Friends." I was most amazed by the patience the audience had. Wait for the band to set up, then tune, then rain delays. When things got boring there were mudslide contests and rain-dance songs sung by a huge chorus. 
When it was over, we were picked up by an old hearse filled with hippies returning to <a href="/topics/California">California</a>. There was no room inside so we rode on the roof, waving to people and flashing the peace sign. Nobody knew we were being watched by the world or that this event would be famous 40 years later. . . . The closest thing to the unity I experienced at Woodstock was the unity I felt when President <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> was elected.

LVCARM09

Woodstock: Tom Carmichael

Debra Carpentieri, 58, Massapequa. Data-entry specialist. 
&nbsp; 
I went with a group of friends from Massapequa. I was working for a small data-entry company in Amityville and I made sure I had off on Friday. I was really happy. I wanted to see <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a>; she was really big. All the girls could relate to her. 
We had to park the car because you could not go any farther and walk. I called home to tell my mother we had made it and she told me they had closed the Thruway. 
I remember seeing <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a>, Hendrix, and <a href="/topics/Grace_Slick">Grace Slick</a> saying, "Good morning, people!" I was pretty up close when she came on. I remember the rain and the mud, the place we got food. We went because of the groups and when we got up there it was a huge party. I would do it all over again. 
There were no fights. The music was great. You could never do it again. 
I went upstate last year to Bethel to see the anniversary concert. It sure looks different. The museum is great; it is a great tribute to all the people who came. It brings back a better day. Peace and love always.

LVCARP09

Woodstock: Debra Carpentieri

Bob Clinch, 60, Miller Place. Dental technician. 
&nbsp; 
Friends were going. I ended up hitching a ride with them, $10 in my pocket, loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, my camera. 
I remember inching down (State Route) 17B on Thursday night. We noticed a lot of the fields on either side of the road were filled with tents; the locals were renting space for $3 to park and camp. We pulled into the field and tried to get some sleep. 
The next morning . . . there were people everywhere and yet the mood was good. After walking miles, we finally arrived at the site and it was unbelievable. It was a sea of people. From this point on you knew this was history in the making. And it felt great to be a part of this because it was all spontaneous. Sun, rain, it didn't matter; people were everywhere enjoying the party, from <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a> to <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>. There will never be anything like it again. 
I feel grateful to have been part of that experience. There was so much going on in the country and when the music started it just spoke to us because we were all there for the same reason, the need to be together and for the same common ground: peace. Because of the three days in 1969, the appreciation of music has continued to resonate within me. 
Those days were awesome: to have seen the greatest bands ever and despite running out of water, food and things you take for granted, no one complained. It remains some of the best memories in my life.

