What is the magic of a song? ...The magic of sky -- of an evening -- a burst of understanding?
"Coming into Los Angeles -- bringing in a couple of keys..." Arlo Guthrie performed that song onstage at Woodstock.
I would have loved to be there. I was elementary-school age when the Woodstock music festival was held. I remember being in our small living room with my dad -- the black-and-white TV was on, news about this unique, independent, "groovy" music event was crackling from the speaker.
My dad was standing up because he wasn't Sitting-Down-To-Watch-TV, he was passing through the room and stopped to listen.
He frowned and looked worried, staring at the screen: "Too many people," he said in a tone of worry and slight, controlled foreboding.
Sounding uneasy, he said, "They've got too many people together in one place... something could go wrong."
He watched some more. "It's too much. [pause, watching & listening] -- Too many people" -- and he left the room to go about his business.
I always listened to my dad's opinions and pronouncements, but I had an unexpressed desire to be there, even though I knew it wasn't happening.
I wished I was a few years older, and -- at Woodstock.
Woodstock was in New York State.
I was in northeastern Ohio.
The only contact I had with Woodstock was that black-and-white news report.
A pretty boring memory -- but I did not forget it over many years, until I finally got to see the movie Woodstock (documentary filmed in 1969 -- NOT a movie "about" it) on the A & E channel in the 1990s.
"New York State Thruway's closed, man!"
-30-
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