Woodstock, the name given a New York rock concert, held Aug. 15-17, 1969, has been on many minds this month, and with good reason.
This year is the 20th anniversary of several events symbolizing the youth counterculture of the '60s characterized by an intellectual ferment, a major interest in reform and an aggressive anti-materialism. Much of it was centered around protest of the Vietnam War.In 1960 there were 27 million Americans between the ages of 14 and 44; by 1969, there were 40 million Americans in that bracket, 20 percent of the population. That means that if large numbers decided to gather, they would be noticed.
It is a little too easy to recall any of these events as more radical than they really were - especially by those older Americans who thought they represented the ripping of the fabric of America.
That is why all the comments this month about Woodstock are so interesting. In colossal overkill, Mike Royko wrote a blistering column, labeling them "the most self-centered, self-indulgent, demanding, pampered, ungrateful generation in this country's history." He pictured them as badly dressed, drug-crazed hippies bounding around in the muck.
With tongue carefully in cheek, columnist Martin Gottlieb thanked his lucky stars that he was one of the members of his generation - the '60s generation - who did NOT go to Woodstock.
"It's like it was yesterday. We were all desperate for something to do, and we knew there was this mega-concert going on in New York, and somebody said, `Let's not.' And somebody else said, `Yeah, the traffic must be ridiculous.'
"None of us will ever be quite the same."
With all due respect to all the great minds who are analyzing the corruption that seems to them to be symbolized by Woodstock, I offer a rejoinder:
Woodstock was planned by two 24-year-olds, who wanted to stage it on the Hudson River of Woodstock, New York. Ironically, zoning regulations and local opposition thwarted those plans, and so Woodstock became a misnomer.
The concert was actually held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel on White Lake in the Catskills, 70 miles northwest of New York City. The promoters hoped for 50,000 people at $7 a ticket. Instead, 400,000 people showed up.
Collecting fees from such an enormous crowd proved impractical, and so the promoters lost $2 million.
The other major problem was the weather. Two cloudbursts turned the farm into a swamp. Young people slept in soggy sleeping bags under plastic tents.
The lack of sanitary facilities should have made the entire affair a disaster, but it turned into a triumph. One of the early performers looked at the crowd and said, "If we're going to make it, you had better remember that the guy next to you is your brother." They caught the significance.
According to one police officer, that group was "the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids that I have ever been in contact with in my 24 years of police work."
There was a strengthening of group bonds as they listened to The Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez and others who were their folk heroes. Dressed in headbands, bell-bottoms and beads, these youths made the festival a strong symbol of generational unity. They called it the Woodstock Nation.
This was not the only rock concert of 1969, although it was the most spectacular. There were others at Tenino, Wash.; Lewisville, Texas; and Prairieville, La. There was even a major event in England on the Isle of Wight, attended by 150,000 young people who listened to Bob Dylan. Unlike Woodstock, the Isle of Wight concert ended in the black.
In the meantime, older Americans found rock music and ideological messages disturbing. It seemed ungodly, immoral and unpatriotic. Worse, when Charles Manson and his demented proteges atrociously killed and mutilated actress Sharon Tate and four acquaintances, the country saw it as a symbol of the younger generation gone bad.
In fact, Manson was not Woodstock.
So Woodstock may not have been one of the greatest events of the century, but it was a symbol of generational unity to those who were there. Long hair or not, it did not presage the decay of American youth, but rather its awakening to social and political issues. And it was only ONE of the ways they had to dramatize that interest.
Enough said.