LVCLIN09

Woodstock: Bob Clinch

Bill Davis, 62, Oyster Bay. Photographer. 
&nbsp; 
I heard of Woodstock for the first time when a member of our study group at the University of <a href="/topics/Minnesota">Minnesota</a> came to class with an ad for three days of peace and music for $18. The list of performers was incredible. I had to go! We ordered tickets the next time our class met two days later. 
We were enrolled in a history course on the politics of race taught by professor Allan Spear, who would later become a <a href="/topics/Minnesota">Minnesota</a> state senator. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey was a guest lecturer. He lost to <a href="/topics/Richard_Nixon">Richard Nixon</a> in the '68 presidential election, which was preceded by the Chicago Riots during the <a href="/topics/Democratic_National_Convention">Democratic National Convention</a>. 
That year <a href="/topics/Martin_Luther_King%2C_Jr.">Martin Luther King Jr</a>. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. The war in <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a> [and <a href="/topics/Laos">Laos</a> and <a href="/topics/Cambodia">Cambodia</a>] raged on, and people opposed to it were moving to <a href="/topics/Europe">Europe</a> and to <a href="/topics/Canada">Canada</a>. It was a time of repression and confusion: The <a href="/topics/Central_Intelligence_Agency">CIA</a> was spying domestically and <a href="/topics/Paul_Newman">Paul Newman</a> would make Nixon's enemies list for his anti-war activities. 
I had campaigned in <a href="/topics/Wisconsin">Wisconsin</a> for Sen. <a href="/topics/Eugene_McCarthy">Eugene McCarthy</a>'s presidential bid in 1968 and marched with Father James Groppi, the civil rights activist. 
Five of us piled into a van and headed east through <a href="/topics/Canada">Canada</a> to <a href="/topics/Niagara_Falls">Niagara Falls</a>, where our welcome to <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> included a long visit with customs officials. I'm thinking <a href="/topics/Arlo_Guthrie">Arlo Guthrie</a> and his song "Coming into <a href="/topics/Los_Angeles">Los Angeles</a>." Three or four determined agents searched the van several times before they reluctantly let us go. 
We eventually made it to Bethel to find parking within a mile of the stage at Max Yasgur's farm. We soon realized from the size of the stage and the helicopter traffic in and out and people crashing fences that Woodstock was going to be huge. 
<a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a> was the right person to start things off. He set the tone for the first day with his song "Freedom." Peaceful but urgent, it reminded me that we were a long way from home, yet together, perhaps where we'd like the country to be. 
Food was in short supply and/or overly expensive. Store shelves were nearly empty. I felt lucky when I found a dairy store where I purchased half a dozen cartons of yogurt and a bottle of orange juice. At a liquor store I bought a fifth of tequila. That and some dried fruit and nuts tucked away in my waterproof backpack would save the days and nights. 
The rain was persistent and warm and the mud was just a reality we all had to deal with either by avoidance or by embracing it. I had my poncho when I needed it. The music was hypnotic and the weather was just background. If you stayed in one spot long enough a joint might catch up to you. People were thick but pleasant. You couldn't get any closer and remain an individual. To traverse that huge amphitheater was to move at the pace of an amoeba. Getting to the concessions or toilets at the top of the hill and back down could take hours. 
Saturday merged into Sunday. I don't remember everything so I must have been there. <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>, <a href="/topics/Ravi_Shankar">Ravi Shankar</a>, Santana, <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a>, <a href="/topics/Sly_%26_the_Family_Stone_%28musician%29">Sly &amp; the Family Stone</a>, The Band, <a href="/topics/Johnny_Winter">Johnny Winter</a>, Jefferson Airplane, Mountain, <a href="/topics/Joe_Cocker">Joe Cocker</a>, and Crosby, Stills, Nash &amp; Young were worth the trip. 
At some point on Sunday we realized that it would be Monday before <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a> would play. We decided to leave before the traffic. I voted to stay but was OK with leaving as I had seen Hendrix the previous year in <a href="/topics/Minneapolis">Minneapolis</a> where I had stood at his feet and heard him play "Are You Experienced?" "Purple Haze," "Red House" and the infamous "Star-Spangled Banner." 
My last memory of Woodstock is the walk out through a canyon of parked cars. The music faded to nature's sounds. The mud sucked the sandals from my feet one too many times. I left them by an ancient <a href="/topics/Saab">Saab</a> mired up to its hubcaps.

LVDAVI09

Woodstock: Bill Davis

Jim DeCesare, 59, Bay Shore. Musician. 
Being a 19-year-old musician, I was just looking forward to seeing all of my favorite bands in one place. 
I had recently been placed on probation in <a href="/topics/Nassau">Nassau</a> County for a misdemeanor offense typical of those times. At my first meeting with my probation officer, it was explained to me that I needed his permission to travel outside of Nassau. He asked me if there would be anything illegal going on there, like drugs, because that would violate my probation. I told him that it was just a concert and I couldn’t think of any reason why there would be. 
My friend and I took the bus from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Since I had arranged with other friends who were driving up to take some extra clothing, food, camping equipment, etc., I was traveling with only the clothes on my back. 
As we walked toward the site, we could hear the public address system from over a mile away, and <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a> began the music, singing “Freedom.” By the time we got to the site, the fence had already been trampled and no one even asked us for our tickets. 
I enjoyed three days of great music, met some truly wonderful people, and had a fantastic time despite being rained on, covered in mud, and hungry most of the time. I never did meet my friends with the supplies. 
I’ll never forget the sight and sound of the Army helicopters flying in needed first aid, and was struck by the irony of them helping people who supposedly had nothing but contempt for the military and everything they represented. 
The following day, I had my second meeting with my probation officer. The first thing he said to me was “Woodstock, huh? No drugs, huh?” He just shook his head and smiled, and asked me if it had been worth it. 
I told him that I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, which today is a better place than it would have been had Woodstock never happened.

