Woodstock: 40 years later. Today is 14 August 2009

No, I wasn't there. I'm not sure how that got started, I wasn't there.

Not that I wasn't there in spirit; I had to go to work on Monday morning--I was between sophomore and junior year of college, and I had to work during the summer.

So, let me back up a bit. I WAS in northern New Jersey; I didn't have a car, also had no money. I did have a (boy)friend who said he wanted to go, and I wound up going to our family's summer house in northern NJ for the weekend.

Traffic was horrible. I'd never, then, or since, seen such traffic in northern NJ. The roads were packed. It was gridlock--everywhere--and also on the way back on Sunday evening.

And everyone was "watching", "listening" for news about the concert at Woodstock. You could feel the tension in the air....At least from my perspective, and also among my lake friends, that weekend.

I took the train/bus to work on Monday morning. I bought a copy of the New York Times, which was ten cents at the time, and read the Times article about the concert, and all that was happening.

I remember doing that. I wished I'd been able to get there, but it wasn't going to happen, being that I was also being monitored/supervised by my parents who took extra note about my whereabouts that weekend, maybe to insure that I didn't slip away and try to get a ride to the concert. That wasn't going to happen either, so I just endured the weekend, and went to work on Monday morning.

The news: I seem to remember a rush for the TV talk shows and news shows during those few days of the concert, and the days afterward (probably the Late Show with Johnny Carson, since I was at work during the day), getting people to talk about "what had happened" at the concert that was now being referred to as "Woodstock". I remember seeing Crosby, Stills, and Nash on one of these shows, as they excitedly talked about their experiences--every other performer who I saw here and there, was also equally animated--"something" had happened, something that made "it" different from what had gone before.

Time would now be reckoned as being BEFORE, and AFTER Woodstock. Sure, the DURING Woodstock time had happened, and it had been filmed, and would become analyzed, and pondered over, yet "that", was a part of the AFTER time, and would happen later.

I wonder sometimes what would life be like, for ME, had I gone to Woodstock.

Probably not much different, then again, if I take a turn in my imagination, I can see some other possibilities that might have been reasonable. I'm still the same person I was back then, albeit a whole lot more knowledgeable about many other things that I had no knowledge of then, that didn't exist "then", and I wonder if those things would have happened too....I'll never know. Then too, I don't believe in spending too much time mourning things past--the future is so much more promising, and interesting.....and that's the direction I'm going.

Lila