In 1969 few people carried cameras with them. It wasn't like now, when everyone carries a camera in their phone. Though there were tons of photos of Woodstock, I've never seen myself or my friends in any of them. Actually Paul and I were at Hendrix's Woodstock performance, stage left, not far from the front.

We should be in this photo, unless it was taken after we retreated in order to protect our ears from the unbelievable volume.

At the time, Paul looked like this, more or less.

I think I see him.

Same guy, right?

The long lost photo evidence of Andy and Paul at Woodstock finally uncovered

Ok. Maybe that isn't very convincing.

Paul replies: Nah, not me. Don't think we were up quite so close.

But I panned back a bit and I think I found us in the attached blow up.

Check it out...

Now that 50 years has passed and any statute of limitations has expired, and I'm retired and don't care what any potential employer might find out about my colorful past, I decided to post my personal recollections.

The summer I graduated high school, 3 friends and I headed out on a 7 week bicycle/camping adventure. We went to Newport Road Island, Boston Mass, across Connecticut and Massachusetts and finally to White Lake, New York for the Woodstock music festival. Primarily we biked from campground to campground, carrying all of our equipment. On occasion we couldn't make it to the next campground. Once we stopped in a police station and asked if we could stay in their jail. The answer was 'no'. So we pushed on down the road until we came to a graveyard. We spent the night there. Another time camped on a ballfield behind a school. The townies caught wind that we were there and they drove their cars up on the field, right at us. We didn't know if they saw us and were afraid they'd run us over. They just wanted to scare us. Other times people would take us in for the night, or for a meal. Some old folks said we looked like Jesus, and they felt the need to feed us or give us something to drink. The hardest day's ride was in the Berkshire Mountains. Uphill all day, for 8 miles. At the end of the day we decided to treat ourselves to a restaurant meal. The other diners had seen our struggles when driving past us during the day. Someone sent over a desert for us. If I recall, someone else paid for our meal. It was a coming of age adventure. By the time we arrived at Woodstock, we were scruffy, seasoned campers with a good story to tell.

That bike trip ended abruptly when Paul decided to cross the road for no obvious reason. He was hit by a car. His handlebar went through the car's front headlight! No damage to Paul, but the bike was toast. As I recall, we went to Kenny's friends house, in Liberty NY. When his dad got tired of us, we went to my friend Kal's house in Monroe NY for a couple of days. After his Dad got tired of our hair clogging up his swimming pool we went to my cousin's house in Spring Valley. My Aunt and Uncle were so nice to let 3 vagabonds sleep in their basement. We stayed there for a few days before hitching to Woodstock (which isn't really upstate NY...of course in those days, anything north of the city was upstate to us).

As a result, we ended up at the concert site about a full week before the concert. That really was the nicest time. It wasn't too crowded and it was easy to meet up with fellow hippies, sit down with them, share a meal, a joint and interesting stories. With our 6 weeks of biking, we had lots of authentic adventures to recount.

We bought food supplies when we first arrived at Woodstock, but after a few more days we could tell it might get crowded. So we went back and bought lots more. Later, when others ran out of food, we had plenty to share. Eventually we gave it all away. I remember eating quite a few meals at the hog farm area. They were a helpful and friendly bunch. Though the place turned into quite a mess, I never felt on the verge of starvation or any other sort of disaster.

We were accomplished campers by then. If the sky looked clear, we'd lay out the tarps and sleep under the stars. Big mistake. We should have grabbed a tree our first night there and set up a lean-to. But we didn't realize that big field would be overrun by city slickers in the next few days. By the time it started raining, there wasn't a tree available for a lean-to. After it poured we spent a very unpleasant night sleeping in a wet, cold sleeping bag. I remember sitting by the fire, unsuccessfully trying to dry out the sleeping bag, inch by inch.

I refer to the late arrivals as 'city slickers' because after it rained, and everything was soaked, the hoards didn't understand they could not start a fire by taking wet wood and soaking it with lighter fluid. As a result, there was a haze of lighter fluid fumes that hung over the camping area.

We watched the stage get built. I remember thinking there were no fences and there wasn't going to be time to put them up. In fact, they never did get those fences built. We didn't have tickets when we arrived and we didn't intend to buy any. But we decided to buy tix at the concert site when we realized the place might be overrun. We bought them in person at the site, the day before the concert. Those tickets never did get used. I still have mine. There's a photo of them below.

For the first day of the actual concert, we got to the middle of the main field. By the time the music got started, it was so packed with people that going to the bathroom was a major endeavor. We did that once or twice before abandoning that spot many hours later. Even though it was crowded, our neighbors were friendly and generous.

