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Woodstock in a Whirlwind

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© 2000 By Ella Veres Please visit my Website

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Twenty four hours after I arrived in the New World I was walking around Woodstock.

Now let me say that I am not one of those retro 1960s enthusiasts who lament that they were born too late and who regard the famous 1969 festival of sex, drugs, and rock and roll as the highpoint of the 20th century, coming to it as pilgrims to a shrine,, like visitors in Florence breathing in the renaissance. Why? Well, one certainly didn't see much of sexual revolution on our national TV. The Regime of the late Nicolae Ceausescu, our dictator, did not think valuable foreign exchange should be diverted from building either the house of the people or polluting the atmosphere by importing the film of Woodstock that made the name a world wide encapsulation of youth culture and sensual delight all around the world.

All we saw were two or three hours of comrade visiting the cow farm in Vascauti or heck knows what crucial party conference. What I knew of and worshipped was Cenaclul Flacara, a local imitation of Woodstock, in which young people went to listen to ,music and poetry, yell and get an adrenaline shot. We listened to songs of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, along with inspired Romanian songs, and admired the unwonted gathering of longhair guitar players, poets, and actors displaying jeans and prophetic eyes. Jeans were a luxury item smuggled from the West and a statement at those times. Prophetic eyes were an equal luxury. Few could keep them unabashed for long under the systematic hammering into uniformity :induced by the state.

They would tour Romania and rally youth inspiring a sense of Freedom. Which was paradoxical since this gathering's production was a hybrid of non-conventionalist and ass licking of Ceausescu. Its leader was the honored court poet who could spit an ode in half an hour praising eulogistic our "ship captain" achievements and our tremendous, though nonexistent, love. His snoring rhymes, though saying nothing, somehow pumped up our patriotism.

I remember I ran away from home to attend one of these gatherings on the symbolic Liberty Plain at Blaj, a small Transylvanian town and I was disappointed. It didn't look glamorous like on TV; just some young people dangling and singing together in drunken :voices. The best hard rock band in Romania, Phoenix, just left the stage in protest of we didn't know what. Low payment perhaps. I remember it was getting dark and people lit some wretched newspapers We heard next day on TV that torches(?/!) were lit on the Liberty Plain. What torches?! They were just a bunch of privileged liars, pretending to be heroes. So I lost interest in their tours.

I heard about Woodstock only when I moved to Budapest, in Hungary where there is an annual event in August comparable with Woodstock. Young people from all over Europe come together for one week and enjoys music, boozing, and all one thinks of when hears the word "Woodstock." They do these liberating activities in sign of protest, but actually there is nothing- anymore to protest against. There is no communism, everyone is free to get as many pairs of jeans as they want, shave their skull or grow long hair, get AIDS or kids conceived from the combined seed of several unknown fathers, no problem.

But anyway here I was in Woodstock, the home of it all. The Place where I understand that Country Joe and the Fish sang "One, two :three four, what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam." And thousands cheered and smoked dope and rolled in the mud left by the rain and proclaimed the Age of Aquarius. So here I was, in this pleasant Catskill Mountain town at the invitation of a red hair Woodstockian who... I actually don't remember if he invited me or I invited myself to visit real Woodstock on my way to a conference in Philadelphia where I was invited to debate liberty in arts. He warned me Woodstock was a small mountain resort and said he hoped I wouldn't be disappointed. I pacified him saying I loved small towns. I don't, but since he said he had no specific expectations, why should I?!

It was even more fun since Mr. Andrew Peck, my host, was a real estate broker, an occupation that has horrid connotations in Eastern Europe. We think of such professionals in terms of "jackals" or "sharks." Please don't take offense out there - it takes us time to adjust to the new market economy. When I say "we" it's out of difficult to dispel imbedded hasty generalization habits.

Anyway, here I was in Woodstock, admiring the scenery that was exactly like in my Transylvania, with hills and woods, deer crossing the road in front of your car. We didn't see any wild hogs as at home, but deer would do it. Andrew was taking pictures at my request He seemed to have fun behaving as a tourist in his own town, as he put it. He took some photos of the people bathing in the clear river. I haven't seen people bathing in a river, with this pollution that pesters our rivers, since childhood.

He took me to his lake on a property near the place of the Woodstock remake festival. For now I will make a detour and tell you how Andrew rented his property near the festival location to a radio station from Boston at the time of the 25th anniversary celebration of Woodstock in 1994. That was all fine but the thing was that when he left for Nova Scotia, Canada, with his family and heard on the radio announcements from Radio Boston, "Hello there! We are on a wonderful property. Come all of you! Just say at the police cordon that you are coming to us and you can put your tent here. There is plenty of room for everybody!" Andrew flew all way back from his beach cottage in Canada to Woodstock to protect his property. He found that there were already 18 tents camped on his lawn. He didn't chase them away, but asked the police people to stop anyone going to radio Boston because he didn't rent them the lawn but just the house. End of the detour. Back to my Woodstock visit.

