For people of my generation, this past weekend (and even today) marked the 45th anniversary of the iconic three days of peace and music known as Woodstock. This Aquarian Exposition took place in White Lake, NY and has remained in memory for multitudes of young people (now much older) who considered the event a pivotal experience in their young lives.
Truth be told, I’m glad I wasn’t there. I was all the way across the continent, living in California, working as a vocalist with The Sound Generation, a music group representing John Brown University. (I’ve mentioned this experience in a previous post here.)
Without the nudges of main-stream news outlets, I’m guessing the vast majority of the population would never have noted the Woodstock anniversary. Like so many other events of that era, this one is considered iconic (mostly by news media types), symbolic of how the world began to change as a generation of make-love-not-war hippies celebrated their peace, love and music sit-in, lay-in, love-in, mud-in.
From time to time, my younger friends have asked wistfully, What was it like to live in the 60s? Their impression seems to be that this era was idyllic, a charmed age when our society almost grabbed hold of nirvana before being yanked back into tedious reality. Funny, I don’t remember it that way. Continue reading “Times Aren’t a-Changin’”