A 40-Year Memory: Woodstock Nation

August 15–18 - The Woodstock Festival is held in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.

No, I wasn't there. I won't even claim to be in my dreams. But I did see the movie in New York City when it opened. We were late for the midnight show and ended up sitting in the front row of the theater. That counts for something, doesn't it?

Actually, at the time I wished I had been there. I was upset that I had chosen to attend the Atlantic City Pop Festival two weeks earlier. I could have been present at history.

In reality I would have been, as Arlo Guthrie once called it, a spaceball with my feet stuck in the mud. With the wisdom of age, distance, and forgetfulness, I would have been miserable but would have had to pretend I wasn't. I did have a friend who went, though. Funny. I didn't see him in the movie.