Andrew showed me the Village Green where young people hang out next to Bill, a psychedelic T-shirt vendor. That one was fun. He unstoppably told me, seizing the moment to get his message through into the media: he was a war veteran and had the right to sell under federal jurisdiction. But the town widened the sidewalk and chipped away from the federal road. Now he had a hard time since in front of his stand there was a shop selling equally psychedelic T-shirts at a more costly price.

His competitors wished him to move out since his stand was no longer on the federal road but on the municipal sidewalk, but Bill wouldn't leave saying he was still on federal land, stolen by the municipality. Even if you understood exactly what Bill did say, it would end up equally confusing. The short of it is that Bill fights his own war.

It was nice to walk around this pretty town, go into the grocery store, see a vendor worked up because someone on the street was almost making a car crash: "Unbelievable how some drive! This is the second that is going nuts today! Oh! Excuse me! Excuse me! But it's so maddening!" Then we went out: a group of people were having a squabble over some decision one of the aging, modest women would refute categorically, waving her plump hands and killing with her eyes shouting, "No! No!" as her husband followed her meekly. Andrew looked at me amused saying, "It seems the whole lunacy in town erupted right now!" It was fun to watch them, imagining him worried about what I would write about his town, ultimately ruin his business, perhaps. But he wasn't worrying, he said. We went across to his office. That was impressive. But this is not a sponsored article, so I will restrain for fear of sounding like a commercial. Actually it was a sponsored article, since he drove me around, fed and entertained me.... Anyway, we went to the bank where I picked up all business cards to have a better feel of the businesses people ran in town of Woodstock. There were many people making music, selling antiques, dealing in real estate, construction, or in human reconstruction: healers, psychologists.

Names of businesses in Woodstock: "Peace Antiques," "A Divine Idea," "Beautiful Things" "Unique Gifts, Antiques, Personalized Horoscopes by Equinox Astrology of London," "Corporate Building Services, Inc." "Pure Lands Construction," "Open Heart Therapy," "The Creative Instinct," "Quit Smart, Stop Smoking System," "Magic Hands, Dr. Kamayani, Chiropractic & Massage: The power that made the body heals the body," "Woodstock Strings," "Pema Chodron Clinard Minister," "Council of Light," "Meditation groups & Individual therapy," "Blair Collectibles, Professional Appraiser and Dealer, specializing in Coins * Currency * Jewelry * Marbles * Old Toys * Postcards * Worlds fair related & Unusual Items, Over 25 years Experience."

I t was baffling. But over the fanciful dinner we had at the Blue Mountain Bistro, Andrew and his wife explained to me that after the historical event of the 60s people from all over the country flocked to Woodstock, just for shopping or moving in for good. They would leave the big city and buy or build a house in Woodstock, both because it was a nice area, but also because they wanted to be associated with the Woodstock appellation. There had been a boom of construction going on. Andrew himself was actually a graduate in psychology with an exciting life behind, as an opera stage manager, who toured the country for almost a decade, but who came to Woodstock wanting a change to a settled life. I teased him saying he actually followed the crowd of the new believers in "Enough thinking back to the muscles! " But he said he had turned to I construction because he decided psychologist was a dumb profession. "Who wants to see all the time unhappy people? If you build a house you have immediate satisfaction. People thank you and pay you. I also got tired of traveling with theater people, when I could know many places and people, but only superficially. Now, living in one place, I learned to value the deeper knowing of fewer people. But who knows, maybe I am rationalizing a rather boring life he told me in his quiet, soft manner. His life doesn't seem boring, though I can't tell how he managed to, since I would go bananas after a month of his life style. For one thing Andrew was interesting with his fight against "unequal taxation" that is when property owners are billed and pay far more than their fair share. It inspired me to hear how since 1986, he filed 23 lawsuits, with over 500 properties involved, against towns and tax assessors. Guess what: 9 of them have been won, none lost, 14 pending, since each takes 2 to 5 years to wend its way through the court to conclusion. So he is busy. He lives in a house in the woods where you step on soft thick paths of white pine needles. There isn't such a thing as locked doors in Woodstock.

I was curious how the young people of Woodstock felt like, remembering my own adolescence when I felt trapped in my own hometown and wanted to run to the big city, which was by far smaller than NYC. I wanted to know if parents worried about their children leaving their nest. Yes, they did, said Andrew. But many of the children, when it came down to raising their own kids, tended to get back to peaceful Woodstock, where doors are not locked and people look for exotic spiritual experiences.

Chloe, Andrew's wife told me about how fun it was to go to the African dance class where drums made dance a hypnotic experience. One teacher had once danced herself into a trance, said Chloe seriously. "Come on," I laughed incredulous but also amused by this charming woman who could say such inanities. "Yes, yes, she said, searching for her words to define the feeling. "Poor girl," I thought, "Well it's understandable. Her parents were mystery writers and she likes phantasmagorias. Listen to her, you judgmental Ella." "I remember once we were running and suddenly we realized we could run on and on so easy it seemed. There was no effort anymore. I wonder why we stopped running at all. We could have gone on running even today...." And they were sitting there beaming above the aubergine salad. I couldn't tell if this couple was in love or mad. I couldn't decide if I envied or pitied them. But they were real estate owners. Quite successful ones. Maybe I was mad. Or had missed the revolution....