Woodstock: Jim DeCesare

Fran Eaker,55, Baldwin, ophthalmic technician, and Lorraine Lapinski, 55, New Hyde Park, special education teacher. 
We were only 15 and the greatest concert in history was just weeks away. How we convinced our parents to let us go is still a mystery. We explained there would be three full days of nonstop music for only $6 a day and agreed to stay at a nearby motel. 
We were off, four girlfriends from Queens, heading there by Greyhound bus. Parts of the <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> State Thruway and Route 17 had been closed and cars were left abandoned all over. At 15 years old, we never saw so many people in our lives. We walked for miles, walking beside cars, riding on top of cars. 
The entrance had been trampled over and there wasn't anyone collecting tickets. (We still have ours.) When we finally found a nice spot to park our weary selves, it started to pour. We were not prepared at all; we didn't have food, extra clothing, blankets or rain gear. The group of friends next to us were nice enough to share their ponchos so we didn't get too wet. 
There were so many bands performing it's hard to remember them all, but Hendrix, Joplin, and Crosby, Stills, Nash &amp; Young definitively stand out. The music brought joy, sorrow and love to our hearts and signified much of what was going on in the '60s. We were surrounded by so many others who believed in having a peaceful, fun-loving time. 
We still hold the experience close to our hearts because we know that we were part of a historical, peace-loving event that has been recorded in history.

LVEAKE09

Woodstock: Fran Eaker and Lorraine Lapinski

Les Goldschmidt, 64, pharmacist in Hauppauge. 
&nbsp; 
My girlfriend Edie [now my wife] and I, along with three of her friends, decided to attend. Just before we left, we heard news reports of terrible traffic jams and incredible numbers of people descending on the concert site. While the others wanted to leave immediately, I insisted we stop at a supermarket and stock up on food and camping supplies. Since I was the driver, I fortunately won the argument, because there was absolutely nothing available once we got there. 
I remember local homeowners running garden hoses out to the street so that we could have some water to drink. They were all trying to help the hordes of kids who descended on their little town, leaving quite a mess. 
They watched in quiet awe as the army of festival-goers marched past their homes - some offering hospitality beyond water: phones to call home or even a real bathroom to use. 
We ended up parking two or three miles from the site. There were no more gates, fences or ticket-takers. We found a patch of ground where we could see the stage in the distance and hear the music. Sound quality was surprisingly good. 
The hundreds of people visible in my pictures are all average, dorky schoolkids. Not one wild-eyed hippie in the bunch. Yet if you see the documentaries or books about Woodstock, you would easily believe that all or most of the kids were stoned, dancing naked, tie-dyed freaks. 
There was an overwhelming feeling of peace, love and community, as if everyone there was trying very hard to make the promoters' visions come true despite the hardships. It was an environment that will never be duplicated, much to our society's loss.

LVCONTESSA31-GV6-7Q3-PWS

Woodstock: Les Goldschmidt

Steven Katz, 56, Jericho. Event planner. 
We made an early start on Wednesday, hoping to buy tickets at the gate or, better yet, sneak in. Traffic was backed up on Route 17B to the Monticello Raceway. We finally made it to Yasgur's Farm, only to find that there was no gate, no fence and, even better, no one collecting tickets. 
We parked our U-Haul in a secluded area, high on a hill behind the stage and relaxed around a campfire. The next morning the road we came in on was packed with partially dressed people walking to a nearby pond where everyone was swimming. We had left our bathing suits home; everyone there had forgotten theirs as well. 
Friday was the first day of music, scheduled to begin at noon, so down we headed to the stage area. Twelve o'clock came and went as did 1:00 and 2:00. I laid down and fell asleep. A few hours passed when I was awakened to the music of <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>. The entire basin behind me that was void of people just hours ago was now filled with thousands. 
Saturday we were awakened by the sound of helicopters landing and taking off. Curious, we approached the landing area and realized they were bringing the musicians to the concert. The Who, The Dead, Santana, Janis, The Airplane and Canned Heat were walking just yards away and nodding to us. 
Fearing the exodus, we decided to leave early Sunday morning. Once I returned home I found that most of what I had brought with me was gone but I did bring back something that I didn't bring with me, something I would have for the rest of my life - my memories. To this day, whenever I hear that driving beat of Santana's "Soul Sacrifice," I'm right back in front of the stage. What a summer '69 was.