During the 2nd day of the concert, standing by the road listening to music when a fellow starts hawking acid. "Get your brown dot acid here". Like he was selling cotton candy at a baseball game. We cracked up. We'd never seen anything like that before, or since. After an hour or so of listening to him, and chatting with him, we started doing the chant ourselves. Of course we didn't have anything to sell, so we sent any customers to him. By the end of the day we had sent enough business his way, that he gave us each a hit for ourselves.

I also remember sleeping in that open field where we layed down our tarp a week earlier, and having someone walk right over me. As he stumbled away, I heard him say "I think I might have just stepped on someone". Yeah, that was me he might have walked on. The next night, when we took that hit of acid and I was wandering around in the dark, I understood what that dude who walked over me felt like. It was dark and trippy. I couldn't tell what I was walking on. I hope I didn't step on anybody. That was the same night we heard the Beatles cover band "Quarry" playing away from the main stage. They were so good, and our vision was blurry. We thought they actually might be the Beatles. During that concert someone was sending up fireworks over the crowd. I wondered what sort of idiot would send up fireworks directly over a crowd. That made me sort of nervous, but no fire rained down on us. The bummer for me that night was that I lost a filling. I guess the summer on the road took a toll on my teeth. That was painful...not wonderful for an acid trip.

This photo is me shortly after arriving home. After 6 weeks of biking, I was in great shape.

I wish I had taken a picture of my legs as well.

Paul had some questions for me. I'll answer them here:

When did it start raining? How long did it rain? I don't think it rained until Saturday or Sunday. I only recall one day of rain. But that was enough to soak us.

What did we do (if anything) to stay dry? I have a good story there. I left the immediate concert site as it started to rain. I think I was on my way back to our campsite in a hopeless attempt to rescue our exposed sleeping bags. It started to pour and I was not near the campsite but I found an empty 1 person tent near the path. Me and someone I was next to popped in that unoccupied tent to keep dry. She said she was a runaway named Dica (acid spelled backwards). No, she wasn't 14. She was a little younger than I was. She also said she had clap. But that didn't stop horny young me from taking part in some memorable safe sex. I was still a virgin and any sex was going to be memorable even if I was still a virgin when it was over. I don't know where my biking buddies were at the time. I think Johnny Winter or Crosby, Stills and Nash were playing and they sounded great.

Did we have any shelter or just our sleeping bags on a tarp? Tarp on the ground, sleeping bags on top. That worked fine until the hordes arrived and it started to rain. Then I remember sitting around the fire all night, holding a small patch of the sleeping bag to the fire and trying to dry it. That didn't work too well.

Do you remember getting any sleep? We didn't sleep the night it rained, but the other nights, other than being walked on, we did get some sleep.

Do you recall what groups we missed while trying to sleep or hanging out in the camping area? I think we missed a lot of groups as I see the program and don't remember Grateful Dead being there...others too. What's more important is who I do remember: Crosby Stills and Nash were great, Johnny Winter was great (especially after Newport where he and BB King jammed and their styles simply didn't mesh.) Richie Havens, Sha Na Na (who were unknown until then), Joe Cocker, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, and Jimi Hendrix...who was so freekin' loud that I had to leave my coveted spot right by the stage. We were by the stage because by Monday morning it wasn't very crowded. You know it had to be excruciatingly loud because I was a huge Hendrix fan. I was right up front, and I had to move away. It was easy to hear him from the nearby woods with less ear damage.

Were we able to hear the music from the area we were camping? I remember hearing music from the wooded area, but I'm not sure that's where we were camping. We couldn't hear the music well if we could hear it at all. We had to move closer to hear better. Do you remember the big boulders we had to walk over at night to get to the camping area? Some genious figured out that the area was dangerous and we needed lights. So they put up floodlights and aimed them at eye level. The result was you were blinded when walking over the dangerous rocks at night.

I recall eating a concoction of oats, nuts, and dried fruit dished out for free out of large barrels by the Hog Farm onto paper plates. Do you remember what else they served? I recall it was healthy stuff. I don't recall what exactly, though we ate quite a few meals there. I do recall we stocked up on food once the crowds started arriving. We knew how to feed ourselves by that point. I also remember that we shared that food and others shared with us. We weren't hungry ever. The guy who's store we purchased the food at is in the movie. I recognized him, and his store when I saw the movie...49 years ago. I guess its time to watch again.

Those are my vivid and not so vivid memories of the time at Woodstock. I'd have to say I covered all the bases to make it a true Woodstock experience. I wanted to get this written down to add my story to the 'historical record'.

Here are Paul's Woodstock recollections of our time together