Woodstock: A legacy
Wow. It’s been 40 years this August since 500,000 hippies showed up at Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York for a three-day celebration of peace, love and music known as The Woodstock Festival.
Ah, Woodstock. Rain turned the fields into mud, the facilities were overcrowded, folks shared food, alcohol and drugs, and grooved to the best bands ever.
Woodstock was a love-in set to music. And it was touted as the single most important event of our time, a happening, as we used to call those often unplanned and always unpredictable events, that would change the world. That signaled the dawning of a New America – north of the 49th, we figured that meant a New Canada, too. Together, our generation could – and would – make a difference.
So what the heck happened?
It was the party, man
Well, first off, I don’t think many of those Woodstockers actually gave a hoot about affecting social change – I think they were at the festival for the dope, sex and free music. One huge frat party, so to speak.
Secondly, I think the media, reporting ceaselessly on the whole counter-culture movement – of which many think Woodstock was the pinnacle – made it sound as if the small percentage of young people who gave a damn spoke for the largest generation of under-25s ever. And they did not. Those top-end Boomers, even as kids, were too self-absorbed, too lazy and too indulged to put themselves out for something as altruistic as world peace, racial harmony and an end to crushing global poverty. Seriously – what were they going to get out of working for a New America or a New Canada?
And finally, the economic madness that were the 80s and 90s, and the first years of this century, when most of this generation was coming into its own, allowed many of them to earn a ton of money, and encouraged all of them to spend on too-expensive cars, too-big homes, over-priced designer clothes and $50 hamburgers.
