On the Road to Woodstock -part three

John and I came to a clearing where the dirt road widened, and the stars shown brightly. Some white light bulbs were attached to wooden posts about twelve feet tall, and they lit the ground, which was littered with trash. Chain-link fences on the sides of the road lay flattened on the ground.

A huge red banner was stretched high above from two tall wooden poles on either side of the road, and in big white letters it read, Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. To the right of the lettering was a logo showing a white dove sitting atop a blue and green guitar neck grasped by a light tan hand. A trampled wooden fence lay beneath it. It was all that was left of the ticket gates, and people walked freely into the concert grounds.

I pulled out my wallet and looked at my concert ticket. Three Day Ticket, it read on the right, August 15, 16, 17 – 1969 – $18.00. I might as well keep it as a souvenir.
I wouldn't be needing it to get in. I put the ticket back in my wallet and slid it back into my right rear pocket.

John and I walked through the flattened gates and followed the road down to where the concert was. The road narrowed again, just wide enough for the vehicular traffic, and off to the left it dropped down about three feet to a good-sized grassy area where people had pitched tents, and as we walked along, there was an occasional large campfire with people standing around it. The flames cast a flickering orange light on their faces and bodies. Soon the sound of an amplified voice became audible echoing from over a large hill on our right. Not long after, the voice became intelligible.

“Woodstock has been declared a free concert,” the voice announced. “We’re a million strong, people,” he cried out. “We’re a fucking city,” he exclaimed. An unseen crowd roared with approval.

I looked at John and he looked at me. "Wow," he said after a moment.

I looked at the ground for a moment and then back up at him. An overwhelming sense of awe filled my head, but "Yeah," was all I could say. A million people. Damn!

John and I continued our trudge. The sleeping bag and inflatable air mattress that I'd been lugging the whole time was getting awfully heavy, and I was beat. “Let’s find a place to camp.”

“That sounds like a good idea, ” John said.

I carefully stepped down the incline to the campground. It was steep. John followed. We didn't have a tent, so I scouted out a good-sized tree to sleep under. I dropped my stuff to the ground, and John followed suit. I looked at my watch; it was a little after 10 o'clock.

I started inflating the air mattress with the built-in foot pump, and John sat down with his back to the tree. I got the mattress inflated and rolled out my sleeping bag on top of it. I considered pulling off my boots, decided against it and started to get into my sleeping bag.

"Aren't you going to check out the music?" John asked me.

"I'm tired, man." All I could think of was resting my body and getting some sleep.

John stood up. "I'm gonna go see what's going on."

John stood there for a few minutes, and I lay on my side, and together we watched the endless stream of people still walking in. Then John said, "Look, there's our bus." He pointed with his index finger.

I stood up to see what he was pointing at. It couldn't be our bus. We left it miles behind. But damned if it wasn't. Nationwide Charter was painted in bright letters on the side, and the number 306 was painted in smaller letters near the front. It was our bus, all right. I thought of it, but John said it first. "If only we'd waited..."

The bus stopped not more than 50 feet from us, and though the door was on the opposite side, we were low enough to see underneath the bus, and to see the feet of the people getting off. We walked all that way, and they rode.

"Ain't that the damnedest thing." John said. It was more of a statement that question, and I couldn't have agreed with him more. We stood there for a couple of minutes, and then John said, "I'm gonna go on up and see what's happening."

"Okay," I said. As tired as I felt, I couldn't fathom him having the strength to go on, but I didn't care at that point. I settled into the sleeping bag and zipped it up around me. Even with the air mattress, the ground was rough and uneven, but it still didn't take long for me to drift off into sleep.

I couldn't say how long it had been, but it was still nighttime when I was awakened by rain drops on my face. I figured the tree would block enough of the rain to keep me from getting too wet, and I went back to sleep.

The next time I awoke, it was dawn, and I was soaking wet freezing in my sleeping bag. John and I had only brought the clothes we were wearing, and excavating myself from my sopping wet sleeping bag, I stood in my waterlogged shirt, jeans and underwear. The only thing that had kept my feet dry was my boots, and I wish sure glad that I had kept them on. I saw that John was still sleeping, and I couldn't think of any reason to wake him.

I was shivering cold, and I sought out the warmth from one of the small bonfires people had lit. I joined the eight or so people huddled around the fire, and began to slowly soak in its warmth. I looked down at my jeans and was amazed to see steam coming from them.

I couldn't believe how cold it was. It had to be down in the 60s. What kind of weather was this? I didn't realize that I'd come from the relatively mild August weather of the near sea level area of Washington to the mountainous weather of upstate New York some 3 or 400 miles to the north. I would soon find out how poorly equipped I had come as far as clothing and camping equipment. It gets cold at night in the mountains especially as one moves to northern latitudes.

Out of the side of my vision, I saw John coming up to the fire. "God damn its cold out here," he said. His teeth chattered, and I could see his breath.

"God damn right," I agreed. We both stood there shivering with steam coming off of our clothes, and I took some solace that John was as miserable as I.

It took forever to start to dry off and warm up, which was about a little over half an hour by my watch. Meanwhile, John began to fill me in on his last night's excursion.

"That big hill there?" He motioned with his head. "On the other side, it's way far down to the bottom, and they've got the stage set up down there, and you wouldn't believe the people... I've never seen so many. The whole side of the hill is filled with people." He spread his hands and looked up. I tried to figure out what he was trying to convey but nothing came. "You can't walk without stepping on someone; it's wall-to-wall people." He rubbed his hands together and then wrapped them back around his chest. "Joan Baez was on when I got to the top of the hill. She was great, too. From up there, the stage looks a mile away. But Joan Baez was great. You should have come with me." He nudged me a little with his elbow. "After she finished, I walked down to the stage. You have to walk way around to the side to get to a path that goes down to the stage. There's no way you can get through all those people. But when you get down to the bottom and look up, there's all these people." He spread his arms wide and looked up again. Now I could imagine what he meant.

I was finally starting to feel reasonably comfortable, and my belly was starting to grumble. I still wanted warm up some more. There was still a chill in the air. My hair was dry and so was my shirt. My jeans were still a bit damp but getting tolerable. After another half-hour the sun seemed to have warmed it up a bit, and my jeans were almost dry.

"I'm hungry," I said. I looked at John. He shook his head in agreement.


We headed back towards our sleeping bags and hung them up on a wooden fence along with dozens of other sleeping bags to let them dry. Then we went off in search of food.