LVKATZ09

Woodstock: Steven Katz

Jeff Krasner, 59,Wantagh. Works in real estate and promoting concerts. 
&nbsp; 
Simply put - the best. It's still quite fresh in my mind because of the significance it has had in my life. I was away at college in <a href="/topics/Boston">Boston</a> when I returned home to my parents in the summer of '69 in south Merrick. 
We had heard that there was a concert to be held in upstate <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> in a town called Bethel. Being into the music scene since age 12, I figured we just had to take a ride and have some fun. We opted not to buy tickets and take our chances that we would get in with the 30,000 people that were expected. Myself and three friends rented a van and off we went. 
After parking at least a mile away, we proceeded to the great lawn, or what was left of it. Fortunately, I ran into a close friend who had plenty of food and we had the van. Perfect match - we did not have any food. 
Starting off with <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a> and dozens of great groups . . . we sat and stood in the rain, muck, madness and the music for three days. What a rush. 
Two years later my friend, <a href="/topics/Michael_Epstein">Michael Epstein</a>, whom I met in <a href="/topics/Boston">Boston</a> in 1968, opened a club in Roslyn, My Father's Place, that featured <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a> as the opening act. For the past 12 years, I have had the privilege of working with him [Epstein] producing concerts. I have been to hundreds of concerts since the summer of '69, but none will ever replicate the experience we had as teens there.

LVKRAS09

Woodstock: Jeff Krasner

Robert Leonard,60, Lattingtown. <a href="/topics/Hofstra_University">Hofstra University</a> professor of linguistics who was lead singer with <a href="/topics/Sha_Na_Na_%28musician%29">Sha Na Na</a> at Woodstock.
 
 As I walked to the front of the stage to perform "Teen Angel," my head was swimming. My group wasn't a bunch of battle-hardened superstars like everybody around us; we were <a href="/topics/Columbia_University">Columbia University</a> undergraduates playing one of our first professional gigs. Three of us were freshmen! 
 I faced the ocean of heads and my head spun. Not with stage fright, not with amazement at the still enormous crowd - no, my head spun as I fought off a contact high from the clouds of marijuana smoke emanating from the camera crews. (In the new 40th anniversary edition of the Woodstock documentary you can see me trying to sing without inhaling.)
 Still, I thought, this is pretty cool. The biggest groups in rock and roll - and us. And - me. Singing a solo right before <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>. Amazing!
 Not six months before, I headed a small campus group, the Columbia College Kingsmen. Your basic school singing club, doing folk-rock at women's colleges and the St. Luke's hospital psych ward. But what some of us sang, walking home from rehearsals under Broadway streetlamps, was Fifties stuff. We loved harmony, and those songs had harmonies. We wangled an audition with a record agent who said he wanted to hear us in performance. But to sing at the bar-hamburger joint on campus, we needed more songs, so we added some Fifties. The agent never showed, but our Fifties numbers struck a real chord, and my older brother George told us he had an idea, which involved costumes and choreography. "I'm going to make you all rock and roll stars," he said. Our unanimous reaction: "Yeah, sure."
 Only five months later, I'm sitting in the most insider nightclub in <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> City, part-owned by our new pal <a href="/topics/Andy_Warhol">Andy Warhol</a>, and Jimi Hendrix is teaching me how to drink tequila shots. Jimi told us we were "Right on!" and we figure he got us booked at Woodstock. "Holy smoke," I thought. "George was right!" 
 I wouldn't fly the helicopter to the Woodstock stage. The pilot's eyes looked like the little pinwheels cartoon people have when they're really whacked-out. I went in a car, which meant driving forever through all the wasteland and wreckage of the one big soggy mess that the festival area had become.
 Woodstock was messy, yes, and wet, and muddy, and druggy, but it really was "three days of peace and music." People watched out for each other, fed and clothed each other (a guy I know woke up naked, and the people around him calmed him and chipped in pieces of clothing) and, without any real police or security force, the medics saw no injuries - let alone deaths - caused by violence.
 Fired [up] with my generation's hopes for justice and equality worldwide, I eventually would leave Sha Na Na to finish my doctorate and teach at Columbia, travel overseas on a Fulbright fellowship to research languages and culture systems, and spend eight years in <a href="/topics/Africa">Africa</a> and <a href="/topics/Southeast_Asia">Southeast Asia</a>. At Hofstra, I founded our one-of-a-kind Forensic Linguistics Project, which strives to establish precise and just principles of interpreting linguistic evidence - principles I have now applied in cases from civil contract disputes to espionage and murder.
 It's cool - or should I say "far out!" - that on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Hofstra is about to establish the first forensic linguistics graduate program in the U.S., fueled by steadfast student interest in internationalism and social justice.

