We Were Golden

Here's the rest of a story I started on my blog last week, tying in to the anniversary of the Woodstock festival of 1969.

My spouse and I finally made it, after all these years, to the site of the Woodstock Festival of 1969.  I think I've told the story of how I had wanted to go so badly.  I was 16, and there were posters up on New York City mass transit (where I grew up). The lineup of acts was incredible. But my father wouldn't let me go.  It only took 52 years, but I made it.

I don't know how I even would have gotten there in 1969, but 16 year old adolescents aren't noted for their logical thinking.

But here we were, spouse and I.  We had decided to walk the grounds before going to the museum that's on the site of what is now known as the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.  That was somewhat like not knowing what we were doing or where we were going, especially as we hadn't downloaded a map of the grounds, but 68/69 year old people...oh, never mind.   We assumed there would be lots of signage pointing us to places of interest.  Then, we could don masks and visit the museum.

We were wrong about the signage, and just kind of wandered around for a while.  It was a nice mid-June day, sunny, low humidity. And, being a Wednesday, there weren't too many people around. 

Grounds around the Woodstock festival site, June 2021

We decided to embark on a trail leading to the Bindy Bazaar trails that were part of the festival, and managed not to find those trails, either. But all wasn't lost.  A bit ahead of us was a woman, walking confidentially, as if she knew exactly what she was doing.  We followed her.

And followed her.

Finally, the woman stopped, and waited for us to catch up.

She greeted us warmly:  "Are you trying to find what I am trying to find?" she asked, and we introduced ourselves to each other. (I don't remember her name.)

What she was trying to find was the original Woodstock historical marker.  Well, why not?  We finally had a purpose, and as we walked together, she told us her story.

She was from Brooklyn (a borough of New York City).  She was six years old in the summer of 1969. Her parents owned a summer cottage not that far from the road leading to Max Yasgur's dairy farm. In fact, she said, one of the local roads is still named for him.  Dairy farmer Max Yasgur, as you'll recall, rescued the festival at the last minute, after it lost its original site in Wallkill, New York, offering his property.

How could he know how he had just changed history?

Our walking companion was up at the cottage along with her older sister, a teenager..  Her Mom needed to run an errand and took her along.  They got close to the main road.  As far as the eye could see, were people.  Masses of people,on foot.  Walking. All in the same direction.

"Stay away from those dirty people!" her mother warned.

She has never forgotten the sight of all those people, she said.

At some point, her older sister snuck away to check the scene out. Our new walking companion confided that she was still a bit angry at her sister for not taking her to what (of course) was Woodstock, but it was all good - in fact, she was supposed to go shopping with her sister and was running a little late.

Our new acquaintance went on to tell us about visiting the site of the concert about 10 years ago.  Locals didn't want masses of people coming to check it out, so signage was limited and you needed to know exactly where you were going.  She did find the historical marker and wanted to see it again.

She told us that some locals were so angry at Max Yasgur for leasing his farm to the festival organizers that he had to leave the state. (He died, in Florida, from a heart attack in 1973.)

A couple of times, she saw what looked like familiar places but we never did find the marker.  We finally parted ways.

On the way back, we found this, which I never did find out what this meant, because there was no signage to explain it.

And then, we found the marker, which had been moved.  Its story is interesting - it was erected for the 15th anniversary of Woodstock.  Louis Nicky and his companion June Celish, at the time, were the owners of the former Max Yasgur farm acreage.  They had purchased the farm property from the estate of Max Yasgur. When June Celish died in 1997, the property was sold to a billionaire, Alan Gerry (now 91), and the rest, so to speak, is history.

In researching the marker, I also found a story on how the Woodstock acreage was in danger of development and another take on the Alan Gerry story.

But without talking to the mystery walking companion, I never would have been inspired to find out "the rest of the story". 

I hope our New York City walking companion and eyewitness to a  moment of history, now 58, ended up finding what she was looking for.  Perhaps I should have left a message on the Message Tree for her.

This is an alternate version of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Young song "Woodstock" from 1971.

I devote this post to the memory of my Aunt Mary, who died on August 17, 2003.