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Meisel 1

Woodstock The Embodiment of the 60’s

Interviewer: Hannah Meisel Interviewee: Philip I. Haber Instructor: Michael Chapper Meisel 2

Table of Contents

Interviewee Release Form

Statement of Purpose 3

Biography 4

Historical Contextualization: : Epitome of the 60s 6

Interview Transcription 13

Time Indexing Log 49

Interview Analysis 50

Appendices 55

Works Consulted 56 Meisel 3

Statement of Purpose

This project serves to illuminate the passion behind the exciting event,

Woodstock. This task will be accomplished through an interview with Philip Haber, a counselor who attended the three-day festival in his 20‟s. This unique perspective will result in an increased understanding of the event as a whole and a more fulfilling concept of what really went on at Woodstock. Meisel 4

Biography

Philip I. Haber was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York. Throughout his life, he has lived many different places because of his father‟s job in the military and his parents‟ various separations, including New York, New Jersey, Washington State, Austria, and

Washington, D.C., where he resides today. After graduating from high school six months early, Mr. Haber went to the State University of New York, where he graduated with a

B.A. in African Studies, and went on afterwards to Loyola College in Baltimore, where he graduated with an M.S. degree in Counseling. He has been a professional counselor since 1989 in Reston, Virginia.

Mr. Haber went to Woodstock with his first wife and friends, and although it was a good time, makes it clear to his listeners that Woodstock was an event, and not a representation of every day life, even though he would have considered himself a

“yippie,” or politically active, far-left . His hobbies and interests include politics, basketball, travel, and food. Last year, Mr. Haber became very involved with the Obama Meisel 5 campaign because Mr. Obama‟s ideas showed Mr. Haber what he believes to be a

“sustainable effort towards change.” He is now married and living in Reston, Virginia with his second wife. He has two grown children, and spends his time working and satisfying his hobbies.

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Historical Contextualization:

Woodstock: Epitome of the 60’s

The sixties have immortalized the radical living style that many refer to as

“bohemia.” The most recognizable was the hippie lifestyle, a product of the 1960‟s. expressed love, peace and togetherness, and drugs like marijuana, magic mushrooms, and LSD were thought to expand the creativity of an artist‟s mind

(Marwick). Eventually, the lifestyle would help create the most captivating, beautiful and life-changing event in the history of rock n‟ roll: Woodstock.

Beginning in mid-nineteenth century Paris, social nonconformists renounced the prevailing middle class lifestyle and adopted a more impulsive and stress-free existence.

Though in Paris this way of life began for many during the 1800‟s, the phenomena did not reach the United States until the 1950‟s, where the bohemian people were referred to as “beats”, and later, sometimes “” (Unger 159). These groups of social rebels cast aside traditional values and behavior to unearth a new way of living, a freer way of living, resulting in the catchphrase, “If it feels good, do it!” (Unger 159).

Woodstock “was three frenzied days of music, pot, acid, grooving, skinny- dipping, and lovemaking, along with rain, mud, garbage, broken limbs, dysentery, freak- outs, two deaths, and one birth” (Unger 161). Never had the world in such a profound way. The festival was advertised as “An Aquarian Exposition: Three Days of

Peace and Music” and the symbol was of a white dove sitting on a , symbolizing exactly what the concert stood for: peace and music (Makower 105). The festival was wholly nonviolent (the two deaths were both from bad drug overdoses), even though the Meisel 7 formal security was slim. The creators of the project took incredible precautions to assure that violence would keep to a minimum. For example, were not asked to play Woodstock because their hit single at the time was “Street Fighting Man” and it was thought to promote fighting at the festival (Makower 106).

Before , the co-creator of Woodstock envisioned the Woodstock event, Joel Rosenman and John Roberts, two young college graduates, placed an advertisement in the New York Times in 1967 saying,” Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate investment opportunities and business propositions”(Unger 161). Michael Lang and Artie Kornfield, who were part of a record label and teamed up with Lang after the idea had been formed, were just what Rosenman and Roberts needed in 1969 with a proposal to create a recording studio, launched with a (Unger 161). Lang‟s idea stemmed from a train ride he took into the country going from Woodstock, New York to Port Authority. His initial thought was of creating a recording studio in Woodstock, so that musical artists could stay in the country and work in a relaxing atmosphere, a kind of recording studio and retreat all in one. Through Lang and Kornfield‟s friendship, the Woodstock idea seemed to become more elaborate, and a financial component came into the planning. John Roberts and Joel Rosenman were just what they needed: John, at 21, inherited a million dollars, and Joel was a recent Yale Law

School graduate. With their financial freedom, John and Joel had been searching for new projects to support (Lang 45). With Lang and Kornfield, the four men together began planning the most intense rock concert experience ever.

Though rock festivals were not a new idea (there had been multiple free festivals on the West Coast), Woodstock promised to be bigger and better than any of the others. Meisel 8

The Festival, for example, attracted thousands and made a fortune, so the

Woodstock collaborators figured they could make money if they could entice at least

25,000 fans. If more than 75,000 came, they would make a fortune (Unger 161).

Therefore, an immense amount of pressure was put on the entire Woodstock crew to make it an unforgettable, safe experience. The , the longest running hippie in America, was enlisted to aid people at the festival. , the founder of the Hog Farm, agreed to provide services like a free kitchen and to help pick up afterwards, but also agreed to show people how to set up camp so that the crowd would be prepared for a three-day event (Makower 70). When the group met initially with the Hog Farm, they asked Gravy what his strategy would be if people were to get out of hand, because machine guns, tear gas or any other volatile defenses would not be an option. He responded with the only reasonable alternative they had ever heard,

“something to do with twenty pretty girls in T-shirts and a couple truckloads of chocolate cream pies and seltzer bottles” (Makower 69). Immediately, Gravy and the Hog Farm were on the team.

Finding the actual site of the festival also became a problem. After pursuing many venues throughout New York, most notably Wallkill, a town in New York, who turned down Woodstock because of a petition from the townspeople thinking it would “disrupt the town” as well as the creation of an ordinance that did not authorize crowds of over

5,000 people without specific permits, Lang and his associates were left with few choices for the site (New York Times). The Woodstock Festival did not actually happen in

Woodstock, but about twelve miles away in Bethel, New York, on ‟s farm, because the town of Woodstock was too small to accommodate the amount of people Meisel 9 expected to arrive (Buchmann 29,Unger 161). During a meeting with Max Yasgur,“the biggest dairy farmer in the country”, the Woodstock team and the farmer worked out an estimated need for about 600 acres of land, plus land for camping and parking purposes for the concert. In the end, it cost about 50,000 to 75,000 dollars, but “without Max

Yasgur, there would have been no Woodstock” (Lang 118-119).

The four men thought they had found the ideal place to hold the festival, but the town of Bethel felt differently. Sometimes, disapproving or angry townspeople had the

“unsavory” young people arrested for loitering or trespassing during the time people were still at the festival, even after it was over, because they felt they were “being threatened by the influx of young people, who advertise their rebellion against local customs with long hair and flamboyant dress” (Kovack). Though the majority of the Bethel natives didn‟t approve of the hippie culture moving into town, many found there would be upsides to the situation. For example, the new tourism would bring business to the primarily farming town and many of the residents living in Bethel learned to embrace the fascinating new culture with observations caught in the Woodstock movie such as,

“They‟re beautiful people. Beautiful people…” and “I‟ll say one thing for the young people, they‟ve been very nice so far” (Wadleigh).

