My obligatory Woodstock story
Forty years ago this week, I had recently a) graduated from college b) joined the navy and was on inactive Reserve (non) duty until my November active duty date came up. I had left one part time job at the end of June. While I had just started another in the week before Woodstock, I hadn't yet seen a paycheck. The usual entree on my apartment table was feed corn snitched from nearby fields. (It's not bad, if you boil it long enough.) What was left of my ready money went to weekly rent and the tank of my car so I could get to work.
So, go to New York for a rock concert? No thanks.
As is the case with the Blizzard of 1978, there's been a lot of retrospective falsification in connection with that concert. Specifically, many people now speak and act as if they knew it was going to be a defining moment for a generation, and the people who claim to have been there would have covered upstate New York from Albany to Buffalo, as an old song goes.
We didn't know. What we knew was there was going to be another rock concert. The lineup looked cool. If you had time and the few bucks it took for gas and food, maybe it was worth going to. Period. I had neither, so I got some sleep and went back to Concord Monday for the 6:00 a.m to 2:30 p.m. shift that paid my rent. We talked about it at work, but it was some time before the significance of the event really sank in with non-attendees.
And that's the truth. Undoubtedly, people who were there have a different perspective.
So, go to New York for a rock concert? No thanks.
As is the case with the Blizzard of 1978, there's been a lot of retrospective falsification in connection with that concert. Specifically, many people now speak and act as if they knew it was going to be a defining moment for a generation, and the people who claim to have been there would have covered upstate New York from Albany to Buffalo, as an old song goes.
We didn't know. What we knew was there was going to be another rock concert. The lineup looked cool. If you had time and the few bucks it took for gas and food, maybe it was worth going to. Period. I had neither, so I got some sleep and went back to Concord Monday for the 6:00 a.m to 2:30 p.m. shift that paid my rent. We talked about it at work, but it was some time before the significance of the event really sank in with non-attendees.
And that's the truth. Undoubtedly, people who were there have a different perspective.
posted by Uncle | 22:43
2 Comments:
Likewise, I never went to Chicago for the 1968 Dem convention/police riots. I had a pretty good idea it was going to be big stuff, but going seemed so inconvenient. I guess callow is the description. I missed out.
The NE student radio network, with which I was affiliated, had an expense account for one reporter to go to Chicago. I--and the rest of the UNH contingent--got the shaft on that one.
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