16- Woodstock

Because I had to report back to Fort Dix, I was unaware of Frank’s plans to attend what was then called “The Aquarian Exposition” in what turned out to be a place called Bethel, upstate New York.

Advertisements for the event had circulated throughout the Village for months with rumors that performers such as Jimi Hendrix or even The Beatles might perform.

Lori refused to go, saying that she did not want the baby exposed to the elements. So, Frank made the trip north by himself, forced to stop near the Monticello Raceway where he had to walk the rest of the way in.

“I don’t know what I expected to find when I got there, but I didn’t expect to find traffic stopped halfway down the Thruway,” Frank later told me.

He didn’t realize just how far away the concert site actually was when he started to walk.

I had not even heard the name Bethel or Woodstock until my sergeant informed me, I had volunteered to go there.

While it was never quite clear, we were told a crew from a backup helicopter at Fort Drum had been reassigned, and they needed someone from our medical holding company to take their place.

Frank did not know at the time that Garrick had also made arrangements to go north in the company of Alf and Carol.

They arrived to find the fences down and crowds swarming without tickets. Garrick, the music lover of our crew, actually bought tickets,

Like Frank, the three had driven up the New York Thruway, turning west at the Monticello Raceway. But they had come early and so found parking near the site. Garrick had come for the music. Carol had come to get high. Alf in lust with Carol hoped to get lucky but lost her in the crowd as soon as they arrived.

Garrick and Alf had to go to Port Jervice to find food and by the time they got back, they couldn’t  find parking agasin and could not get any where near the stage – seeing the legendary rock and roll stars at miniature figures in the distance. The two of them mostly hung out near the wooded area for the whole three days, staring out at the flashing lights from the stage. Alf said later that he wandered around and kept running into people he knew from Little Falls.

Jimmy, meanwhile, convinced Bob that the whole thing was largely hype and the two of them should stay home – this was going to be a flop.

Bob got more and more furious as the radio reports detailed this as the musical event of the century and how the concert was now free.

A capitalist at heart, Jimmy came up with a scheme and talked Bob into using his car to ferry kids from New York City to within walking distance of the festival –for a fee. The fact that the concert was many, many more miles beyond where he and Bob left these people off did not concern Jimmy. He figured he would make enough money to score some pot.

Assigned to a medical holding company to await my eventual discharge, I was easy prey for a sergeant who needed bodies to fill a back up helicopter for possible medical evacuations. Most of the men I bunked with were straight out of Vietnam and too wounded or otherwise compromised to take on even this simple task. The sergeant, however, did not mention the helicopter and by the time I discovered the fact, it was too late for me to talk my way out of it.

Frank, meanwhile, began to feel sick. He was running a fever and was weighed down by the stuff Lori had made him bring and which he had dragged out of the car when forced to park, backpack and sleeping bag. He latched onto a number of people he met on the road but was the only one of them who actually had a ticket – and like Garrick was upset when he arrived to find the fences down and the concert declared “free.”

At this point, he began to realize this was something more than a concert, something he called “magical” and was determined to stay no matter how sick he got. He kept thinking he needed sleep and headed for the wooded area where he could lay down for a while. When he woke up, it was dark. He could hear the music. He knew he was sicker than he thought and should go seek medical help.

“But I wanted to hear the music,” he said.

He made his way towards the music but grew disoriented and found himself walking through the woods that seemed to go on and on although he knew they were not as large as his imagination made them seem.

At which point he came out to an open area with a small stage where David Peel was playing.

“I thought someone had ripped me off, selling me a ticket that promised Jimi Hendrix and all I was going to get to hear was David Peel,” he said.

The others he heard on that stage were equally bad.

Then someone pointed him in the right direction, and he came out into a wide field filled with people with a massive stage at the bottom. He kept bumping into people in the dark yet managed to get closer and closer to the stage. He in a haze and kept wondering when the heavy bands would start to play since up until then he mostly heard folk singers.

Exhausted, he sat down, fell asleep, then woke to an uproar, bands playing, people singing, swaying, and he felt even sicker than he did before. The fog in his head got so bad that he couldn’t tell who was playing, or how much time passed, night into day, day into night. At one point, when the rains came, he covered himself up with his sleeping bag, hoping he would feel better at a little more rest.

For most of Saturday, Frank stayed in one spot, suffering the rain and the wild people, thinking if he moved an inch someone would take his spot. All he wanted was a chance to hear Jimi Hendrix play.

At some point, someone gave him acid and he took it, and this made things worse. He eventually made his way to Wavy Gravey’s freak-out tent, where they said he needed a doctor and sent him to the hospital tent. The doctors said they needed to evacuate him to a real hospital, he protested, saying he needed to way for Jimi, but they took him away anyway.

Somewhere overhead at that point I was in a helicopter but mine wasn’t the one that pulled him out.

Garrick wandered around, recalling how disgusted he was by the portable toilets near the concession stands, searching out the cleaner facilities near the more remote campgrounds near the puppet theater. He remembered later how impressed he was with Santana, although he already knew about the guitarist from work with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield. Unable to stand being cooped up in the crowd, Garrick mostly hung out near the free stage where not-too-famous local bands performed, although The Grateful Dead, once finished with their own gig on the main stage, played there, too. Garrick didn't recall eating though he knew he must have and vaguely recalled being issued brown rise from one of the volunteer groups.

By the third day, Garrick eventually made his way back to his car where he found Alf, but not Carol. They followed the line of cars back to the Thruway and down into New Jersey. Carol showed up back in New Jersey a few days later.

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