Remembering the spirit of Woodstock

Woodstock’s spirit of community is the event’s greatest legacy, more so even than the music made there.

It’s been a big year for anniversary commemorations thanks to the incredibly momentous year that was 1969. Just this summer Americans have marked the 50th anniversaries of the moon landing, New York’s Stonewall riots that launched the gay rights movement, and now Woodstock, the music festival that many believe defined a generation.

There’s no denying that much of the attention these anniversaries are receiving is driven by Americans’ insatiable thirst for nostalgia. Especially in these turbulent times, remembering when is irresistible.

But when it comes to 1969, it requires some effort to focus solely on the good times. It was part of a period of great conflict within America and around the world. Even the moon landing — perhaps the brightest major event of that year — took place in the context of the Cold War.

The uprising at New York’s Stonewall Inn, a nightspot popular with the gay community, was prompted by a police raid. Harassment of the gay community by law enforcement and others was all too common back then. The same could be said of how we treat racial minorities and women, who also were fighting for equality in 1969.

That brings us to Woodstock. The event, which took place 50 years ago this week, is widely regarded as a symbol of a generation’s hopes and dreams. What went on during those momentous four days in upstate New York is burned into the popular imagination.

Even those not old enough to have lived through that time most likely have a strong impression of what it was like thanks to the film and album that captured the event.

There were the legendary musical performances by some of the greatest stars of the era. Hippies frolicking in the mud. A traffic disaster as more than 400,000 people descended on a tiny town in the Catskill Mountains. Rampant drug use.

Perhaps the warmest memories of Woodstock were of a group of strangers forming into a community, somehow coping as one crisis followed another. And how nearby townspeople who had nothing in common with the festival-goers rallied around the event and worked to alleviate problems there.

Even the Army helped out at this decidedly anti-war event, dispatching helicopters there to deliver supplies and provide medical assistance.

But recalling Woodstock also forces us to acknowledge that the world those hundreds of thousands of people envisioned did not come to pass. The succeeding 50 years did not bring a new era of peace. Even the participants’ goal of ending the Vietnam War proved frustratingly elusive.

What followed Woodstock was a series of dismaying events, including the infamous music festival later that year at Altamont Speedway in California. Unlike Woodstock, that event became best known for being a scene of deaths, injuries and numerous crimes. Turmoil regarding the Vietnam War only grew, culminating in the deaths of four student protesters at Ohio’s Kent State University in 1970.

At least in the public imagination, the 1960s was a decade that began with high hopes and was marked by idealism, especially among the young men and women of the baby boom who were coming of age then. The reality, of course, was far more complex. But it’s difficult to dispute that the decades that followed hardly lived up to the promise of the Age of Aquarius. One conflict keeps following another, here and around the world, to this very day.

So what lessons can we glean today from Woodstock?

After all, watching the footage from the festival gives the distinct impression that it took place in a very different world from the one in which we’re living today.

But the “peace and love” ethos that guided so many of the people there still has great value. Perhaps individuals can do more to at least keep that in mind in their interpersonal relationships.

At Woodstock people shared a most memorable experience together in close proximity, leaving a legacy that has endured for 50 years. In today’s world people are not together nearly enough. Too many folks are trapped in a bubble created by phone and computer screens.

Woodstock’s spirit of community is the milestone event’s greatest legacy, more so even than the legendary music made there.

Let’s all work to renew it.