Woodstock -- Were You There?

I never made it to Woodstock. By 1969 I was through with musical events filled with masses of stoned people. From a California perspective it seemed as though the era had ended. The hippies had gone home and masses of nuts and crazies were arriving from God-forsaken backwoods communities with long hair and a yin for acting self-absorbed and cool. I hated them.

But George Thoren has just written a great short story about what it was like to travel from a small conservative Southern California town to Woodstock, NY in 1969. Read it and you can almost smell the haze of sickly-sweet smoke as the bands start up. George finagled his way to the front -- right behind the wood fence, near where this image was taken. His story takes you back in time, to a place where people cared for each other -- and complete strangers.

Read George's The Road to Woodstock by clicking this link.

Boomer Tales -- The San Francisco Haight Ashbury Anti-War Experience

Take a little trip back to 1967 to the Haight Ashbury when free love and the Diggers lived side-by-side. When the Avalon Ballroom was featuring concerts from the Family Dog and Mouse and Kelley were making the posters while high on . . .

This is a little story about my first trip to San Francisco, when the world was changing, and the Doors were still performing songs from their first album, when light shows were billed on the posters as part of the act and when hippies danced to the music.

I hope that this story may open a little door in your mind to help you want to write a story of your boomer experience, so that we can post it on:
http://www.boomer-books.com/boomertales.html .

Share your experiences, and what you learned (now that you're older and wiser) with others. Write it and send it to me at bill@boomer-books.com.