Woodstock: Bill Bleyer

Bill Bleyer, 57, Bayville. Newsday reporter.

By the time I got to Woodstock, the crowd wasn't yet a half a million strong. But I immediately began to worry about getting home in time to get my driver's license.

In the summer of '69, I was a Locust Valley High School junior who played in a local rock band. So when I saw an ad for the Woodstock Music & Art Fair with a lineup that included groups such as The Who and Jimi Hendrix, I had to be there.

There was just one problem: I had just completed driver's ed and was waiting anxiously for my road test. And it was scheduled for the Monday morning after the festival. But a classmate offered to drive and promised to get me back in time.

We made one smart decision: to go very early. We avoided the infamous traffic jam and parked across the road from Max Yasgur's dairy farm/amphitheater. What we did wrong was not bring a tent, rain gear or sufficient food because we never thought about rain in the summer - Duh! - and the ads mentioned food booths.

By the time we arrived, the perimeter fences had already been trampled and the promoters had given up on trying to collect tickets, so we kept them as souvenirs and we were early enough to pick up the now highly prized program booklets.

When the music started with Richie Havens on Friday afternoon, the crowd was huge but the magnitude only became clear with stage announcements about its size and the Thruway gridlock.

Logistics quickly became a problem and worsened when thunderstorms turned the pasture into a muddy, smelly quagmire. It could take an hour to work your way through the crowd from the stage to the top of the hill, where you had to wait another hour for a hamburger grilled about 5 seconds on each side and another hour to get a milk shake from a Mister Softee truck.

There were also long waits to get to one of the overloaded portable toilets or tanker trucks dispensing water. But plenty of food - and drugs - were passed around. And nobody complained because the music and the vibe were just so good. And at least we could retreat to the car to escape the rain, or to sleep. The only downside of parking so close to the stage was that we never saw any of the ponds where everyone was skinny-dipping.

The music was amazing, if at times ragged, because of equipment or weather snafus. Many of the acts were unknowns, and some of them like Joe Cocker, Santana and Mountain, blew the crowd away and became instantly famous. My favorite music memory was the initial stunned glimpse of tie-dye bedecked Cocker's spastic contortions.

The music went on all night Saturday and Sunday. While I was determined not to miss a note, I did nod off through half of The Who and Jefferson Airplane.

By the time Hendrix played Monday morning, there were only a few thousand hard-core people left on the muddy field that had a rainbow hue because of all the discarded sleeping bags and clothes. We left in mid-set to get home for the all-important road test.

We cut it so close that there was no time to shower or change clothes. Covered with mud from head to toe and smelling like manure, I confronted a motor vehicle inspector who seemed about 80 and sported a crew cut. He sniffed and then grunted: "Been to that hippie festival, huh?" Figuring he would fail me on principle, I relaxed - and passed.

At the time, even before it assumed mythic status, Woodstock was the most amazing experience of my life. The sense of solidarity and limitless possibilities deeply affected me and steered me toward a career that would benefit the public good.

Despite Watergate, wars and recessions, the idealistic - cynics would call it naive - spirit imbued in the festival remains embedded in my psyche. What's left of my hair may be short now, but I'm still proud to be part of the Woodstock Generation.