Woodstock Remembered

As the only member of Tompeters.com who went to Woodstock, I’ve been assigned to write the commemoration of its 40th anniversary. (Tom was too old, Erik was too young, and I was just right. Forget Shelley; that young talent was not even close to being born.) Also, I had a car to take me from my home in Massachusetts to the farmland of New York. And I had tickets, which as I left home with a friend, I had no idea would be irrelevant. What should we celebrate about Woodstock on this occasion? My choice is the shared optimism. It pervaded the gathering. Everybody spoke with everybody else as if they were old friends, or at least acquaintances. There was an all-encompassing air of “We’re in this together.” Sure, there were those who had “dropped out,” but even that was from a sense that there had to be a better way than the prevalent practices among adults we knew then. We thought we could change the world. And we did. Is your life now, at the age of __, what you thought it would be then, at the age of __, and as a member of Woodstock Nation? (Even if you didn’t get there.) And, if, like Erik and Shelley, you’re too young to have been there, do you approach your career as if you can Change the World? Every day?

Cathy Mosca posted this on August 15, 2009, in Brand You.
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