Woodstock Day One
Woodstock
Day One
We finally made it to White Lake—a hamlet of Bethel—two full hours after abandoning Pally.
My mouth felt like a piece of dry toast. My feet ached, and I longed to sit down, even for five minutes.
But Livy was in a mad rush. She didn’t pause when we passed a man offering Cokes for sale.
Or even look at the truck selling yummy-looking watermelon, with a long line of folks wrapped around twice.
So I kept walking. For her sake.
White Lake was a quaint little place with charming houses and motels encircling a crystal-blue lake.
The number of cars that had invaded it was mind boggling.
It looked like thousands of Hot Wheels had been dropped from the sky, landing haphazardly.
It was one thing to see them abandoned on the highway—another to see them overrunning the town.
With the multitude of tents pitched on either side of the road, it made it hard to know if grass actually grew underneath.
Homeowners sat in lawn chairs, waving as the sojourners passed.
By their widened eyes and straight-lined lips, it seemed they were waving at freaks in a circus parade.
Nevertheless, many of the townsfolk offered refreshments for sale, including water.
Hard to imagine paying money for the most natural resource in America, but I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I marched right up to an old man selling water and bologna sandwiches.
I didn’t care how late we were; Livy could just be mad.
As soon as I opened my mouth to order, I heard her behind me. “Excuse me, sir. Where is the festival?”
“You’ve come a long way, little lady,” the man said. “Can tell by that pretty drawl of yours.” Even this old geezer wanted to flirt with our beauty queen.
But I needed water. And I needed it now. “May I please have—”
Another Livy interruption. “Yes sir, we have come a long way. Where is the festival? Please.”
“Yasgur’s dairy farm. No one else ’round here would have had it,” he muttered under his breath.
Johnny, who was standing next to me, asked, “Why’s that, sir?”
Livy interrupted a third time before the old man could explain. “Is Yasgur’s dairy farm far?”
“Three miles. Maybe a little less.” He pointed to his right. “You’re almost th—”
“Three miles!” She sighed loudly. “We’ve just walked fifteen.”
“More like six,” said Johnny. “We’ll take four sandwiches and four . . .” He hesitated. “How much for the water?”
The old man wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Twenty-five cents. It’s a large cup full.”
Johnny glanced back at Leon, whispering, “We could buy a loaf of bread for twenty.”
Leon just shrugged.
“Free refills,” the old man added.
“Okay, four sandwiches and four waters, please,” said Johnny. He handed the man a five-dollar bill.
“Thank you,” I said, anticipating the cool water bathing my tongue.
Once the man handed over the water, you’d have thought all four of us had spent three days in a desert by the way we downed the cups and asked for more. Even Livy.
“That Max Yasgur is a hippie lover,” the man said while stuffing our sandwiches inside a paper bag.
Johnny winked at Leon. “Is that right?”
“People ’round here been boycotting his milk ’cause of it.” The sound of Livy’s foot tapping against the pavement caused the man’s gaze to travel from her face to her feet. “What’s your hurry, little lady?”
Livy let out a loud “Ugh,” throwing her hands up in exasperation. She turned on her heel and stormed off.
Johnny was still collecting his change. I didn’t know whether to wait with the boys or rush to catch up with her. All I knew was that I wasn’t ready to tell them goodbye. Or let go of the hope that we’d all sit together once we got to the festival.
Johnny yelled after her, “Don’t wig out, love. You’ll find your man.”
Livy stopped, then turned to face us—forced smile, arms crossed, foot tapping.
As the street sign behind her came into focus, my lips split into a grin. Happy Avenue. Livy may have been mad, but I hadn’t been that happy in my whole life.
Once we’d wolfed down our sandwiches, we took a roadside bathroom break, then started toward Yasgur’s dairy farm. A mile later we came upon an overturned table with a message written in large letters: Local People Speak Out. Stop Max’s Hippie Music Festival. No 150,000 Hippies Here.
Johnny made an about-face, but Livy turned him back around.
“Wow, that many hippies, huh?” Leon said. “No wonder the epic traffic jam.”
“My boyfriend said they were expecting fifty thousand but sold over a hundred thousand tickets in advance,” Livy explained, then let out a cry of relief as we passed another sign: Aquarian Parking. “Thank you, God!” she shrieked, casting her gaze heavenward.
State troopers directed traffic with the help of a guy in a long-sleeved white jumpsuit.
A red scarf hung loosely around his neck, and he wore a tattered straw hat with a hole in front that matched the hole in his smile where his front teeth should have been.
He carried a walking stick in one hand and blew a kazoo with the other.
“Welcome to Woodstock, folks!” he cried. “Glad you’re here.”
Fifteen minutes later, at three o’clock sharp, exactly fifty-five minutes after our water break, and thirty-two hours after leaving Memphis, our pilgrimage came to an end.
Along with our two new friends and several thousand others, Livy and I crested a hill on West Shore Road, finally arriving at Yasgur’s dairy farm.
Agog with excitement, I looked around, taking it all in.
A panoramic view of a pop-up pasture city unfolded before our eyes.