Unfortunately for the Bethel townspeople, Woodstock was no matter what anyone thought. The immense amount of interest that the festival generated created a massive traffic jam that the police were underprepared for because they had waited ten hours to put the new traffic plans in action after Woodstock Ventures had contacted them explaining that people were arriving early (Makower 175). Eventually, it became necessary to close the roads to Woodstock because the traffic had backed up for miles. Meisel 10

Arlo Guthrie, a performer at Woodstock due to his hit record “Alice‟s Restaurant” announced to the people in the audience, “Like, I was rappin‟ to the fuzz – right? Can you dig it? Man, there‟s supposed to be a million and a half people here by tonight. Can you dig that? Thruway‟s closed, man. Yeah! Lotta freaks…” (Brokaw 256).

Because of the traffic, many of the August 15th acts were late. Due to the traffic, bands were stuck and had to be flown in by helicopter to the vicinity. had the fewest instruments, so he was given the first helicopter, and consequently had to go perform first because nobody else had beaten traffic yet. He was not fully prepared for opening the festival because in the early planning he was to perform fifth out of the many acts booked for the first day. Havens most famous moment took place at Woodstock, it made his career: the crew kept forcing him to play more songs because the next act wasn‟t ready to go on even though he had no material left. He improvised a song based on an old spiritual hymn called “Motherless Child,” which became known as “Freedom” after the festival; it also became one of his most treasured works (Landy).

Other acts that preformed over the three-day festival included bands and singers like Creedence Clearwater Revival, (Big Brother and the Holding Company),

Jimi Hendrix, , , , and Santana (Unger 160).

Though the creators tried to keep the concert solely focused on the arts, the controversial war in Vietnam deeply influenced the message that Woodstock was sending to the world. believed in peace exclusively, so the audience at Woodstock was almost completely anti-war, which was made clear through their reactions to the anti-war feeling some artists portrayed. For example, expressed her views on the

Vietnam War through song; her husband David Harris had been jailed for organizing a Meisel 11 draft resistance commune, and she appeared pregnant at Woodstock to sing about her feelings on the draft and her husband‟s fate (Brokaw). One of ‟s most memorable performances was at Woodstock too, when the group played, “Feel Like

I‟m Fixin‟ To Die,” a sarcastic but deeply disturbing song about being proud to have

“your boy come home in a box” after he goes to fight in Vietnam (Wadleigh).

In 1969, Woodstock was a controversial event that gave the hippies something to be proud of and the people of the United States something to dread, but over the years,

Woodstock has become a national symbol of the 1960‟s celebrated counterculture that so shaped our world today. The “” proved that not everything in the late 60‟s had to be ugly; the especially contributed to the desire for peace among

Americans. The festival brought together hundreds of thousands of people by means of love, peace and music to experience something that could never happen again. This was later proven by the tragic incidents at Altamont, the free concert for the Rolling Stones later that year where “everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong” (Marwick).

The Hell‟s Angels, a motorcycle gang based in California, had been hired as

“semiofficial” guards to provide security for the concert, but they ended up creating a violent atmosphere and one Hell‟s Angel even pulled a gun on an audience member

(Gitlin). In the end, four were pronounced dead and many were hurt badly by either suffocation or trampling, because of the large crowds and Hell‟s Angels.

Historians are amazed that within a group of up to a million people over the course of three muddy, crowded, hallucinogenic days, nobody was hurt or killed by another human being. Meisel 12

The hippie culture also has influenced ethical issues today. Recently, with the war in the Middle East, there has been an immense amount of anti-war feelings and activity, just like with the Vietnam War. In particular, hippies were interested in all things

“natural”. Most of the hippies tried to become as much in tune with nature as possible.

Yoga and other natural spiritual worship became popular, as well as the use of marijuana, which as a plant, was considered natural (Wadleigh).

The sexual tolerance of the culture began movements that contributed to the gay liberation movement and the economic, social and political empowerment of women.

Many conservatives would say that the sixties should be blamed for the collapse of the

“reasonable sexual prudence”, which in their opinion resulted with medical curses such as AIDS and hepatitis as well as the illegitimate one parent families that became less scandalous (Unger 160).

All in all, Woodstock is viewed positively as a revolution of music, love and peace that inspired creativity and originality in the music scene today. It grasped the importance of peaceful awareness and influenced the liberal community, sometimes referred to as the “far left”(Marwick). Woodstock started out as a normal festival; nobody could have predicted the vast influence it would achieve. Woodstock affected everyone; right after it happened everybody knew somebody who went to Woodstock. Richie

Havens said it perfectly that the“sense of calm spirituality that came out of Woodstock and permeated our personalities – is very much alive and very much a part of our every day, our every moment” (Landy). Meisel 13

Interview Transcription

Interviewee/Narrator: Philip Haber Interviewer: Hannah Meisel Location: Mr. Haber‟s home, Reston, VA Date: January 3, 2010 This interview was reviewed and edited by Hannah Meisel

Hannah Meisel: This is Hannah Meisel and I am interviewing Philip Haber as part of the

American Century Oral History project. The interview took place on January 3, 2010 at

11 am. Where did you grow up?

Philip Haber: I grew up in many places. I was born in New York in 1947. My father was in the military so, not when I was born. When I was born he had gotten out of the military and out of World War II, and he and my mother owned a candy store in Brooklyn, New

York, and after a couple of years, he was on active reserve for the military, he was called back in the military for the Korean War, so he returned to the military and decided to remain in the military until the late 1960‟s so we grew up in many places. Started out in

Brooklyn, then he was stationed in Fort Dix, New Jersey, then we moved to Mon

Holloway, New Jersey, and Fort Dix, then to Linz Austria for a couple of years, then we came back and my brother and I attended a boarding school for about six months and then my parents moved us out to Takoma, Washington.

HM: Washington State?

PH: Washington State. My father was stationed in Fort Louis so we moved there for a couple of years and then came back East for a few months and then moved to Frankfurt Meisel 14

Germany for about a year and a half. And then after a year and a half in Frankfurt,

Germany, I lived in a small town outside of Frankfurt for about half of the time that I lived in Frankfurt itself. Then we moved back to the States, back to , which is where I grew up and spent the rest of my adolescence in Far Rockaway, New

York, which is kind of part of Queens, just on the border of the city, so that‟s where I spend the first eighteen years of my life.

HM: Cool. Did your mother work with your father in the candy store before…?

PH: Uhuh, yes.

HM: And during the rest of the time she stayed home with you? Or did she work during that time?

PH: Well, I had an interesting life. My parents were separated for large portions of my life so that when we moved to Austria in 1952 after a year and a half, my mother left my father and returned to the states and that‟s when my brother and I lived in the boarding school for about six months. And then on my birthday, my mother came up to the boarding school and brought up a surprise present for me for my birthday. It was my ninth birthday so the surprise present was my father! He‟d come back from Austria and they got back together again and that‟s when we moved to Takoma, Washington. Then when we went to Frankfurt, Germany, my mother left my father in Frankfurt, Germany, and returned to the States, and so as I grew up I spent the rest of my adolescence in Far Meisel 15

Rockaway, my mother worked as a waitress in a hotel and at times doing catering work at other times and kind of off and on. So there were periods where my brother and I were home for a week or two and we had a close family friend or neighbor who would check in on us. Then my father got back to the States, I guess probably when I must have been about thirteen, and they were kind of off and on with each other, and got back together again just right after I left for college and after a couple of years they broke up again.

HM: Do you think moving around a lot as a kid influenced you in adult life?

PH: Yeah, I think so. I think that I‟m (long pause) used to change. Having lived overseas, it had a dramatic influence over me. So that I think I have a greater tolerance for other people, for different cultures than maybe some other people who haven‟t had that experience.

HM: Do you speak the languages? Do you speak German?