LVLEON09

Robert Leonard

Tom Licari, 56, Amityville, an attorney 
I was a somewhat awkward 17-year-old when I heard about this concert with all my favorite musical groups. My parents allowed me to go only if I cut my long curly hair. 
Getting to Woodstock from the west, as we did, proved to be the best approach since all the roads from the south were clogged for miles. 
Although we attended all three days, we did go back to my girlfriend's parents' home that was about 10 miles away each night, since we managed to drive to within two miles of the concert site each day and walk the rest of the way. 
It was pure magic and somewhat surrealistic as Army helicopters buzzed overhead while we listened to the inspirational words of CSNY, <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>, <a href="/topics/John_Sebastian">John Sebastian</a>, <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a> and Country Joe MacDonald. His words were the best, creating such a unified spirit that became known as the "Woodstock Nation:" "Give me an F . . . What's that spell?" 
The camaraderie, peace and love was overwhelming, despite the weather and helicopters. The smell of beer and pot was everywhere. 
I suppose there could never be such an event again, and so I am proud to say "I was there."

ny-lvlicari3112784121may27

Woodstock: Tom Licari

Gary Miller, 58, Holbrook. Cablevision field service supervisor. 
&nbsp; 
I was working at the Jones Beach Theater as a parking lot attendant. Music was an important part of my life. When I saw the lineup for the Woodstock festival it was a no-brainer. 
It was like walking into another world in another time. You really got the feeling you were living a part of history. Something really big that never had happened before. It was a city of half a million people where all the boundaries of the law and society no longer existed and the funny thing was it was all working. Craziness: yes. Violence and aggression: no. 
I remember seeing Country Joe and the Fish and, yes, I was one of those crazies screaming along with the "Fish Cheer." I also saw Santana. You have to remember that before Woodstock, Santana was never heard of. I was like, "Who the hell are these guys?" They were great.

LVMILL09-ULM

Woodstock: Gary Miller

Thomas Moran, 61, Elmont. Retired postal employee. 
&nbsp; 
In April, 1969, I returned home from <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a> with numerous ailments but happy to be home. Made plans to attend Woodstock. 
I pulled into a large field and hastily pitched the tent. Friday we saw <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>, [The] Incredible String Band, Bert Sommer and <a href="/topics/Ravi_Shankar">Ravi Shankar</a>. Somewhat worn out already, we went back to the tent for our own party. We played guitars and sang. Saturday, found a spot among the sea of hippies not far from the stage. Stayed there 18 hours and saw every artist until Jefferson Airplane ended early Sunday with "morning maniac music." Did not get any sleep, so psyched. 
Sunday was crazy. Saw <a href="/topics/Joe_Cocker">Joe Cocker</a> and the rain came down. Got very wet and cold and went back to the tent, only to find it collapsed in a field of mud and manure. Saw Ten Years After and The Band. Bummed out from the rain and burned out from partying, I had had enough. Monday morning we packed up and in the distance you could hear <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a> playing. What a trip.