Instead of crops, people populated the fields, forming a human carpet that stretched from one side of the road, across the pasture, onto a hill, and through a surrounding forest. A continual flow of humankind descended on the land from all directions.
It seemed like 150,000 people were already there, and thousands more trailed behind us.
A naturally sloped, bowl-shaped cow pasture had been converted into a mammoth amphitheater.
A large wooden stage had been built at the base, with a white canvas roof.
Two skyscraper-size cranes rested in a nearby field.
A tall wooden fence of protection encircled the backstage area, while six three-story yellow scaffolds topped with giant spotlights and speakers stood like watchtowers near the stage.
A jumble of folks clung to the metal poles underneath.
From where we were standing, we could see a good-sized lake behind the stage and smaller ones sprinkled throughout the farm. A campground scattered with hundreds of tents was off to the left. Dairy cows grazed freely among the people in the outlying pastures.
The concession stands looked like windjammers against a partly sunny sky, with multiple yellow canvas masts billowing in the wind.
Temporary telephone and electricity poles had been constructed throughout the farm, and I noticed with relief a village of Porta Potties in the distance.
A groovy, psychedelic-painted school bus was parked inside a chain-link fence that outlined a portion of the seating area. Only one thing seemed to be missing.
“Wonder where the ticket booth is,” I asked, scouting the perimeter. No one was selling or checking tickets anywhere. What’s more, hundreds of folks flooded into the amphitheater via a flattened section of fence—without presenting tickets.
Livy, pacing around in circles, stopped abruptly.
She threw clenched fists in the air. “Forget the damn ticket booth! Where’s the front gate?
Nick told me to meet him at the front gate.
There isn’t one!” She was seconds away from tears.
I heard them in her voice. But she was right. There was no front gate anywhere.
“You’ll find him,” Leon said tenderly. “Don’t sweat it.”
“You don’t understand.” Livy’s voice cracked. “I haven’t seen my boyfriend in three months. If we can’t find each other, I’m going home. I did not drive eleven hundred miles to camp by myself.”
I gave her a feeble wave.
“You know what I mean.” She let our canvas bag slip from her shoulder and plopped down on top of it.
Johnny stooped down next to her, lit a cigarette, and handed it over. “You can’t go anywhere till Sunday, love. Hang loose. Let him find you.”
Livy put the cigarette to her lips, sucking in a long drag. “How’s he gonna do that? Look at this mob,” she said in a whiny voice.
The noise from a helicopter caused us all to look up. “See,” Leon said. “Here he comes now. He waited on you to make his entrance.” We all watched the baby-blue-and-white helicopter land on a heliport beside the stage. “Is your boyfriend Jimi Hendrix?”
“Very funny,” Livy answered before taking another drag. She couldn’t even muster a smile. Tears flooded her eyelids. “Y’all go on. You don’t have to wait with us.”
It was official. Olivia Foster was the dumbest person on planet earth. I wanted to mash my foot on top of hers until she screamed out in pain. That was the last thing I wanted her to say.
“You sure?” Johnny asked, seeming a bit disappointed.
“Y’all shouldn’t have to miss out on a good spot because of us,” she said.
Us? There’s no us to it.
Johnny stood back up, turned to Leon. “All right, then. Let’s go claim our spot. Before we have to see the show from back here.”
I had feared the end was imminent, but when faced with it, I didn’t know how to say goodbye. I’d just spent four wondrous hours with these boys and kicked myself for not suggesting to Livy earlier that we invite them to sit with us. But then again, shouldn’t she have figured that out herself?
“Far out walking with you two Memphis belles,” Johnny said, looking first at me, then down at Livy. “You’ll find your boyfriend soon.”
Yes, we will find her boyfriend soon. Please wait with us, I was dying to say. Instead, I patted his arm. “Yeah. Far out.” With a switch of my gaze toward Leon, I felt my heart pound. “I hope things get better with your dad’s business.”
He tugged on his earlobe. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“And your knee,” I added.
He slid a hand down his leg and knocked on the good one. “I have two. Remember?” We both chuckled, and then he stretched an arm around me from the side, pulling me into his bare chest. My lips were kissing his turquoise cross, and I could smell his woodsy aroma.
Once he let go, I had a hard time looking at him. After a few seconds he said, “I hope your brother makes it home safely, Suzannah.”
The sound of my name in his throaty, Pennsylvania accent caused the first throb of sadness I’d felt since leaving home. It washed over me unexpectedly. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep the tears away. I did not want him to leave.
“Harold, please go to the blue tent in the back for your diabetes medicine. Those of you hanging from the scaffolds, please come down,” a man announced from the stage. He said something else, but between the whir of the helicopter and the chatter around us, his words were impossible to discern.
Handsome Johnny turned to Leon. “I think I can get us pretty close to the front.”
The boys gave us one last look. I lifted my hand to wave goodbye. Watching them step over the flattened fence, soon to disappear into the monumental crowd, I memorized the back of Leon’s dishwater-blond waves, hoping against hope I’d be lucky enough to spot them again.
That Livy Foster could make me go from loving her one minute to wanting to strangle her the next. Out of nowhere my mind drifted back three years. To the last weekend we had spent together. Two weeks before she betrayed me. For the second time.