PH: No, I speak smatterings of a few languages, I took lots of French in high school and college and I can get by in and French-speaking countries but I couldn‟t churn out a conversation like this in French. It would be a long and kind of cumbersome…we could probably do it, but it would be very slow.

HM: How old were you in 1969?

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PH: In 1969? I would have been, well let‟s see, I guess I was born in ‟47 so in 1969 I was twenty-two.

HM: Were you in college during that time?

PH: My college life was a little odd; I graduated high school six months early because I had an unusual opportunity to do that. I wasn‟t a particularly good high school student but I had lots of credit and the opportunity came up and I got out of there because I hated high school. And went away to college, and they were on a quarter system so it was kind of odd because I was not a full semester ahead, I was a quarter ahead. Then the school changed back to the semester system so it was all kind of strange. But in my senior year, I took a semester off and went back to New York City and lived with my girlfriend, who then became my first wife and I was working in the Wall Street area for about six months. And as I ended that job, with the intent of going back to school the following

Fall to finish up, that was the summer that we went off to Woodstock. I had just finished the six-month job I had during that break from school.

HM: Would you have called yourself a hippie?

PH: Kinda-sorta, I guess. I had pretty long hair. (Both laugh) And yeah, I think, but I was kind of one of those Yuppie kinds, not a Yuppie, a Yippie kind, kind of one of those more politically active hippies. A lot of hippies weren‟t politically active, so it was kind of a mixture. Meisel 17

HM: What were your views on politics?

PH: Oh, I was pretty left wing. Really involved in the anti-war movement.

HM: So you did not like the Vietnam War?

PH: No, I did not like the Vietnam War. I was very involved in against the

Vietnam War starting in, I would say, 1965 or 1966, shortly after the time I went off to school. Didn‟t know, when I left school, much about it, but then learned some things very quickly that turned me around.

HM: Describe your reaction when you first heard about Woodstock.

PH: You know that‟s hard, I can‟t remember when I first heard about Woodstock. I had been involved with a big network of friends, we all were caught up in the music and the politics in the music and the politics over the music and I‟d been to a lot of concerts. I went to one of the – State universities of New York has colleges spread out all over the place. One of those colleges was a college at New Paltz, New York, its about 70 miles north of New York City and it was an unusual place because it was a place where there was a lot of political involvement and anti-war very early on, more than most places. It was also a place where there was a lot of, kind of, cultural changes. It was a place where there were people using drugs, I think, a lot earlier than in some other places. Meisel 18

And we had lots of good music. Lots of good music. In the time I was there we had The

Who, who came to our campus. It was a campus of less than 5000 students, and in a small gymnasium we saw The Who, we saw Simon and Garfunkel, we saw The Jefferson

Airplane, and Joe Cocker. Just a slew of really great – Ritchie Havens! I was probably twenty feet away from Ritchie Havens when he had a small concert at the school. And it was in a good environment, conducive to kind of being on the edge of things like that.

HM: How did you decide to go [to Woodstock]? Who made the decision? How did you get the tickets?

PH: You know I don‟t remember. We just…

HM: You just ended up –

PH: Yeah, I mean, so many of my friends were going that when we went, we met a group of friends there. And we watched the concert up on the top of the hill with a group of, I don‟t know, about twenty of us. It was an unusual group, some of them had been a group that had been involved in a commune together, had lived in a commune together.

They bought a piece of property and lived in it together. I wasn‟t, I had lots of friends that were in that but I wasn‟t on a commune, but my best friend, who was one of the members of that still lives up there in the area.

HM: How far ahead of time of the concert did you leave to go?

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PH: You know, we got there; I think a day ahead of time. We were there before it became apparent how crazy and crowded it was going to be. We didn‟t have any trouble getting in. We were sitting there, hearing all about the roads being crowded and how big this was and we were already there.

HM: Many of the audience members didn‟t actually see a lot of the musical acts, there was a lot of other goings-on, I hear. Did you see a lot of the acts?

PH: Oh, we saw most of the acts! The one thing I didn‟t see that I regretted, I certainly heard it, was waking up on Sunday morning, and I was too tired, I didn‟t want to haul myself, it probably would have been a half mile walk, you know a ten minute walk, back to get in front of the bandstand, but I could hear Ritchie Havens (Jimmy Hendrix?) playing the national anthem but we weren‟t sitting there watching it. We were just tired from the night before, didn‟t want to drag myself all the way back. But we saw most everything.

HM: What was the most memorable act, the one that really stands out in your mind?

PH: It‟s funny, because we‟re sitting here and we‟re watching The Who, and I think that they were probably the most memorable act. And I saw them do this, and I guess they did

“Tommy,” they must have because we saw, they did “Tommy” back in New Paultz in the gym there. I think it was after, I‟m not sure but I think it was after Woodstock. But that part really stands out in my mind. Country Joe and the Fish stands out in my mind! Meisel 20

Ritchie Havens! The opening act, I mean that really stands out. So many! Canned

Heat…yup.

HM: With Country Joe and the Fish, do you remember the “Fish Cheer”?

PH: Oh yeah, you know I think we must have, I‟m pretty sure we probably had Country

Joe and the Fish at the school too. Pretty sure we did, but not positive. But yeah, I certainly knew the Fish cheer.

HM: How did people react when they played it? Were people really into it?

PH: Oh, I don‟t really remember! (Both laugh) But I suppose they were! I‟m trying to…

() “And its one, two, three, what are we fighting for? I tell you I don‟t give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam, and its five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates, there ain‟t no need to wonder why, whoopee! We‟re all gonna die!” (Stops singing, both laugh).

Further proof I was there, no doubt, I actually remember the Fish cheer.

HM: Did you stay the full three days?

PH: Stayed the full three days.

HM: How was it…getting out?

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PH: You know, I don‟t remember! We just…left. And I guess it just kind of faded away.

HM: You just went back to regular life?

PH: Just went back to regular life. Well, what did I do after that? Went back to school that next semester, and I guess I was there for the full year, because I remember when I finished my year there, or finished school there, we were still living and we continued to live in the New Paultz area, I lived there for a year after I graduated actually. Before then, my then girlfriend and later wife and I were living in Wallkill, New York, which is interesting because Wallkill, New York was the second choice for the festival. And we moved there, I don‟t know if I was still taking courses or if I was only in the area, I think

I was still taking courses and had moved to Wallkill and lived there. So I forget, what did you ask me? (laughs)

HM: Did you stay the full three days? And then we started talking…

PH: Oh yeah, I just went back to Wallkill and then lived in Wallkill after that, for that next year I guess, six months or a year, don‟t remember.

HM: At the time, did you realize how big the concert would be? How much of an impact it was going to have…I‟m sure people asked you about it after?

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PH: I knew everybody that went! The people who would have asked me about it would have been the people who were there, for the most part, I mentioned my best friend, and oddly enough he didn‟t go. He was part of that group but he didn‟t go, he was in the city working.

HM: How did the townspeople feel about it in Bethel?