LVMORA09

Woodstock: Thomas Moran

Amy Musumarra, 58, Melville. Controller for an insurance partnership. 
&nbsp; 
I had just completed my first year of college at Farmingdale. With the <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a> War all over the television and friends getting drafted, the news of the largest music festival ever, being held right here in <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a>, was beyond exciting. 
After all the arrangements were made, I finally told my parents. My parents were pretty cool people; after all they had three teenagers, lived through Beatlemania, the war and the onset of the drug culture. But this made them nervous. "You're driving all the way to where? You're staying with who?" 
"Not to worry mom, I will call you every night." 
There were people not just from the <a href="/topics/New_York">New York</a> area but as far away as <a href="/topics/California">California</a> and Washington state. The feeling among all of us was that something huge and beautiful was about to happen and we all felt the enormousness of the occasion. It was not just about the music anymore, this was much bigger and it was going to change the world. 
I never did get close enough to actually see the groups perform, but I did hear them thanks to the huge sound system. It didn't really matter, though, because the music was only one aspect of Woodstock. It was the people, the pot, the mud and the rain that were the true essence of the Woodstock experience. 
However, by Sunday, sick, wet, sweaty and hungry, we decided we had enough. 
In August 1989, the 20th anniversary of Woodstock, I found out that my three great-uncles had purchased a huge chunk of Yasgur's farm and invited our family up for the anniversary weekend. As we walked to the memorial site, a quarter-mile away, I looked over my shoulder at the sprawling ranch houses with their paved circular driveways, tennis courts and in-ground pools. I sank to my knees and was instantly overcome with an emotion that left me both nostalgic and sad. 
Now 40 years later, I know nothing has ever or could ever duplicate the experience of Woodstock. We made a statement that almost half a million people, from all walks of life, can live peacefully during the most hostile of times. A lesson the world still hasn't caught on to yet. Today, as a mother of a 19-year-old daughter, I am certainly thankful for <a href="/topics/Global_Positioning_Systems">GPS</a> and cell phones.

LVAMY09

Woodstock: Amy Musumarra

William Pellegrini, 58, Lindenhurst. Graphic artist. 
&nbsp; 
That August I found myself in <a href="/topics/Poughkeepsie">Poughkeepsie</a> working in a "head shop" for an entrepreneur named Fred Buck. I was on the outs with my family and was in the middle of an "extended road trip." 
Woodstock was supposed to be a gathering of "freaks" in a peaceful setting where we could get to see just how many of us there were. At that time each town had maybe four or five counterculture types. There were five of us in Hicksville High that I remember out of a student body of 5,280. The word was that nobody was going to miss this festival if they had the legs to get there. 
I just walked around for days living on a jar of 10-cent pickled eggs in a local bar and free food from the Diggers commune. 
The bands were really the sideshow. The rain and the mud was the great equalizer. Wandering through the craft areas and from campsite to campsite was where it was really at. People from all over were there, everybody putting out their best "vibes." 
I ran into my best friends there purely by accident. The spirit of cooperation we saw in everybody around us changed us all profoundly. It seems that for a couple of days we formed the perfect government - absolute anarchy. We learned that in a state of anarchy there is government - each man governs himself. That is the Woodstock spirit that I have carried and lived by all my life: self-sufficiency, self-determination and self-responsibility.

LVPELL09

Woodstock: William Pellegrini

Robin Romeo, 55,&nbsp; Huntington. Realtor and law office manager.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
That summer, I had an epiphany: I realized if I went to a bowling alley wearing $2 sneakers, I could trade them for very colorful and ventilated bowling shoes. And I did. 
My parents were mortified. 
Ultimately they gave my sister and I their car, pop-up trailer and money to go to Woodstock on the condition I get rid of the bowling shoes. I was going there for a weekend getaway with my sister. It turned out to be more of a survival story than a music event: looking for food, water and a dry place to stand. We existed primarily on watermelon. 
But I still have fond memories. A couple of years ago, I worked on a book about Woodstock with one of the original producers.

LVROMEO09

Woodstock: Robin Romeo

Richard Sadis, 55, Woodbury. Owner of an early intervention agency for children with disabilities. 
&nbsp; 
As we walked into the concert we noticed things inside were different than they were outside. There were very few signs of police presence; buses and vans with people on the rooftops smoking and passing marijuana were everywhere. We checked out the stage and decided on a location for our tent. So we set up house on a small hill to the left of the stage facing a small lake. We drank inside our tent. After a few, it was time to explore our new surroundings, so we poked our heads out of the tent and to our amazement saw people bathing and dancing naked in the lake. We knew then we had arrived at the Promised Land. Remember we were only 15 and 16 at the time. 
We never knew who was to perform. I just wanted to be there and have fun. Who ever knew it was history in the making? It was a true love and peace concert. Everyone just taking it all in. It was a paradise, except for the few announcements being made over the PA about some bad drugs. 
Late Saturday night and into the early Sunday morning the rains came, and along with the rains, mud everywhere, red clay mud. My gray bell-bottom jeans now dragged six inches under my bare feet. But being the perfect weekend, nothing was going to prevent this event from diminishing the love-in and peace it had become. Although food and water were in short supply, everyone shared whatever they had. When the music finally stopped, everyone knew it was more than just a concert. It was a life-altering and changing time for us all.

