August 15, 1969

Reports started trickling in on 1010 WINS ("All news all the time") about half a million people traveling to a farm in upstate New York for the largest rock and roll concert ever. Traffic backed up 20 miles away, and the kids started walking in along the dusty roads.

I was too square and scared to be a hippie, but the time affected me, like it affected everyone else at that time. That deserves another post.

At its best, Woodstock was a gathering of Joni Mitchell's children of god. It was a gathering of humans, not angels, so it had plenty of problems. But it was an embrace of peace and love, and a rejection of the materialism that defined the lives most of the kids had grown up in.

I was an office boy at Kiff, Voss & Franklin, "formerly the Office of York & Sawyer." Jonathn Schwartz was playing albums on WNEW and talking about the Red Sox. Three weeks later I left for a year in England and Europe. It was a Golden Year.

Movie trailer here