PH: I don‟t remember a lot. I don‟t think we saw them. We got there early, and we just set up our tent! We had food with us, we were prepared. We had a tent, we had food. We were prepared, I mean we knew where we were going. Once you were in, on the grounds that the concert was held, I mean you wouldn‟t be walking off the grounds, there wouldn‟t be any reason to, and when we left we just got out of there. So I really don‟t remember meeting the townspeople. One exception. This is a story, that I don‟t know how true it is, but it‟s a story that I know. Remember I told you I was working for about six months prior to that in the Wallkill area and Pam and I, Pam was, again, my then girlfriend, later wife. She was working in the city, and we had rented an apartment in

Jackson Heights, New York, which is in Queens. I‟d take the subway into Wall Street, probably a half hour ride everyday, and I worked at this place called Moody‟s Investment

Services, which still exists, and Moody‟s is a company that is like Dow Jones (?) Its not an investment company, well maybe it is, I‟m not sure but one of the things they did was to publish some kind of a journal or a financial publication and my job was to, for those six months, was to write information into their, I guess it was, weekly publication about changes in the directorship or the offices of companies. And one of the people there was Meisel 23 a woman, who also worked there, and I had told them I was going to Woodstock and she said to me, “Oh, wow. That‟s great! My father owns the land. He‟s the one that‟s renting the land to the people who were going to be playing the music.” I don‟t remember her name, because it really didn‟t register with me at that point, nobody really knew who

Max Yasgur was, or who was renting or who owned land at that point. So, basically my memory is that could have been Max Yasgur‟s daughter. Its possible it wasn‟t. It could have been somebody that owned some adjoining land or something, but the story I like to take with me is the one that sounds the best! Was that it must have been Max Yasgur‟s daughter, but again I‟m forgetting the question you asked, but you asked how people knew about it, so that was one reaction, this woman said to me, “Oh that‟s neat, because my father owns the land that the concert‟s being held on!”

HM: I heard a lot of people didn‟t think it was a good idea because they didn‟t know if the people there were going to be out of hand or how it would all work. But it ended up being a very peaceful experience. Did you have any interaction with the Hog Farm, who helped out?

PH: No, I don‟t remember anything specific, just that they were there and that it was constantly broadcast over the PA system, All this stuff about the Hog Farm. Now I‟ll tell you who I did have contact with at that time, I didn‟t have contact with at that time, but I did later. Was a man who ran the medical tent, and his name is William Abruzzi, Doctor

William Abruzzi. The interesting thing about William Abruzzi is after the festival, that next Fall, we returned to New Paultz, and the people at New Paultz had hired a new Meisel 24 doctor to run the campus clinic. And the doctor they had was William Abruzzi.

Interesting that in that next year, my wife got pregnant, and he was the one who diagnosed the pregnancy! That was the interesting part. There‟s a darker side to William

Abruzzi though, that came out years later. We finished our time in the New Paultz area, then we moved down to the Baltimore area and would pick up things in the newspaper.

One day I was reading in the paper about a physician in _____ New York, which was in

?Mikippie? across the river from New Paultz;.and he had been arrested by an undercover police officer because he had sexually assaulted one of his patients when the patient was under anesthesia. That person was William Abruzzi. So, there was a dark side, and that was part of the dark side.

HM: Do you feel like you felt that at all, when you knew him, when you met him at the tent at Woodstock?

PH: Well I didn‟t meet him at the tent at Woodstock. We met him after, he was the person who ran the tent at Woodstock but after he came on staff at the running medical clinic at the health services at New Paultz the next Fall, sometime later. After I graduated, it may have not been the immediate Fall could have been the Fall after, I‟m not precisely sure because I worked at the school the year later and that‟s when he would have diagnosed her pregnancy. So we didn‟t see him at the tent at Woodstock, but the next year.

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HM: Did you have any interesting interactions with people you met there? Do you remember anything in particular?

PH: No, all the interactions were interesting! (Both laugh) I just remember it being a fun place to be, I remember watching the music, I remember three days of peace and love, right, and a group of us being hippies, or a group of anti war types, and one of our group was named Michael. Of course he had changed his name to “Michaelle” (laughs) and I remember when we were watching The Who, oh remind me, who‟s the lead of

The Who? (long pause) You‟re as bad as I am! I have a reason for forgetting, I can say

I‟m too old, but it seems to be Jim, oh it doesn‟t matter, but I just remember Michael going “Oh, he‟s going crazy! Look he‟s just going crazy! And I can‟t remember who it was, but that‟s one of the things I remember, just watching that, and watching Michael get so into it. So, just having a ball.

HM: Do you remember anything really outrageous that you saw? Was there anything that you could never do now?

PH: You know, I suppose but I don‟t remember. I mean, being with several hundred thousand people watching a concert, I mean I guess I‟ve never been to a concert that big since. I‟ve been to a lot of big events. Went to the inauguration last year, which is probably the biggest event I‟d ever been to and I‟ve been to a lot of big events. I guess watching three days of music with 800, 000 of my best friends was something that I could never do again. Meisel 26

HM: Of your best friends? Did you feel connected with the audience?

PH: Oh yeah. I mean everybody was just…

HM: Did it really live up to the name? Peace and music just, did you hear about any accidents? Did anything bad ever really happen?

PH: No, the bad things you‟d hear is “don‟t take the something-something acid!” (Both laugh) You know, those announcements that came over the PA system. In any place that you‟ve got 600, 500, 800, I don‟t know how many thousand people, in a meadow, living out in tents, or sometimes without tents for a three-day period. Yeah some bad things happened but that would be inevitable. You go look into a city of 500,000 people, any given day you can have accidents. There wasn‟t violence and fights or anything like that.

HM: Do you remember any outward ways that the creators of Woodstock and the people who were involved in the project were really making sure there was no violence? Was that obvious?

PH: Well it was obvious when they took down the fence. That was pretty obvious. At that point, to have done that I think was a smart thing, a good thing to do. They could have tried to resist that, and I think they just knew right away, in short order, that they really had to do that. And I think that was a smart, good thing to do. It turned out to be a Meisel 27 good business decision for them also. Michael Lang was twenty four at the time, and at twenty four years old he probably looked at it and said, “well, you know! What else am I going to do?” It probably didn‟t strike him as “well, I‟m going to be financially struggling for the rest of my life” He probably never thought of that, I don‟t know, but I think, it was a good thing to do. Noticing that people were coming in, they were taking care of things! They were doing some things to make sure there was a medical tent, doing things to make sure that people who didn‟t come prepared were able to get food and water. They really did things to make that happen. And they brought in the acts on helicopters! How are you going to do that? You can‟t get these acts in anymore, yeah

500, 000 people sitting there waiting for the music to start, what are you going to do?

They made it happen. Yeah, they did a lot of smart things, and I think, good things. I imagine they‟re like any other mixture of half a dozen people who were running a big organization. There were probably good people among them; there were probably jerks among them. They handled it well.

HM: Do you remember seeing a lot of policemen or people in uniforms?

PH: No. I really don‟t remember seeing many people in uniform.

HM: Do you think that was on purpose?

PH: Well I think that there weren‟t many people in uniform around 500,000 people in

Bethel, New York! (laughs) Yeah, I suppose they could have brought in the National

Guard or something like that. They probably thought about things like that and decided Meisel 28 that it would be better handled if they put some faith into the people themselves. Which worked out well then. Other times, maybe that didn‟t work out. The concert that followed that in Altamont, California, didn‟t go quite as well. They chose the Hell‟s Angels to be their security, not a smart choice.

HM: Did you go to Altamont?

PH: No.

HM: Did you know people that went?

PH: No, I didn‟t.

HM: But I‟m guessing you heard about it? How was your reaction to that? How did you feel about Altamont, having just gone to this very peaceful concert?

PH: You know, I think it struck me more after they made the movie of that, called

“Gimme Shelter,” And I think it struck me more when I watched that movie. You really could see how brutal the role of the Hell‟s Angels was in that. Very different, just had a very different vibe than there was at Woodstock. Do you like Joe Cocker?

HM: Oh I love it! (PH turns up the volume on Woodstock performance of Joe Cocker singing “With A Little Help From My Friends”) Meisel 29

PH: Kind of fits in with you asking me what people were like there, was it really peace and love, well here‟s Joe Cocker singing “With A Little Help From My Friends,” Do you think that‟s coming through your recording?