LVSADI09

Richard Sadis

Richard Schwarz, 60, Old Brookville. 
Director of products for company that primarily provides products for medically supervised weight programs.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As the sky turned to dusk, there was an illuminating panoramic view of campfires coupled with tents and vans. It was like a refugee camp for hippies. 
I was so tired that I wound up slipping into my sleeping bag in some stranger's Ryder truck. They were very hospitable. People were like that then.&nbsp; 
For lunch there was a yoga and meditation class from the stage between the music of Santana, Country Joe and the Fish, The Band and many others. For dinner, my favorite dish was The Who. 
The next morning I woke up and had the quintessential '60s <a href="/topics/California">California</a> rock band, The Jefferson Airplane, for breakfast.&nbsp; 
Later in the afternoon, my friends and I walked up to the front of the stage and watched <a href="/topics/Joe_Cocker">Joe Cocker</a> and his band put on an amazing show. That was the time that Elliott Landy, a photographer for Life magazine, took the shot that my friends and I were in for the special Woodstock edition.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
It began to rain, but no one seemed to mind that either. Instead of complaining, many started to dance and the drummer on the stage joined in with a rain dance kind of beat.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
The last day I finally got my dessert. I was watching the legendary <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a> and the Band of Gypsys perform. Though Hendrix's guitar playing is almost not of this Earth, many tend not to realize that Hendrix was such a brilliant songwriter.&nbsp; 
In the end, I have to admit that what impressed me the most, even more than the music and the beautiful grounds, was how nearly a half million individuals stood together in copacetic bliss in what was not always such perfect conditions. 
Despite the rain, the mud, the overflowing Porta Pottys and the not always working sound equipment, people respected and supported one another.&nbsp;&nbsp; I truly believe that the Woodstock Festival worked . . . because of the attitude of sharing a once-in-a lifetime experience.

LVRSCH09

Woodstock: Richard Schwarz

Dave Sieglinger, 58, Brookhaven, Building contractor 
The concert was already beginning in Bethel, and we heard the first reports over the radio. We decided 'Why not, let's go!' We had to park the car and walk a long way. 
There were all kinds of young people, from all-out freaks to regular kids just getting into the scene. There were more than a few substances going around. There was a really good vibe in the air, and no one was bothering anyone else. 
When we crested the hill where the amphitheater was located, there were hundreds of thousands of freaks all sitting on the hill, and the party was in full swing. I remember a lot of mud. That only seemed to add to the fun. 
We did lose track of our driver and ended up having to hitchhike home after almost three days without sleep. 
Even though I went to other festivals later on, it was never the same as it was at <a href="/topics/Woodstock">Woodstock</a>. It was one tiny moment in time when it all came together. It's too bad it couldn't last. I still think we were on to something good. Some of it has stayed with me my whole life and always will.

ny-lvsieglinger3112644569may27

Woodstock: Dave Sieglinger

Alan Stewart 59, Merrick, a musician 
I was playing drums that summer in a band at a hotel very close to the Woodstock site. I recall leaving for Woodstock early Friday morning and we saw <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a>, <a href="/topics/Ravi_Shankar">Ravi Shankar</a>, <a href="/topics/John_Sebastian">John Sebastian</a> and Melanie. We had brought blankets and food from the kitchen as we had figured we wouldn't be able to get back to the hotel. 
On Saturday, it rained and we had to find some shelter, but we got to see Santana, Creedence and the great <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a>. We had little food left, but the music made us forget our appetites. We woke late on that night to see <a href="/topics/Sly_%26_the_Family_Stone_%28musician%29">Sly &amp; the Family Stone</a>, the Who and then Sunday morning we saw Jefferson Airplane. 
On Sunday afternoon, we saw <a href="/topics/Joe_Cocker">Joe Cocker</a> and then the heavens opened up and the rains kept coming and coming and that's when we decided to head back to the hotel. 
It was all slop and mud, but man, everybody was having a blast and the time of their lives!

