1969

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August 15, 2009

By Steve Gillespie / managing editor The Meridian Star Sat Aug 15, 2009, 10:49 PM CDT

True test of middle age: When someone brings up something goofy you did and you're able to respond with "That was 40 years ago!"

I'm to that point now. This summer especially I realized how much I remember events from 1969.

The Apollo 11 moon landing and the premiere of Sesame Street are the two television events I remember most (I turned 6 that year).

I strained my eyes in the backyard staring at the moon trying to see the guys up there — I know, goofy.

I remember a news report about Woodstock, too, punctuated by a grandparent maybe muttering something about hippies needed to get a job.

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the festival billed as "3 Days of Peace & Music."

If you are too young to remember Woodstock happening you might not realize all the reasons it is celebrated.

It was fantastic not just because it was a phenomenal lineup of entertainers and 400,000 people gathered together to promote peace.

Woodstock was every bit as magical as the moon landing and muppets that year because of what else was happening.

We saw nightly images of the war in Vietnam, and by 1969 the war protests weren't peaceful ones anymore. Some of those who wanted the war to end were willing to kill people to prove it. We saw images of race riots. We saw reports of the brutal murders by the Manson family all that summer.

And at the same time Woodstock was happening the fighting in Northern Ireland between protestants and Catholics was its most violent.

I was too young to understand the cultural significance of Woodstock in 1969, or why people were fighting, but I was very aware that everybody seemed to want to kill somebody. I guess it's the first time I saw the world as a scary place.

As the mob swelled in Bethel, New York that summer for the Woodstock festival New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller threatened to send armed National Guard soldiers to the scene, just because violence was expected ... peace was not.

The governor was talked out of it. There were two deaths, one was a drug overdose the other was an accident with a tractor. Two babies were born, and so was a new belief for many, that we might be able to get along with each other after all.

A new film, "Taking Woodstock" by Academy Award winning director Ang Lee, is due for release on Aug. 28.

Demetri Martin plays the young man who inadvertently sets the wheels in motion for the cultural event that would define a generation. It's a comedy. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Steve Gillespie is managing editor of The Meridian Star. Email him at

sgillespie@themeridianstar.com.

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