HM: Oh probably. Were you close [to the bands at Woodstock]?

PH: Actually, no. We were pretty far away.

HM: I‟m guessing people came in really early and got very close, right?

PH: I guess! I mean, we were with a group of people and we wanted to be with our friends and be together and we‟re up on the hill. If you‟re on the stage, looking out from the stage, we were up on the hill on the left. I was a little disappointed because we had a few helium balloons floating above us so I figured, when the movie came out we would be able to see where we were because we had our balloons. I couldn‟t see our balloons.

I‟ll tell you an interesting story about when I saw the movie!

HM: Sure!

PH: Saw the movie, I don‟t know whenever it came out, it must have been the next year.

And it was playing in ?Pikkipsie,? New York, which was ten miles away on the other side of the river, in an older, classic movie theater. Something more like the Uptown here. And we went in to see the film, and the theater‟s full, and we sit down in our seats, Meisel 30 and I look down at the end of the row. We were in the middle section, one of those side sections, and the end seat in the side section of the row we were in, just sitting there watching the movie, was !

HM: So you ran into –

PH: I mean, I saw him there, but he was just sitting in the audience, and it was pretty hard not to see him. Albino, long blonde hair, hard not to recognize him.

HM: You told me a story before we started recording, how you saw Ritchie Havens just walking down the street.

PH: In Greenwich Village.

HM: Right. Have you seen any other celebrities or music icons now?

PH: In my life?

HM: Well, during that time, when you were in New York.

PH: Well, I told you at our school, we had a lot of extraordinary music there. And I think it was the year after, we had a concert on our campus in the Spring. Woodstock was in

July? …August? Meisel 31

HM: It was in August.

PH: August. So I think the following late Spring would have been 1970. We had a concert on campus with the Jefferson Airplane, and Joe Cocker, and Mad Dogs and the

Englishmen. There was somebody else that was with them but I don‟t remember who they were. I worked backstage at that concert, which was a mistake. By working backstage, I really didn‟t get to see much of the concert. I got to see some of it; I came around front for some of it. Later I thought to myself, “This is dumb. What am I doing?

This is great, because you get to be near the celebrities, but it would have been better to watch it.” So, I did then because I hung around with people in the [Jefferson] Airplane and Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs, the Englishmen, they had like twenty people with them in a big group. Pam and I left the New Paultz area and came down and lived in Baltimore, she worked for a rock concert promoter, so we got to see a lot of celebrities.

HM: Did you have any personal interactions that really stuck with you, with any musicians or even at Woodstock?

PH: No, not really. I remember, when we were sitting in the tent, when we had that concert on campus with Jefferson Airplane, and Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, we‟re sitting in the tent back with the Airplane and somebody came back there, somebody from the audience came back there for autograph seeking or something like that. The experience I had was that one of the people with the Airplane, can‟t remember Meisel 32 who it was, was kind of making fun of somebody who was doing that. I guess you get really worn down with people chasing you but, there‟s something about that, that just didn‟t feel right. Just making fun of that person. And I think that‟s a sign of “celebrity,” I think that our culture is a really celebrity focused culture, and I think that‟s not a good thing. So your question was if I got to see any celebrities, and I‟ve gotten to see a lot of celebrities in my life, and my life isn‟t the better for it. My life is what it is. Actually, I should tell you about another celebrity! The other celebrity, someone else who was at the school at New Paultz, giving a lecture, was Timothy Leary. And you think, Timothy

Leary, this great figure, who introduced mind-expanding concepts or something like that.

He‟s sitting in a yoga position on a mat on the floor on the stage in front of the people, and he was really an arrogant person, just not very nice. It‟s a part of celebrity life, you get absorbed with yourself.

HM: Were you interested in yoga? Or did you find some sort of interesting religion?

Were you interested in that sort of new…?

PH: What I was interested in was the anti-war movement. I became interested in the anti war movement for a very specific reason. My oldest son just turned thirty-nine. And when my first wife and I broke up, he was about five, and when he was about twelve or so, they moved out to California, so it was hard for me to be an active presence in his life on an ongoing basis. There would be a few times a year, a summer where he would come back and stay with us, and when he graduated high school in California, I went out to his graduation. And again, you asked me if there were any things like yoga or religions, or Meisel 33 things that were important to me, were the anti-war movement. So, when my son graduated high school in 1989, I wanted to talk with him a little bit. And we went to the beach, at Malibu, there wasn‟t anybody there, and I wanted him to know what it was about Vietnam and I didn‟t serve in Vietnam, in part because I had ?deferments? and in part because I actively avoided serving in the war. And I wanted him to understand what that was about. Because we‟d never had a conversation about that, and so I talked with him a little bit about that, because again, your answer to the question, “what was important to me,” the anti-war movement was important to me. You mentioned this to me before we started recording that you‟d known something about the Holocaust and about

World War II. And I had also, my father was in World War II, my father was active in

World War II. He was in every major battle in the European theatre during World War II, he was in North Africa, he was at Omaha beach on D-Day, which was the beach where we took the most casualties, he was involved in the battle of ?Le Bulge?, he was at Sicily, he was at all the major battles. And my family is Jewish, and I grew up in the 1950‟s.

When you grew up in the 1950‟s, the images of the Holocaust were ubiquitous, were everywhere. And you‟d see photographs of the ovens, you‟d see photographs of the first days when the allies came to the concentration camps, and you‟d see these stick figures of human beings who were emaciated, who were starving, who‟d been in the concentration camps. And you‟d see the piles of bones and the bodies of the people who had been murdered in the Holocaust. And those images were images I grew up with.

When I saw the behavior of the American government in Vietnam, that just ran counter to what I grew up with. What I grew up with was: that was not America. That America did not invade other countries, the America that I grew up with that rescued Europe and that Meisel 34 rescued my family. My family being all of my father‟s family, on his mother‟s side, who died in the Holocaust. That was the America I knew, not the America that invaded another country and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. So, what was important to me was the anti-war movement, because

I thought, that was not the America I knew and not the patriotic thing to do. The important thing to do was to help bring an end to that. That was the three days of peace and love, the peace thing was real important.

HM: Did you know anyone in the war or the fighting?

PH: Its interesting, very few people I knew actually went over there. I remember on my campus there had been one guy, who was not someone I was friends with, but he was a big man on campus, somebody who was active in one of the fraternities there. Gung-ho, kind of guy, and he‟d joined the military, and the story was that he was going over there to “kill some gooks.” That was the story. And his name will come back to me, I‟m just not remembering right now, but the irony is that this guy went over there. I think this guy,

“killing some gooks,” kind of an unpleasant way to put it, I think a lot of people went over there with the idea that this would be saving our country. It was a mistaken way to view the situation, so I‟m sure this guy went over there with good intent, to do his part, as most of the people did who went over there, to make a patriotic contribution to the country. In the course of that, he was going to “kill some gooks.” His first day in combat over there, he was killed getting out of a helicopter. That‟s the only person that really stands out in my mind. That was the only person who I‟d actually met who was over Meisel 35 there. Yeah, actually I met a guy at work years later who had been in Vietnam, and it was actually several people. All decent people, you know?

HM: Do you think that after Woodstock and after the concert in Altamont, do you think that was the end of the really good, free times?

PH: If the question is, “how real is this?” or “what is this?” to some degree its an illusion.

