Woodstock: William Pellegrini

William Pellegrini, 58, Lindenhurst. Graphic artist.

That August I found myself in Poughkeepsie working in a "head shop" for an entrepreneur named Fred Buck. I was on the outs with my family and was in the middle of an "extended road trip."

Woodstock was supposed to be a gathering of "freaks" in a peaceful setting where we could get to see just how many of us there were. At that time each town had maybe four or five counterculture types. There were five of us in Hicksville High that I remember out of a student body of 5,280. The word was that nobody was going to miss this festival if they had the legs to get there.

I just walked around for days living on a jar of 10-cent pickled eggs in a local bar and free food from the Diggers commune.

The bands were really the sideshow. The rain and the mud was the great equalizer. Wandering through the craft areas and from campsite to campsite was where it was really at. People from all over were there, everybody putting out their best "vibes."

I ran into my best friends there purely by accident. The spirit of cooperation we saw in everybody around us changed us all profoundly. It seems that for a couple of days we formed the perfect government - absolute anarchy. We learned that in a state of anarchy there is government - each man governs himself. That is the Woodstock spirit that I have carried and lived by all my life: self-sufficiency, self-determination and self-responsibility.