By the time we got to Woodstock Posted on November 20th
BETHEL, N.Y. - It’s a glorious, late-summer afternoon. Brian Selmon and his wife, Barbara, are sitting on a rise overlooking the sloping natural bowl that once was Max Yasgur’s alfalfa field.
Nearly 40 years ago, about 500,000 kids gathered here for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, and, in large measure, they defined the baby-boom generation. Brian was here then.
Now, gazing at the hillside that looks more like a golf course than the quagmire it was on that weekend in mid-August 1969, he is trying to reorient himself. The stage was there, he believes (correctly), pointing down to a patch of gravel. He and his two buddies were sitting over there, halfway up the slope, not far from the small sculpture memorializing Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia that has been in the field since the late ’90s.
Barbara, who did not go to the festival, is explaining why she and her husband of 31 years have made the 21/2-hour trip here from their home near Albany. Woodstock “is part of him,” she says, “a big part.”
Brian, now 57, is enumerating the sensations he feels sitting in this spot today. “Youth . . . optimism . . . I remember the rain. I remember . . . people having fun . . . living in the moment.”
A wind gust deposits a scrap of paper 15 feet away, on the grass next to the stone monument that marks the site. Brian walks over and pockets the refuse.
“No sense littering hallowed ground,” he says.
Brian Selmon may have been here, but I wasn’t, and neither were my three traveling companions, all of us in our 50s. By the time we got to Woodstock, they were half a million gone. And the place was a museum, the Museum at Bethel Woods. It’s part of a 2,000-acre, $100 million complex that hosts concerts and other community events, including several festivals this fall.
The enterprise is largely the brainchild of Sullivan County native Alan Gerry, a cable TV pioneer. The museum became a political lightning rod last year when New York’s Democratic senators, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, sought a $1 million earmark for it and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) objected. The museum opened this summer - without that federal funding.
From the outside, the museum has the look of a mega-church. Inside, its exhibition space features 20 films, 164 artifacts, about 300 photographic murals, and a 132-seat high-definition theater in which a 21-minute film, Woodstock: The Music, is shown every half-hour. The gallery’s self-guided interactive display is divided into four segments.
The first, titled “The Sixties,” is an ode to that decade. A visitor is reminded of, or introduced to, the touchstones of the era: Father Knows Best; the seemingly unlimited promise of post-World War II suburbia; JFK, MLK, RFK; the civil rights movement; the Cold War, Vietnam, Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali; the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Supremes; the American journey to the moon; the 1967 “summer of love”; and the fashion of the era: go-go boots, bell-bottoms, dashikis, miniskirts, suede Stars and Stripes jackets.
The second segment is called “The Woodstock Festival Is Born.” Its archival documentation is what makes the museum a museum, and what makes a visit entirely worthwhile. Here, a visitor learns about:
The founding fathers of the festival, four entrepreneurs who wanted to hold a concert in the town of Woodstock, basically to promote their prospective recording studio.
How they had to change the venue of the “Aquarian exposition” three times, eventually landing 50 miles southwest in Bethel.
How inept the foursome was.
How construction of the stage did not begin until July 22, 1969, less than a month before showtime.
The appearance fee Jimi Hendrix commanded ($30,000) and why the Doors and Joni Mitchell declined invitations.
The third segment, “Three Days of Peace and Music,” takes a visitor to the event itself. To Country Joe McDonald’s signature rendition of his signature song:
“And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.”
To a psychedelic magic bus, complete with love beads in its windows. To scenes of Hog Farm Commune members chopping up vegetables and serving them out of trash cans to the famished masses.
The title of the final segment is a question - perhaps the question of the baby-boom era: “The Sixties and Woodstock - What Do They Mean Now?” A video presents interviews with both fans and naysayers of the counterculture. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Oprah Winfrey weigh in on the question. So do, among others, Pat Buchanan, Ed Meese and Woodstock attendee Sen. Norm Coleman (R., Minn.).
What it all means is up for debate. But there are at least three things we can all agree on:
That, as local resident Leni Binder says in the video, the festival made Woodstock “a universal word.”
That, today, nobody in America is writing or singing antiwar songs as direct, sarcastic and unambiguous as Country Joe McDonald’s rag.
And that, in hyper-sterile and hyper-litigious 2008, there is no way any health department or any Woodstock-generation parents or grandparents would tolerate a festival where chopped vegetables are served to kids from trash cans.
Memories of Woodstock
The Museum at Bethel Woods, 200 Hurd Rd., Bethel, N.Y., is on its winter schedule, open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. The museum will be closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. It will close for the season on Jan. 5 and reopen March 19. School and group visits can be arranged by calling 845-583-2097 or e-mailing groups@BethelWoodsCenter.org.
Places to stay
We liked the Lodge at Keen Lake (15 Warren Rix Dr., Waymart, Pa.; 570-488-9300; www.lodgeatkeenlake.com) in the Pocono Mountains, an hour southwest of Bethel. A small unit is $179-$199 per night for a maximum of four people; a large unit is $245-$265 for a maximum of six.
For lodging closer to Bethel, consult the Sullivan County Visitors Association at 1-800-882-2287 or www.scva.net.
Places to eat
The Waymart Hotel (205 Carbondale Rd., Waymart, Pa.; 570-488-6585) serves burgers, pizza and chicken wings. A solid meal will cost you about $15 per person with tax, tip and a beer. The Trackside Grill (734 Main St., Honesdale, Pa.; 570-253-2462) features huge portions, homemade pies, friendly service and reasonable prices, but it is not open on Sunday, and it closes by 3 p.m. Monday and 7 p.m. most other days. Museum Bistro (Bethel Woods Center for the Arts) offers light fare.
More information
Museum at Bethel Woods
1-866-781-2922
www.bethelwoodscenter.org/museum.aspx