Its not part of day-to-day living. Its taken out of the real world. So, if you take people out of the real world, anything is possible. And, “anything is possible” can include things like three days of peace and love. It can also include a few years in a concentration camp, so I don‟t mean to be cynical, but I think anything is possible. And the possibilities can be some unusual thing like this, or it can be some kind of big change in the world, that‟s possible. I got very active, last year, in the Obama campaign. And I think that‟s a good thing for this country. Right now, people might say, “do you think you saw then, the ideals of this presidency, some things seem to be stalled.” Is that possible, you know, three days of peace and love, is that possible? I think a sustained effort at creating change is what makes things possible. So three days won‟t do it! But a sustained effort to bring about change will. So that‟s, that‟s kind of my whole point.

HM: How did you feel about the poster for Woodstock?

PH: It was great!

Meisel 36

HM: Did you see any earlier drafts of it, like before there was an actual symbol?

PH: I can‟t say I did.

HM: Do you think it accurately symbolized what the festival was about?

PH: Yeah, sure it did. People had their heads in a good place; there was a vibe about it.

Everybody being friends, there really was that kind of feel there. Everyone was just ____.

HM: Because you came prepared, did you help people that didn‟t come prepared?

PH: You know, I don‟t remember. I guess we did.

HM: What were some of the things to do besides listen to the music, seeing the acts?

PH: You could go swimming! Smoke pot, go swimming, just talk with friends, just have a fun time with your friends.

HM: What was a popular conversation topic to discuss with friends you just met?

PH: You know, I don‟t remember. It was more of the friends that I already knew. You were just friendly with everybody. I don‟t remember if we had real conversations with friends we just met. I just don‟t remember. Meisel 37

HM: Do you remember seeing children around? There are clips in this movie, I remember seeing little kids running around.

PH: Yeah, I kind of remember, but it didn‟t seem unusual. I guess it probably was, and there weren‟t that many, you look in the film and you‟re seeing 500,000 people, hopefully there wouldn‟t be many children around there. Probably wouldn‟t be a great place for kids.

HM: Probably not. Did you do anything at Woodstock that you wouldn‟t do now?

PH: That I wouldn‟t do now, you know, I don‟t know. I mean, I don‟t smoke pot now!

(both laugh) I don‟t think it‟s a good kind of message to be involved in something that‟s illegal, although I don‟t think there‟s any reason for America to have it be illegal. I think it should be controlled, if it were my choice, it wouldn‟t be illegal and it would be controlled like alcohol is controlled. That‟s what I think would make sense. But I also know that there are many people who just have problems with just getting high too much.

Just like there are people who have problems with drinking too much. The problems with drinking too much end up being much more problematic because it makes you physically ill in more ways than getting high, but I‟ve seen so many people who‟s lives are really a mess because they get high all the time! And that‟s not good, but I was never somebody who was getting high all the time, I did a lot but not dramatically, so that‟s something Meisel 38 that I wouldn‟t do now. If it was legal, maybe I‟d do it once in a while, but I guess I‟m too old to go out with a bunch of friends skinny dipping! (laughs)

HM: You did that?

PH: At Woodstock? Yeah! And in New Paultz, Split Rock was, I think, the name of the place. There was this place on a mountain outside of New Paultz, a small mountain, where people would just hang out and then go skinny-dipping. I don‟t know that there‟s some kind of advantage in skinny dipping or partially clothed or whatever, so I don‟t go skinny-dipping and I don‟t smoke pot, and I probably don‟t listen to as much music as I did. My music tastes have changed. I‟m a jazz fan now, I wasn‟t a jazz fan then, but there was a lot of good music in the „60‟s!

HM: When you were younger, like maybe ten years old, what kind of music did you listen to? Were you exposed to a lot of music as a child?

PH: Whatever was kind of popular and interesting! In 1956, I would have been nine years old and I liked , and I remember we lived in Takoma, Washington and

I got on a bus, we lived in South Takoma, Washington. Here I am, nine years old, I got on a bus, took the bus downtown, by myself, to go to a movie theater to see Elvis

Presley‟s first movie. At nine years old, by myself. People wouldn‟t do that today. Could you imagine, a nine year old getting on a bus in Fairfax to go into DC to go to the

Uptown theater to see a movie? But I wanted to see the Elvis Presley movie so I did that Meisel 39 and it didn‟t seem like that was particularly weird to do. But I think people felt safer to do things, but maybe that was an illusion, I don‟t know. I got exposed to when I went from high school to, I listened to music in high school, was just becoming popular and people were kind of talking about him and then when I got there, there were all kinds of things happening in the music scene. And then I saw a live blues performance in a bar, I was eighteen years old, you could go to a bar at eighteen then. And I was just blown away by this. And it was really hard-core blues in this little skuzzy bar on the edge of New Paultz. It was kind of interesting.

HM: Did you ever see Bob Dylan?

PH: About six or eight years ago, not during my growing up. Not at that time. But I saw just about everybody else! Other than Bob Dylan, there are not many people who I wanted to see that I haven‟t seen. I saw all except for John, on their own, I saw , I saw Paul McCartney, I saw , I never saw John

Lennon, who was my favorite of the group. I saw them, I saw The Who, , I saw just about everything.

HM: This is sort of a little bit of a selfish question of mine, but did you ever see Arlo

Guthrie?

PH: I think I did, I‟m pretty sure I did, but I‟m not positive. I think we had him in New

Paultz, but I‟m not positive. Meisel 40

HM: I love him. (Both laugh) I‟m thinking, “Oh my gosh, has he seen Alice‟s Restaurant live?”

PH: I‟m not sure about that. Saw Pete ?Seger?! Most everybody was at Woodstock or a lot of people who were at Woodstock, I saw separately. I saw Santana, I saw Country Joe

McDonald, I saw , I saw the Grateful Dead, I saw the Who, I saw the

[Jefferson] Airplane, I saw Joe Cocker.

HM: How did your parents feel about that sort of music? Were they judgmental?

PH: I don‟t remember them having any thoughts about it. My parents were pretty non- judgmental. Oh, I saw Crosby, Stills and Nash! They wouldn‟t have thought one way or another about it.

HM: I had this question, there was a quote in one of the books I read, that I thought was really interesting. It said that many conservatives determined that in the late „60‟s, a lot of the culture contributed to the rise of AIDS and other STD‟s, and one parent families. Do you think that, that‟s relevant?

PH: So they said, the culture of the „60‟s created AIDS? Yeah, I don‟t think so.

Meisel 41

HM: Yeah, that I thought, was ridiculous, that the „60‟s culture could create AIDS because I don‟t think that either but do you think that the way that STD‟s are everywhere now, that they really educate kids about it, do you think that the attitude of the „60‟s spread it?

PH: I don‟t think you can manufacture history. History takes its course. You can‟t manufacture culture. I guess, I‟m not sure how to answer the question. If you want to look for blame, there‟s lots of blame to go around for all kinds of things. But I think that what‟s more important is how we can live together, and to look for solutions to problems.

(long pause) I don‟t think we can legislate morality. Maybe that‟s the problem. The idea that we can legislate morality, I think that‟s kind of hard to do. I don‟t know if that‟s different here, I‟m suggesting, in a sense, that we should legislate peace. It seems to be to be different because what you‟re talking about peace, you‟re talking about the exercise of power. And I think we can legislate against the ?exercise? of power. And we can control how we exercise power, and that sometimes you need power to protect people. I think we do better in protecting people if we balance that power with giving people a place in the world and a place in the culture, and respect for people. Its not to say that we‟re responsible for bad things that happened by how we exercise our power. Maybe you can say, maybe we can, maybe we can‟t, but I guess you can say that I have mixed thoughts about that. But I think if you understand what makes people feel like they don‟t have a place, and give people a place, that its easier for us to live together.