This mixture of real estate business and hippie naive ecstasy was specific to Woodstock. In Blue Mailbox, a comedy written and produced by a good natured, live-the-instant Woodstockian team, which we saw after dinner at the local Byrdcliffe Theater, locals made fun of themselves. The play was stating that the solving of one's financial entanglements could be a bit of make love not war philosophy and why not, a joint.

I know what was funny/peculiar about Woodstock: people had to adapt their behavior to outsiders' expectations. At the time of the 'legendary Woodstock concert local people didn't understand what was going on, said Chloe. Most of them even didn't go to the concert. They would prevent each other by saying, "Oh! It is an impossible gathering. Just a crowd splashing with mud and getting promiscuous." But in the aftermath when waves of newcomers assaulted the town, wanting to live there or simply to see the Mecca of liberation, buy a souvenir to be able to tell, "I bought this from Woodstock!" locals saw the business in it and started to build and sell houses, make souvenirs, offer miraculous cures for le mal d'etre, and even adopt stray cats like Russ , a tourist attraction character in town who has a button reading "Here to amuse the tourists."

If you go out early in the morning in town there are chances to meet him while he deposits the collected bottles into the big machine there, which sucks them in and with a huge grinding (cans) or loud crashing/crushing (bottles) prepares them for the recycling company, then spits out 5 cents per item. He might have in his pocket a copy of the Kingston Freeman photo with a jumbled up caption: "Made in the Shade: 'Cowboy' Kulchinsky of Woodstock takes shelter from this week's hot sun under a tree on the town center's Village Green. With temperatures expected to stay in the 80s and 90s for several days, shady spots and air conditioned buildings will be in high demand."

"This is the kind of crap one expects in the local papers," Andrew might tell you. "I am reluctant to talk to local reporters about my tax work, for example, although the publicity would be great, but I'm afraid they'd get it so screwed up it would be worse than nothing. 'Cowboy' is just plain made up."

Russ grew up in Philadelphia, worked in the South (U. S.) for a while. He heard about Woodstock as a groovy place, so he came over 7 years ago. "Where do you live?" "In a van." "How about in winter?" "I freeze." (He talked some about various orientations of van doors/windows to adjust for heat/ cold/ rain.) He was proud of being someone who "survived" there. And it paid: he got his picture featured in the media.

Well, this is how journalists work. Preying on innocent people. Myself, among the first things I asked my hosts about were the weirdoes in town. Andrew said there always was a whole colony of artists. And yes, there were some colorful characters in Woodstock. Like Jogger John, who jogs all the time, or Tipi Bob, who lives by himself in a tiny cabin high in the mountains and doesn't have much to do with the townspeople. Or Rocky the Flamboyant who works here- and-there jobs.

I felt a bit silly when Andrew commented to his wife, "She wants some colorful characters." "Oh!" Chloe said a bit weary. But what could a jetlagged journalist write about Woodstock when there is no "Woodstock" fever anymore? On top of it after finding there had actually been no Woodstock ever!

My informed friends explained to me that the festival was to have originally taken place in this community that has long been an artist colony. The promoters had rented the area, printed tickets and begun promoting it, when local residents mounted a legal protest. And as a result Woodstock the festival never took place in Woodstock. The promoters ended up renting a field from a farmer named Max Yasgur in a community named White Lake, which was about 40 miles away from Woodstock. But they kept the name, maybe because they had already printed the poster, and as a result the festival, the records, the movie became known as Woodstock. So today, when the pilgrims go to touch the sacred ground of licentiousness, pulchritude, and rock and roll they come to this pleasant but quiet town which ended up with the best of all possible worlds. They avoided having their ground trampled by the 300,000 young people who lined up for hours at the port-a-johnies at White Lake, they avoided having their children exposed to the naked dancing liberated folk whirling in clouds of pot smoke. And at the same time they gained the Historical prestige of lending their name to the major consciousness shift of the 20th century, not to mention the opportunity to sell lots of T-shirts and coffee mugs. So I had come not to the site of Woodstock but to the place that had mistakenly become associated with the event, which in the era of virtual reality made a good deal of sense. A place discovered by children and invented by media. How wonderful. I didn't know what to write about a peaceful, quiet town where people go to work in shorts and slightly ironed shirts?! What new things could I tell?!

Lucky for me my friend, Eminence Gris, dispelled my creative vacuum while I was whining about not finding the right angle on my story on Woodstock: "You should get away from reports and let your imagination loose. More gonzo, more bonzo. I am sure that will come. Ignore your audience. Write for yourself. But also remember, you are in a new universe: out there, just around the comer, there are follies and outrages and possibilities that lie beyond understanding. So take your time. Breathe slowly, but deeply. You are a machine that takes things in and gives things out. Sometimes you are trying to give things out faster than you take them in." So this is what I "gave out" of my whirlwind visit.