Woodstock - Thirty Five Years Later!

“Mark-O, Mapleleaf and yours truly hung on and were the ones who didn't bail and made the trip anyway. It was a fairly low-key trip, but really nice and worth the drive up there. We did bag the original idea of the Friday night arrival in Woodstock, as it poured up there that night. Instead, we opted for the one-nighter, leaving Saturday morning. We had two things on the agenda that we wanted to cover. One was going to Bethel to the site of the original concert 35 years ago to the day. Bethel [White Lake area] is about 50 miles from Woodstock [so named as the concert was originally supposed to be held there]. The other objective was to go to Woodstock, back to Overlook Mountain, where we held last years' festivities. In trying to anticipate when the supposedly inevitable rain was going to hit, we opted to take our sojourn to Bethel first, instead of scheduling it for Sunday, as the rain may well wash out those plans if it got bad enough. So, we veered off I-87 and headed towards Monticello, the direction of the White Lake area. When we got to Bethel, it was simple enough to find out where the festival site was, so we headed right over there. There were some other folks there, including a reporter from a paper in the Middletown area. We spoke to him and he jotted down some notes and then focused on some of the other folks that were there. Of particular interest were the two brothers we met. One was 18 on this day in 1969 and came to Yasgur's farm with the intention of staying for the day. He spent the weekend because no one could get out! His brother was a year or so older and arrived in Vietnam that night. The stories were very interesting from those two. One other man had an original ticket for the 16th of August 1969 [$7 price on it], which he laminated to keep it preserved. Some really nice folks and some interesting tidbits. They spoke of this older man who was interviewed in the movie named Vassmer. His wife was the town records keeper, clerk, etc, etc. She is still around, but he died a while back. She has a store in town and a little place called the Bethel Woodstock museum. After talking some more, taking some pictures and heading into the town, we attempted to see the store and museum. Unfortunately, it had just closed when we got there, so we just took a few pics and looked at some cool stuff in the windows.

We then did the back roads through the mountains of the Catskills. Beautiful area. It took quite a while to get to Woodstock. By the time we go to Woodstock [hey, that's a song!] it was getting to be around dinner time, so we went to the Overloook trailhead and camped there. There wasn't a real lot going on that night, so we just hit the town, talked to a couple of the locals and sat around the campfire, enjoying a nice quiet evening. Headed out the next morning after breakfast, as it looked like the storm was going to finally hit. All in all, a really nice weekend!

I'll post a few pics in a little while..”

“ARticle on CNN.com FYI...

Woodstock”

“had a real quiet weekend here as well. just opted for a local dayhike with a friend. nice pics!!!”

“did ya smoke any grass”

“groovy pics, man

whos the little pimp with the hair gassed back”

“Talk about a time warp; I was looking at the list of acts on the plaque, and thought to myself, damn that's a long time ago.

I've been up around that area before -- my father lives about half-an-hour away from Bethel; it's just past the Raceway and Casinos...”

“Maple, you didn't bring the kayaks?”

“Wholly crap!


Has it been THAT long ago?

BTW - for those that give a chit:

The "Artist Workshop" is getting new life in Deroit.

Yep, you heard it here first, all of the greats are back in town and are involved.

Grimshaw is back in D-town from his stint in Cali. Right back home where he belongs.

Yep, Sinclair is back as well, along with some *WABX* peeps, like Lubin.

There's a thought that there might be interest here in D-Town for getting this back together again. The hope is that this will inspire a new generation of artists.

Get Down!”

“Cool! Laqtis, my buddy from across the street (many moons ago) who currently lives in Traverse City is giving thought to moving to Detroit. The dood PUMPS out art like noone I know and hopes to start a studio for showing his and other's work.

Frankly, I hope he does eventually move closer because that's quite a drive for me to get up there.”

“Very Cool Pics man!”

“Thanks, Dude Man Walking!

BTW, Phantom Soul. I immediately noticed that they spelled John Sebastian's name wrong on ther plaque. Surprised they didn't catch that.

And Troll420, I guess I must be the 'little pimp with the hair gassed back', but no 'pair of khaki pants with the shoes shined black'...”

“I was there, man!”

“Hey, Mark-O! Bump to the top so you could see the pics...”