HM: Do you think that view was influenced by the „60‟s? By your “young adult” life? Meisel 42

PH: I think that view was influenced by many things. I think, more important than the

„60‟s, I think it was influenced by the Holocaust and World War II. I said before, I don‟t think you can lay the blame for bad things that happened on exercise of American power,

Many people would say, “oh you‟re blaming the United States!” And I don‟t think that‟s true. In the same way, I wouldn‟t excuse the Nazi‟s for what they did, but I can understand that the way the world handled Germany and the vanquished. After World

War I, helped to create the environment so that the Nazi‟s were possible. And that‟s part of what happened. Coming out of World War I, and the defeat of the German powers in

World War I, it didn‟t give a place for the Germans and the Austrians, and tried to punish them. And I think that kind of way of dealing with the vanquished, not a generous way, was the kind of thing that contributed to the rise of Nazism. And then my family suffered from that. Its not blaming so much, as the powers created Nazi Germany, but they did establish an environment that made that possible. So I think that‟s important, understanding the concept of how bad things arise. So your question about how bad things have arisen, I think more bad things arise from the imbalance in how we manage power, than from patience in people and the suggestion is that in the sixties, we just gave too much patience to people, that we gave too much freedom to people. I think it‟s a question of balance, and its not just, do we give freedom to people, its, do we give people a place. Its, can you give people an investment in the world and in their culture? And it‟s the same kinds of things we face today. Do people from third world countries feel like they have a place in the world? And we need to provide a place in the world, because when we don‟t provide a place in the world for other people, what we‟re going to do is Meisel 43 we‟re going to punish them, and we set ourselves up to be the person punishing them, and the person they have to attack so that they can get their place in the world. And its come full circle, we‟re back to where we were.

HM: Do you think that in the „60‟s, especially Woodstock, that there was a lot of political feeling to the places you were? I read Michael Lang‟s book, and he said that they tried to keep it less focused on politics and more focused on music. But do you think that politics found a way in? And that you talked politics with a lot of people?

PH: Yeah, I don‟t think I talked politics so much with people during the three days of the concert, but Country Joe McDonald was not to be ignored. (laughs) I mean, look how it began! It began with Ritchie Havens singing “Handsome Johnny,” that was an anti-war song. That‟s how it began. That was the opening act in the concert. It certainly had sort of an, underlying theme, but people didn‟t walk around talking trash about the war and talking about peace, they talked about peace and love but it was probably more around love (laughs) than peace and love! That was an important underlying theme, but people weren‟t talking politics in the concert.

HM: I figured. Were there any other anti-war acts that you remember, like musical acts that you remember? There was Ritchie Havens, there was Country Joe and the Fish, the fish cheer, did you see Joan Baez?

Meisel 44

PH: Yeah, I‟m not remembering, we saw her but I don‟t remember her. I mean, its not standing out. I‟m sure that Crosby, Stills, and Nash would have sang, “If you can‟t be with the one you love, love the one you‟re with,” that‟s kind of a peace song, I guess.

Nothing stands out, I guess, but again, its an underlying theme for a lot of the music.

HM: There was this quote, from this movie [Woodstock movie] that actually really stood out in my mind. Wavy Gravy, you know him? He comes up on stage, and he says, “what we have in mind is bed and breakfast for 400,000!” Do you remember that?

PH: I do remember it, but I don‟t remember if that‟s a memory I actually remember or if its one that‟s a created memory from having heard it so many times.

HM: Does it resonate with you though?

PH: Sure!

HM: Does it make sense to you? That mindset?

PH: Oh yeah!

HM: I have this picture. I found this in a book that this guy…

PH: Oh that would be Max Yasgur! (Appendix 1) Meisel 45

HM: You recognize the picture?

PH: Its familiar to me, I don‟t know.

HM: I just thought it was a really interesting picture, and was wondering if you had any thoughts on it, basically.

PH: Well, you know, it seems like he was a pretty interesting guy. He saw an opportunity with this thing that, he could make a little killing, and I think that he could have done that in many ways. One of the ways he did was with a lot of patience and interest in the kids.

It was like he engaged himself in it as well. In this picture, I see him joining in. He was a real adult, and he could have just stepped back from it, but he participated. Here‟s this guy, who had this on his property and it sounded like he thought, these people want to have a concert, they should be able to have a concert! I think he liked the people. So I guess that‟s some reaction to it.

HM: This is my last question. Is there anything I failed to ask you that is essential to the understanding of Woodstock?

PH: You know, there‟s probably other things we could have talked about.

HM: Does anything come to mind? Meisel 46

PH: We touched on some things before, I think that what‟s important is to have the big picture in mind. The event was an event, not a part of day-to-day living. If you think about it as representing how people can get along together, maybe it‟s symbolic of that.

But it is important to remember that is an event; an event isn‟t day-to-day living. What‟s important is, how can we have peace and love in day to day, not as a three-days of peace and love, but always have peace and love. So, understanding Woodstock, is understanding that it was an event. And if you think about, “well can we have the „60‟s again,” well we don‟t want to have the „60‟s again! Or the „70‟s. Fifty years from now we want a way to live together with peace and love, with an enriched sense of who you are, with everybody being able to participate in their culture, in their government, in the environment, that that‟s what important, that everyone have place. And that doesn‟t mean that there won‟t be problems out there, there are going to be people who are going to be destructive no matter what you‟ve got, but all balanced. If people have place and a sense of respect and participation in the culture, that things will be better. I guess what‟s missing now is the fear, I guess people are afraid of losing things that are more representative than are essential to a full life. It‟s this idea that possession of things, gives us a full life. Its not the possession of things that gives us a full life, it‟s our connection with other people that give us a full life. So, if what you have is three days of people being connected to one another, it‟s a representation, it‟s not reality.

HM: You mentioned, that this didn‟t really represent everyday life, what was everyday life? How were your living conditions? Meisel 47

PH: In everyday life?

HM: Uhuh.

PH: Well, everyday life, there was a sense of fear. That sense of fear had to do with many things. It had to do with a war, it had to do with a threat to a culture that people who weren‟t fully a part of their culture, were now wanting to be a part of their culture, wanting to determine their place in the culture. So this included, not only the people who already had their due, but it included others. It included people of color, it included women, it included gay people, some of that is still controversial. Everyone will say, “oh we want to give people of color a place,” but I‟m not sure how comfortable we are doing that today. We may be able to give people with different color skin a place, but we‟ve got questions. Are we willing to give people of different belief systems a place? So, is it okay to be a Muslim in America? Or, is it okay to be a Muslim in the rest of the world?

There‟s still some struggle about that. So you asked what the environment as like then, what day-to-day life was like then, there was excitement, but there also was fear. There was fear that you were going to be sent off to either sacrifice your life or kill somebody else. There was fear that, what you had, you being the general population, was going to be taken away because women were going to demand a place at the table, and our life isn‟t going to be determined by a guy telling us what we can do, it was that people of color had their place to have what everybody else had. Before, the culture that existed was protected, it had what it had and it wasn‟t going to be threatened by other people Meisel 48 taking it away. Now, there was some threat to that. So, I think there was a lot of fear. And those were parts of the things that people were afraid of.

HM: Were you living at school during this time? Or did you live with a group of people, were you living at home?

PH: In the Fall semester at of, say ‟68 or ‟69, I was living up at school. Then in the winter-spring semester, I had moved down to New York City with Pam, so we were living in Jackson Heights, and then returned back up to Wallkill that following Fall.

HM: At the time, did you know about the concert? About he actual site of the festival and how it got moved from Wallkill?

PH: Yeah, you‟d hear that stuff. I mean, we didn‟t go to Wallkill because that‟s where the concert was going to be, we went to Wallkill because there was an apartment available and it was eight miles out of New Paultz. It was just a convenient place to rent, it was just a nice place that we could get.

