Missed Invitation

Because we never listened to talking voices, we missed the biggest event of our lives.  I’m talking about Woodstock.  Every time the DJ’s voice came on, we’d press the button to change the radio station.  We were only interested in music, not advertisements and certainly not the news.  But once in a while, we were slow in hitting the button.  One time we caught something about Santana and others, playing in a concert.  So? Days turned into weeks and maybe even a couple of months came and went, along with snatches of announcements:

Sly
Credence Clearwater
New York
 Joan Baez
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Woodstock
Jefferson Airplane
free concert

The words “free concert” stopped our index finger from pressing the “change the station” button.  “What do you think they’re talking about?” Suddenly, “what they were talking about,” became the topic of conversation among my friends and me.  We pieced together that a huge music festival was going to be held during the weekend of August 14-18, 1969, in the town of Woodstock, NY and it was free.  Of course, we had to go.  Could we?  Realistically, very few of us could get the time off from work or other responsibilities.  I was one of them.  I needed the money for school and other bills and I knew this adventure would cost me money. Sadly we waved goodbye to our carload of friends as they set off on their great Woodstock adventure.  We were sad but they drove off singing deliriously.   They set off on Thursday and came back Friday night. What!! They never got to the New York thruway.  They were stuck in a traffic jam for half a day when they heard that the New York thruway was closed, so they turned around and came home.  Their mood matched the weather; it was raining in sheets of water like the rain in the tropics.  At first we hoped that the event would be washed out and have to be rescheduled.  That proved to be wishful thinking.  Woodstock carried on in spite of the rain, heat, mud and humidity.  And we missed it.