A Conversation with Elizabeth
2017
Re: Woodstock

From:           Elizabeth 
To:             Larry
Sent:           Monday, March 6, 2017 12:22 PM
Subject:        Re: Remembering
 
Hello Larry,
 
I almost missed your email, which brings me to something I wanted to do anyway.  The email address for me you're using right now is the very first one I got back in the 90s.  The in-box over time has gotten very flooded with various things I've subscribed to.  You are the only person right now who writes to me with this address.   My out-of-state friends are now using a different email address I set up when I was sending out alot of resumes (I also thought dampsparrow didn't look like a "professional" address to be using).  I do try to scan through the many irrelevant messages at dampsparrow to make sure I don't miss anything from you, but today your message was buried in a gazillion others!
 
Please switch to this address at some point:  Elizabeth  Thanks!
 
About your question--I'm a bit curious why you asked, but I went to what is known as the "Atlanta Pop Festival, not Woodstock, which was in 1969.  I hadn't graduated from U of F yet, as I graduated in June 1970.  The "Atlanta Pop Festival" I went to was actually in Byron, GA, not actually Atlanta.  It was held July 4th (weekend?) when I had graduated, but was still living in Gainesville.  Also, technically I went to the 2nd Atlanta Pop Festival, because there was one the year before in 1969.  It too was outside, not actually in Atlanta.  They were very much like Woodstock though!
 
A few years back  while messing around on the internet, I discovered tons of pictures which someone had posted for Atlanta 70.  I looked all through them looking for myself or my friends who I went with, but I didn't spot myself!  I hate that I didn't try to download the pictures though, because later some of them were taken down.  I also read that a film was being made or had been made about the festival, but I couldn't track one down.  I forgot all about it, but then, just last year I found that a DVD had been made in 2015 of Jimi Hendrix's performance there, and that the DVD was supposed to also contain footage of the festival itself.  I bought the DVD in June 2016, but, for whatever reasons, I haven't sat down to watch it yet. [The DVD is Jimi Hendrix Experience:  Electric Church:  Atlanta Pop Festival July 4, 1970 and I got it through Amazon.]
 
Anyway, just prior to graduating I had been active in some Vietnam war protests on campus, and a hunger strike.  After graduation, I decided to stay in Gainesville because some of my friends from the protests were going in on renting a huge house just off campus.  I don't know what Gainesville looks like now, but if you remember the strip which ran across campus, and then if you remember Krispy Kreme donuts was across from Capt. Louie's.  Our house was back in that area.  Someone nicknamed it the "Farkle House."   It had about seven private spaces that could be used for bedrooms.  My room was private, with a private entrance, although connected to the main house with another door.  I shared a bathroom that was between my bedroom and another bedroom on the other side of the bathroom.   It was 35/month for my share!
 
Several of the people who had been involved in the protests were connected to the Chemistry Department.  I think once on Facebook I tried to ask you Father about them, because over time I've forgotten their last names.  Some of them lived in the house with me. Linda, one woman involved in the protests, who was a doctoral student in chemistry, and whose last name I've forgotten, decided she wanted to go to the festival!
 
Linda had a huge Mercedes that would seat about six.  So we went!  I rode with her, as did Luke, also from the chemistry departmeny. 'm sure your father must have known both Linda and Luke.  Luke had shoulder length gorgeous hair and worked in the chemistry lab in some capacity.  Another man named Lowell, who was a graduate student in another department rode with us.  There may have been one other person in the car, but I can't remember exactly.  One of our group must have taken another car, because three or so other friends were there with us.  I don't think we could all fit in the Mercedes!
 
Anyway, I think it was one of the most incredible experiences to have participated in!  The most awesome parts were late at night--recall this was July 4th--when Jimi Hendrix came out and played "The Star Spangled Banner."  One woman who went with us had gotten so drugged out of her mind that she had crashed in one of our tents, but when he started playing I went and got her and dragged her out and said, "You have to watch and see this."   One other memorable experience was Richard Havens playing "Here Comes the Sun" around sunrise.  It was hot as hell, and water and showers were in short supply.  Some church group came out with water coolers, BUT would only give you water if you took one of their Bible tracts.  Very Christian ha!  Down the road was a huge pond area, not quite a lake but pretty big and lots of people went down there and started swimming in the nude!  Then, all the "rednecks" came out and were lining the road in their pickup trucks to watch the nude swimmers.  One of the woman with us was Jeanne or Jennifer and she was very buxom with long blond hair.  We were trying to get back to camp when some rednecks, who had their eye on us (more likely her!) offered to give some of us a lift in their truck bed.  I said "no way!"  But she jumped right in, and the truck whizzed away, and some of us stood there wondering if we would ever see her again.
 
On the way back, we were grungy as hell, and we stopped in one of the state parks in FL--one with a river and swimming--but I don't recall which park it was--Blue Springs? or Ichnetucknee?  We piled out of the car in the swimming area, and WITHOUT even thinking we started pulling off our clothes in the parking lot. We didn't have swim suits. Then OMG!  We realized we were getting quite a few stares and my friend Lowell said, "I guess we're back in the real world." 
 
I was very sad to find out that my dear friend Lowell died a few years back.  I had tried and tried to track him down, but when I finally did, I found he had died, after teaching I think community college in and around Gainesville for a long time.  He was gay.
 
Back home, Linda got accepted into a post-doc position up in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Luke was very emotionally close to her, although I never knew what their exact relationship was.  When Linda left, he stayed behind, and that night he cried and cried and cried.  I remember just sitting with him in his bedroom on the edge of the bed, trying to console him.  Linda and Luke were not young--maybe close to 30 or so.  Linda begged me to move to Ann Arbor!  She said that academically it would be a very good move for me.  She even offered to let me stay free in her house or apartment up there IF I would enroll in graduate school.  It may have been one of the false turns in my life, that I did not take her up on the offer.  But, who can say?  I wouldn't have met you, for example, had I gone, but then on the other hand I never would have met asshole Fred, who I wasted precious life time with, going in abusive circles. 
 
I've tried to track Linda down many times but failed, and also some other people from our time together as well.  The only one I ever found was Lowell, but after he died.  I was very saddened about that.  It may be one reason why I've never sat down to actually watch the DVD.  It brings back too much nostalgia for friends of long ago.  I imagine Linda and Luke, are pushing 80 now, if still alive.
 
I wanted to ask you more about your decision to move to Gainesville.  I know you've visited it many times, and it is home and family to you, but it has changed.  I told you that nostalgically I'm drawn back there, because in some senses it was a home and family--but family of friends.  But all that is long gone.  I read on the G'ville Sun facebook page that the "old town" is rapidly disappearing, and it is very congested and everything is commercialized.  I still go into swings back and forth about whether to stay where I'm at or decide to move.  Is Gainesville the only place you've considered.  And why would you want to leave Reston.  I guess you could do yoga anywhere, but isn't your daughter still there, and up there you are close to so much to do, and close to a major airport.  Oh well--just curious about your decision, as I'm having some gyrations back and forth about trying to make one myself.  Approaching 70 (although I have a few years to go yet) is "interesting."  You do have the benefit of being younger, and definitely having (probably) a high resale value for your place in Reston, which I do not here.
 
Anyway, sorry for writing a book in reply to a one or two sentence email!
 
I'll see if I can find links to the festival pictures online.  Some stayed up, some didn't.
 
Elizabeth

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