HM: Would you like to add anything else before I –

PH: Add anything else! Probably a million things. You could get me to talk forever. But nothing, I guess, nothing else. Meisel 49

Time Indexing Recording Log

1. Interviewer: Hannah Meisel

2. Interviewee: Philip I. Haber

3. Date of Interview: January 3, 2009

4. Location of Interview: Mr. Haber‟s Home

5. Recording format: Audio – Digital and CD

Minute Topics presented in order of discussion in recording Mark 5 Biography, Places he lived 10 Getting to Woodstock, Education 15 Favorite Acts at Woodstock 20 Wallkill, Interaction with townspeople, William Arbussi 25 Connections with the audience, Security 30 Altamont concert, Seeing an Elvis Presley movie when he was younger 35 Celebrities, Timothy Leary, New Paultz college 40 Anti-War movements, Family: World War II, Holocaust 45 Vietnam War 50 Woodstock Poster 55 Different musical tastes from then and now 60 Did parents judge your music? 65 Holocaust, World War II 70 Woodstock Conversations – What did people talk about?

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Interview Analysis

Analysis Paper

The Woodstock festival in 1969 was the epitome of sixties culture. The current events, music, and drugs of the hippie culture still influence American society today. In my oral history interview with Philip Haber, we discussed the importance of Woodstock from an eyewitness‟s view. After a lengthy interview, it became clear that my interviewee‟s experience reinforces both my extensive research into the famous

Woodstock festival and the importance of oral history to help explain the past.

According to answers.com, oral history is defined as “the recording, preservation and interpretation of historical information, based on the personal experiences and opinions of the speaker.” Others, like the historian Donald Ritchie, more personally describe oral history as “memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews.” Though the traditional way to learn is from a textbook or other form of secondary source, oral history sources could be a much more positive experience in the classroom because of the connection each story has. In a textbook, the moment in time feels unreal because of the lack of emotion breathed into it, while in an interview; one can feel the interviewee‟s memories and understand the event on a deep, personal level. A traditional source gives the reader a very brief, concrete understanding of some occurrence, very convenient for classroom learning, but oral history gives the student a much more interesting summary of information, which can be fascinating because it gives the perspective of people who actually lived in a time when something significant happened. Oral history has its downsides too; for example, having only accounts from eyewitnesses of significant and possibly controversial events could result Meisel 51 in slightly different interpretations of what really occurred. Also, to fully comprehend a subject in which a student is studying, it is vital to understand the event from all sides, from all points of view in order to understand the situation fully. In some ways, oral history is a more useful way to teach students about history, because of its first hand accounts, but a more traditional way of learning is more suitable for a quick understanding of the subject at hand.

During the St. Andrew‟s Oral History Project, my schoolmates tested the limits of oral history and its capabilities to help others understand a specific event. The topic I chose, the Woodstock festival in 1969, was one of the most intriguing events in modern history because of the fascinating culture revolving around the late sixties. My interviewee, Philip Haber, graciously answered all of my questions with obvious dedication and love of the era, giving me a profound look into the vibe of the festival.

Mainly, the interview consisted of the two of us discussing our favorite music at

Woodstock, the difference between Woodstock and everyday sixties life, and how Mr.

Haber felt about change in the world, influenced by his sixties lifestyle. My research misled me to believe that people lived in a peaceful, carefree environment all the time, which I learned was not necessarily true. Mr. Haber stressed that Woodstock was “an event, not a part of day-to-day living. If you think about it as representing how people can get along together, maybe it‟s symbolic of that. But it is important to remember that is an event; an event isn‟t day-to-day living” (qtd. in Meisel 34). We went on to talk about the significance of Woodstock and how it represented peace and love in the world, but could not achieve it because Woodstock was not a sustained effort, not something that people had been working towards for years, directly stated by Philip Haber in our personal Meisel 52 interview when he said, “I think a sustained effort at creating change is what makes things possible. So three days won‟t do it! But a sustained effort to bring about change will. So that‟s, that‟s kind of my whole point” (qtd. in Meisel 23). Mr. Haber fully stressed this point because it is something that many people have misconceptions about.

In many ways, my personal interview with Mr. Haber enlightened me more than the traditional sources I read about Woodstock. As an interview would, talking personally with Mr. Haber created a more intense learning environment that, as well as giving me a textbook version about the event, also gave me a personal perspective with anecdotes because the interview was from an actual witness. It was also helpful to have some background on the person, which constitutes the first part of my interview, because by the end, the interviewee would have revealed personal views about himself that would make more sense if you had background on the subject. For instance, Mr. Haber discussed his childhood and how his family moved all over the world at various points in his life; to further explain how this affected him, he said that he was “used to change. Having lived overseas, it had a dramatic influence over me. So that I think I have a greater tolerance for other people, for different cultures than maybe some other people who haven‟t had that experience” (qtd. in Meisel 3). This quote implies why Mr. Haber may have been more inclined to embrace the far-left hippie culture in the 60‟s, while in a textbook, it simply states that people embraced the culture without a reason why. Even in Michael

Lang‟s autobiography, The Road To Woodstock, there is a less than adequate reason for the liberated way of living except for the rebellion against the 1950‟s conformity, “The counterculture was developing of what had been the Beat era, becoming the folk scene. It was inspiring being among photographers and painters, as well as fringe people and Meisel 53 outsiders, pursuing their interests rather than marching in time with the status quo” (Lang

14). Both the interview and the published autobiography depict the same basic reason for revolting against conformity, yet the personal interview allows the interviewer to connect with the interviewee‟s ideas and not have the concepts set out in front of them.

This project really illuminated the perception of Woodstock and the late sixties counter culture for me, as I had false conceptions about the festival before conducting this interview. Originally, I thought that Woodstock was a life-changing event, not just for the people who attended, but also for the world, but talking to a person who attended made the event seem low key and down-to-earth. Historically, I feel that this interview would be useful if somebody felt they needed to compile information about Woodstock.

Though in every interview the interviewee will have some bias, I did not feel that Mr.

Haber let his opinions completely affect the historical accuracy of our interview. I didn‟t necessarily conduct the interview in the best way possible, but considering this was the first one I‟ve ever conducted, I‟m proud of it. Making a connection with Mr. Haber, doing good research and typing up the transcript were strengths of mine because I‟ve always been good with talking to people and I don‟t tend to procrastinate on my schoolwork. If I could have done anything differently, I would have tried harder to think of good follow-up questions and I would have prepared more with my regular questions so that when I read them I wouldn‟t say “um” or have false starts to my sentences.

Overall, the interview was a very informative success that could add to other‟s knowledge of Woodstock.

This unique oral history project tested the limits of my intellect as a student as well as social skills. In the writing aspects of the project, time management was crucial, Meisel 54 as we had many deadlines to meet and a lot of sometimes, tedious, work to do. In a social sense, students learned to create rapport with someone we barely knew, and were required to generate good, thoughtful questions to further the interview. Another lesson worth learning was how to work a voice recorder, which I presume will be useful in the future. This project‟s essentials included all of these things, which made it a learning experience for everyone.

The Saint Andrew‟s oral history project gives a student the opportunity to get to know an important aspect of history in every way possible. Oral history is such a fascinating way to learn about a subject, especially because of the personal setting one can learn about it in. Philip Haber‟s experience in Woodstock showed that the research I did was correct in most aspects of the culture during that time. Woodstock was a statement of peace and love that is an important part of sixties culture. This project helped me to deeply understand the significance of Woodstock and the impact it had on the culture in later generations. Meisel 55

Appendix 1

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Works Consulted

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