Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Monday 12 august 2019
Woodstock generation looks back, from varied vantage points

By JENNIFER PELTZ dipping, promiscuous hip-
Associated Press pies cavorting in squalor
NEW YORK (AP) — It was — with "little more sanity
the weekend that shaped than the impulses that drive
the image of a "Woodstock the lemmings to march to
Generation." And that im- their deaths in the sea," as
age would echo, appeal a New York Times editorial
and provoke for genera- put it (while allowing that
tions to come. "the freakish-looking intrud-
To many who went or ers behaved astonishingly
wished they did, the pivotal well").
festival of "peace and mu- And for some, Woodstock
sic" 50 years ago remains would serve as an enduring
an inspiring moment of symbol of the divides of the
counterculture community Vietnam War — on one side
and youthful freethinking. a throng of young people
"We went for the music and gathered for "peace and
found something so much music," on the other more
more, and so much more than a half-million of their
important — camaraderie," peers fighting in Vietnam.
says Karen Breda, who was "I'm sure it was a cultur-
17 when she went to Wood- al and pharmaceutical
stock. She recalls feeling event. I was tied up at the
part of "a generation that time," the late Sen. John
felt like nothing could stop In this Thursday August 8, 2019 photo, Karen Breda poses for a photograph in a garden in West McCain famously said in
us. Peace. Love. The whole Hartford, Conn. 2007.
thing." Associated Press His remark — an allusion to
Some other Americans his 5 1/2 years as a prisoner
saw Woodstock as an out- Space, water and toilets clearly a lot of people were sociated Press' reporting of war in North Vietnam
rageous display of indul- were in short supply. Secu- feeling. It was about be- from the time. — got a standing ovation
gence and insouciance in rity was thin. Rain and mud ing together. It was about There were no reports of from a Republican presi-
a time of war. And some abounded. Breda and her helping out someone that violence, and a local po- dential primary debate
didn't look to Woodstock to friends slept in their car af- needed something," says lice chief called the crowd audience. The former Navy
celebrate their own sense ter getting separated from Breda, now a nursing pro- "the most courteous, con- pilot would later earn the
of music and identity. another vehicle carrying fessor at the University of siderate and well-behaved nomination.
"There was no one baby their camping supplies. It Hartford in Connecticut. group of kids" he'd encoun- Two years later, the Veter-
boomer generation. There was a trek to get near the "The music spoke for us." tered in his career. Max ans of Foreign Wars' maga-
was no one approach to stage. Concertgoers weren't the Yasgur, the dairy farmer zine marked Woodstock's
what Woodstock meant," But what she remembers only ones struck by the fel- who leased his land to the 40th anniversary with a
says David Farber, a Uni- most was happening in low-feeling and calm in the festival, said meeting them cover story spotlighting
versity of Kansas profes- the crowd — concertgoers crowd — despite scores of "forced me to open my some 109 service members
sor of American history. meeting each other, shar- drug arrests, medical prob- eyes." who died in Vietnam during
But Woodstock became ing what they had, playing lems ranging from cut-up He added: "I think America the festival and "are never
an "aspirational vision of guitars together. bare feet to LSD freakouts, has to take notice." lauded by the illustrious
what countercultural youth At a time of bitter protests and two deaths, one from It did. Often with scorn. spokesmen for the 'Sixties
thought they could achieve over the Vietnam War, a heroin overdose and an- Many Americans saw Generation.'"
in the United States." Woodstock "seemed to other when a teen was run Woodstock as a specta- The Woodstock audience
Breda didn't go to Wood- transcend the anger that over, according to The As- cle of spaced-out, skinny- did include at least one
stock looking for a societal Vietnam veteran, snapped
vision. She was fresh out of in a well-known photo .
high school and liked rock Performers included Coun-
concerts, and the three- try Joe McDonald, a Navy
day lineup was packed veteran who served mainly
with acts including The in Japan. His anti-war "I Feel
Who, Jimi Hendrix, Jeffer- Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag"
son Airplane and Crosby, became a memorable
Stills, Nash & Young. Woodstock moment.
After lying to her parents "Some people alluded to
about her destination, Bre- peace and stuff, but I was
da arrived from Boston to talking about Vietnam,"
find a mind-boggling mass McDonald said in a phone
of people, tents, blankets, interview. The song's pro-
pot smoke, patchouli and fane introductory cheer "is
underpreparedness. an expression of our anger
Organizers had sold 186,000 and frustration over the
tickets; ultimately an es- Vietnam War, which was
timated 400,000 people killing us, literally killing us,"
showed up for the festival said the singer, who helped
on farmland in Bethel, New spearhead the creation of
York, about 80 miles (130 ki- In this Aug. 15, 1969 file photo rock music fans sit on a tree sculpture as one leaps mid-air onto a Vietnam veterans' memo-
lometers) northwest of New pile of hay during the Woodstock Music and Art Festival held in Bethel, N.Y. rial in Berkeley, California,
York City. Associated Press in the 1990s.q