Remembrances of times gone by

[Tyana_Rie]

Today, August 15th 2009, marks the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock.

THE Woodstock, not those sad attempts in the 90's, trying to recapture that one moment in time that can never be caught again.

No, I'm not a "hippie", I hate the Grateful Dead, and their cardboard-cutout stand-ins called "Phish",

that entertain the "Actively Seeking Unemployment", that's not what it was about anyway.

It was a moment in time, caught like the special effect used in the Matrix, that ONE special moment in time,

like a fly in amber, where everything, for at least Three days, everything was all right with the world.

For those three days, there was no war, no racism, no poverty, no rich, no poor.

Everything was put aside for those three days, and it made history.

A history I didn't even know was going on, just a few miles away from me.

Yes, I lived about 20 miles from Yasgur's farm, and I celebrated August 15th like I always did, with a birthday cake and presents.

For some of us, life kept on going, without a thought to that farm in New York, instead we crowded around the T.V.

and watched "Laugh-In" and all the other shows that night.

I mean, after all, what could be a bigger story than Men walking on the Moon just a few weeks before?

We watched Richard Nixon declare the area a disaster area, and I could've cared less at the time,

because when you're six years old, you don't care what the news, let alone the President of the United States has to say.

Plus it all goes over your head anyway at that age.

For some of us life kept going, except for that kid that was briefly in my Kindergarten class, when we had to introduce ourselves,

and he said "My Dad is in Vietnam"

He disappeared about three months later, we never saw him again.

The radio at the time was playing some of the best music you could ever hear, and it was brand new, not just some "Classic Rock" station

hashing the same old crap hour after hour.

When I heard "Sitting on the dock of the bay", "A Boy named Sue", "Riders on the Storm", "Lay down (Candles in the rain)"

The WORLD was hearing them for the first time, and every so often, I get thrown back to that time, for a fleeting moment,

and recapture, for a few brief seconds that thrill of hearing those songs at that age and that time.

When Me, My Mom and Sister sat down to watch Star Trek, we honestly didn't know what was going to happen in that episode,

because it was the first time it ever aired on T.V.

Huntley and Brinkley told us the Nightly News on NBC, to the opening theme of the third movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Martin Luther King Jr, and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated just a year earlier, and we all had the Manson Family Murders

to worry about just six days before.............

But Woodstock still managed to catch that fly in Amber.

Despite all that was good and bad with the world.

And the Music played, and it played for three days, and it wasn't stopped or silenced,

it was the last final SHOUT! before the 60's died, and the 70's took hold, and the dream died.

And no, the dream wasn't some hippie "Down with the government" thing.

The dream was that People....all types of people, could gather in a place and forget about politics, religion, color, race, creed,

for a small fragment/shard of time and have fun together and coexist on a few acres of farmland for at least three days and realize....

"Biologically we're all connected to each other, Chemically we're all connected to the Earth, and Atomically we're all connected to the Galaxies and Stars"

So much has been forgotten already and as the quote goes.

"Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it"

well, that happens all the time now doesn't it?

So why did I write this Monologue?

Well, my Grandfather died yesterday August 14th 2:00 AM, and he was 98 years old.

And it got me thinking just how much one person can see when they live to be 98.

The Light bulb was invented when he was born. Movies, Movies with Sound,

Television, Sliced Bread (I'm not kidding! 1928), Antibiotics. the list goes on and on.

So yea, he saw a lot.

And this is why I ramble on to all of you, about what I saw and heard in 1969...

Listen if you want.

Anonymous faces on the Internet, who come and go like the whirlpools in a stream,

constantly moving and never taking hold of any shore, connecting, yet never connecting.

Always moving forward and never looking back.

Was the Three Days of Peace, Love and Music so bad after all?

[HeyYou]

Very Nice.

And my condolences for your loss. Sorry to hear about your grandfather.

The world has gone thru some pretty serious changes in 98 years. I really can't imagine what it must have been like, living from a time when electricity was not just a flick of the switch away. You couldn't just pick up the phone, and make a call, and just taking a drive to the neighbors, required hitching up the team. What will the next 100 years hold? I certainly can't guess. We now have instant communication to anywhere (just about....) in the world. Global commerce is the rule, rather than the exception. The world has shrank considerably in the last 98 years, can it get any smaller? Do we want it to? Do we get a choice?

We live in some interesting times. Some of the interest though, I could certainly do without.

[Zaldir]

My condolences for your grandfather. 98 years is a long life, and I figure it must have been a well life.

I hate that I'm born so late, as everything in the "old times" sounds so interesting. And as HeyYou says, the world is getting smaller by each passing year. I certainly don't like every aspect of that! But, there's not much I can say about old times. Old times for my age is when the internet arrived, lol. Hope I will live a long life like your grandfather. As you say, there's so much you can see! (Living to 2100 would have been something, but unless they figure out a treatment to old age, I guess that's a no go...)

[WhoGuru]

My husband's great grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 105. She was a hell of a lady. Even though Alzheimers kept her from being herself most days, there were times when she was there and would tell the most wonderful stories about a childhood where only the well off had indoor plumbing and electricity and hysterical stories of what it was like to live like with Party line phones, back before everyone had their own number. Talking with her sometimes helped to put my own life in perspective and make the bad times not seem so bad. And then there were the days when she thought I was her youngest daughter. I miss that old lady.

[Zaldir]

105 years old?!

Then, I'm gonna get 107 years old! Then I can say I've lived through 3 Centuries!

[greenwarden]

I lost my grandma and grandpa when I was a teenager, but they were my favorite people. I was certain that no one was funnier, smarter, or just plain cooler than those two. They loved American history, cheesy cocktail music, made amazing chicken noodle soup and peach pie, and made me feel great about myself when the kids at school treated me like a pariah for being such a dork. I loved them both so much.

My condolences, Tyana honey.