ny-lvstewart3112783151may26

Woodstock: Alan Stewart

&nbsp;Leslie West, 63, Englewood, N.J. Guitarist and lead singer for Mountain who lived in East Meadow, <a href="/topics/Forest_Hills">Forest Hills</a> and Lawrence growing up. 
Woodstock was our third show. We hadn't even written "<a href="/topics/Mississippi">Mississippi</a> Queen" yet. <a href="/topics/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi Hendrix</a>'s agent luckily was our agent and got us on the show. We went on Saturday night at around 7:30. We rented our own helicopter and took off from <a href="/topics/Manhattan">Manhattan</a> because we saw all the traffic. When we got there, I was totally amazed. When I saw all the people, there was a first-aid kit in the helicopter and they had amyl nitrate in it to revive people if they pass out so, like an idiot, I snapped one open and I almost fell out of the helicopter. It was mind-boggling. 
I remember hanging out with <a href="/topics/John_Sebastian">John Sebastian</a> backstage and he was tripping . . . and tie-dying clothes - he would tie-dye everything that wasn't tied down. I remember seeing <a href="/topics/Janis_Joplin">Janis Joplin</a> walking around with this gorgeous girl who was her girlfriend. 
I didn't have stage fright; I just wanted to see if I could remember all of the songs because it was only like our third show. I didn't care how many people were there; you really couldn't see all the people when you were onstage. I don't remember how well we played. I think everybody was in shock. 
It was the first time I saw people clicking their Bics when they wanted someone to come back for an encore. 
After we played, I sat behind the stage listening to Creedence Clearwater. I couldn't believe how many hits they had. It was quite an experience for a kid from Queens and <a href="/topics/Long_Island">Long Island</a> getting to listen and watch The Who and all of this. It was a thrill. 
I don't think anybody had any idea how special Woodstock was going to be - up until then there was only one of the big festivals, <a href="/topics/Monterey">Monterey</a>. I do now because everybody I talk to is telling me, "Oh yeah, I was at Woodstock." There weren't 30 million people at Woodstock! 
It wasn't just another gig. It was the beginning for us. After that, stuff started coming and we started touring. I saw that, like Dylan said, the times they are a-changing after that.

LVWEST09

Woodstock: Mountain guitarist Leslie West

On the morning of Aug. 15, Steven Katz of <a href="/topics/Jericho2">Jericho</a> awoke with a half dozen buddies in a rented U-Haul truck on a grass slope at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, N.Y. Opening the rear doors at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival, "we were shocked to see the entire hill filled with vans and cars, not a vacant spot to be found," Katz recalled. "The rest is history." 
Woodstock, a three-day music festival, featured more than 30 well-known musical acts, playing to nearly 500,000 people - more than twice the number expected. Quite a few of the young Long Islanders who attended lied to their parents about where they were going. 
"We were closet flower children and want-to-be hippies who embraced the music of an era, but remained hidden due to our conservative Long Island middle class upbringing, social status or parental control," said Tom Licari, the Chaminade student who cut his long hair in exchange for his parents' permission to attend. 
Despite fears of riots and muggings, Woodstock was mostly a peaceful event. The National Guard even used helicopters to drop food and water to the crowd. Police arrested about 100 concertgoers on drug charges. 
The rains drenched the crowd, but most didn't mind at all. 
One day of music was better than the next, they said, from <a href="/topics/Richie_Havens">Richie Havens</a> on Friday to <a href="/topics/Crosby%2C_Stills%2C_Nash_and_Young">Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young</a> and Blood, Sweat and Tears Sunday. 
"I was diggin' it, man, it was unbelievable," said Daniel McBride of Farmingdale, who attended the festival three days after returning from <a href="/topics/Vietnam">Vietnam</a>. 
Patricia Canigiani, then 27 and a private nurse in Bethpage, watched TV footage of Woodstock with a decidedly more critical eye. To her it was less a cultural event than an opportunity for the nation's young to get together and use illegal drugs. 
After Woodstock ended, the nursing agency dispatched Canigiani to what is now called Nassau University Medical Center. She was to care for a 17-year-old girl who took something toxic at Woodstock - apparently LSD laced with arsenic. 
"A beautiful girl," Canigiani said. "Her parents and aunts and uncles were on a 24-hour vigil, crying in the hallway." 
She died a few days later. 
YOUR VOICES 
&gt;&gt; Tom Licari &gt;&gt; Alan Stewart &gt;&gt; Dave Sieglinger

ny-liwood3112791365may28

Peace, love, music, mud and memories

Summer of '69: Woodstock

Newsday

Summer of '69: Woodstock was something special

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