Woodstock at 44: A Touching Tribute to Richie Havens

Woodstock Memorial at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Photo by Clark Norton

This weekend marks the 44th anniversary of 1969’s Woodstock Festival, one of the iconic events of the 1960s, when hundreds of thousands of mostly then-young baby boomers poured onto Max Yasgur’s Farm near the small town of Bethel in the Sullivan County Catskills, New York.

(As I’ve written about previously in this blog, the festival was moved from Woodstock, NY, to Bethel, some 60 miles west, due to various snafus.)

And as always happens on this anniversary weekend, thousands of folks high on music, nostalgia and perhaps a few other things descend on  Bethel to honor the memory of the festival, which marked the height of the peace and love era. Many camp out around Hector’s Inn in Bethel, where volunteers are dishing out free meals to the tie-dyed visitors, or at what’s now called… Continue reading →