Love Story

Erich Segal's "Love Story" was a best selling romance novel in 1970, a year after the iconic Woodstock music festival.  What follows is a real life love story.

A headline I read today reminded me of this post I first wrote in 2015.

From August 15 to August 17, 1969, a music festival was held in upstate New York that became one of the most famous music events of the 20th century.  This Thursday will mark its 50th anniversary.

This museum is on the site of the concert, which was not held in Woodstock, New York

Almost every week in the summer of 2015, I passed the exit for where Woodstock took place on the way to my long distance care giving duties in a suburb of New York City.

I remember seeing posters advertising Woodstock on New York City subways in 1969.  I had a summer job in Lower Manhattan, not far from the late World Trade Center, and commuted back and forth on the #5 subway from my home in the Bronx.  The concert sounded so good and I wanted to go but my father forbade me.  I was 16 and couldn't do much about it, as I blogged yesterday.

But a couple who did go to that concert had their picture taken and, on the 40th anniversary of that photo, were still together.

So, about that couple: Nick and Bobbi Ercoline went to Woodstock, and ended up on the cover of its record album. They fell in love, and married in 1971.  They have two grown children.  Bobbi is (or was) a school nurse in Pine Bush, New York, where they live.  Nick worked for the Orange County Department of Community Development until his retirement in 2014.

Now, fast forward from 2015 to today. What about Woodstock's 50th anniversary?  Is the love story still alive?

YES.

This couple is still together, married nearly 48 years, and now have four grandchildren.  But it's a sad anniversary for them because the man who drove them to Woodstock passed away last year.  That's how life is: happiness and sadness all mixed together.

What a love story!  May the Ercoline's experience many more years of happiness.

 I can feel joyful that Binghamton University (some of their buildings are blocks from where I work), incidentally, is doing some archeological work at the site, which is now a museum and arts center.   

The little things.  They make the world run.