Woodstock: Bill Davis

Bill Davis, 62, Oyster Bay. Photographer.

I heard of Woodstock for the first time when a member of our study group at the University of Minnesota 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 Minnesota state senator. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey was a guest lecturer. He lost to Richard Nixon in the '68 presidential election, which was preceded by the Chicago Riots during the Democratic National Convention.

That year Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. The war in Vietnam [and Laos and Cambodia] raged on, and people opposed to it were moving to Europe and to Canada. It was a time of repression and confusion: The CIA was spying domestically and Paul Newman would make Nixon's enemies list for his anti-war activities.

I had campaigned in Wisconsin for Sen. Eugene McCarthy'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 Canada to Niagara Falls, where our welcome to New York included a long visit with customs officials. I'm thinking Arlo Guthrie and his song "Coming into Los Angeles." 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.

Richie Havens 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. Richie Havens, Ravi Shankar, Santana, Janis Joplin, Sly & the Family Stone, The Band, Johnny Winter, Jefferson Airplane, Mountain, Joe Cocker, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were worth the trip.

At some point on Sunday we realized that it would be Monday before Jimi Hendrix 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 Minneapolis 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 Saab mired up to its hubcaps.