There is already hoopla about Woodstock's 40th anniversary on August 15th. As some of you may recollect, Life magazine did a special issue on the festival at the time. (I was there, too, but as a kid, not a journalist.) They had to really hustle to get that issue on the newsstands—in 1969 there were no digital cameras, no computers, no Fed Ex.
And twenty years ago, for the 20th anniversary, I climbed into a car with several people who had covered the event for Life and we drove on up to that pasture in White Lake. The driver was Bill Eppridge, who shows some of his pictures and talks about his recollections of the event in today's Lens column. One of the passengers still works for what is left of Life at its photo site. Another is still with the photographer she fell in love with there. And there was me, the editor of the anniversary piece. We advertised in the newspaper for people who had seen themselves in the original Woodstock issue, tried to verify that they were who they claimed to be, and printed people's memories of the event. By that time we had computers and voice mail, but no Internet or cellphones. There are several similar web hunts going on now, which is a lot easier than doing the thing by newsprint and U.S. mail.
All this is by way of saying that I have started seeing magazine racks in the trash.
fair warning: on block island or manhattan or in missouri, we can be a little salty
6 comments:
I feel OLD...
I've never had a magazine rack. Magazines just piled up and took over the place. Now that the magazine racks are now piling up in the trash. I may get a myself one. There indeed will be functional again. People will start to collection of the magazines that will be dinosaurs soon. Then they both be worth something again. One for a different industry. The collector and one for it's original purpose.
Well, I'm too young to have been to Woodstock, though I've certainly spent years listening to the music. I'm not too young, though, to remember magazines. Thank gosh. I'm the generation at large, the generation of hope, the generation of change. Or so I dream. Has every generation been that? Let's keep making it happen. Things change, we learn from the past and give thanks for the future. Who knows what it will bring?
I live three miles down the road from Yasgur's farm and go by it often. The spirit is still there and every summer so are the old hippies who come bak. But things change. A few years ago, after a bad flight out of Sudan to Nairobi I decided I needed to khow how to land a plane and was taking flying lessons with an old German pilot who probably flew Messerschmits. I asked him if I could buzz the gathering. His eyes gleamed and we did.They loved it. Maybe we can do it again this time.
I never went.
To Woodstock, The Festival.
But I went to Woodstock, the country school.
We wore blue jeans. We drank. We smoked dope. We slept with our teachers.
Did I do my part in the revolution?
I don't know that that qualifies, cba.
As for those of you wondering about my Woodstock memories, they will be forthcoming closer to the date.
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