The Monkey and I spent a rather long time discussing Woodstock yesterday. It’s almost unavoidable this week, what with every TV station’s obsession with revisiting it, 40th anniversary and what not. Lots of haze and mud and eyes at half mast running on a constant loop. I understand the need to commemorate, but I’m left with the sad feeling I get when I see old people doing karaoke. It’s the sense that you can’t go back, that sometimes you shouldn’t, that there are things better buried in the time capsule until a new civilization uncovers them with crude tools. Someone else already dug this one up, however, so I decided we’d might as well indulge.

Who would I have been at Woodstock? I asked him. We agreed that in all likelihood I wouldn’t have been there. I would have been at a liberal arts college in the northeast, peripherally aware of the fest further north. I would have thought those muddy four days were an excuse for hippies to get high, would have thought there were many better ways to affect change in this world, like letter writing campaigns and getting a goddamn job. Monkey of course wanted to know what I would have been wearing. I’d like to think I’d have been riding the tail end of the Jackie O. era, A lines in classic colors. Likely still a brunette, a form few of you thought existed, one I prefer to forget. I can say with some certainty I wouldn’t have been smoking at the time. I suspect I would also have had very little interest in drinking; stifle your surprise. I picture women of similar structure saving such vices for their breakdowns in the early 80s, when they realized there was more in life than the man they met freshman year and the job they fought for at IBM.

The Monkey was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been at Woodstock either, and that he would have been drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. Even the thought of it made me shudder, made me tell him that I would have packed up my small car and driven to find him, would have done whatever it took to convince him to take off for Canada with me. Would you have left your family? he asked. One can never say, but I picture a man of 6’5” living for approximately 20 minutes in that war, and I’m quite sure I would have done whatever necessary to ensure no one I loved came back in a pine box. He said he might have thought it was the right thing to do, to go, to serve, and knows his father would have wanted him to. He wondered if we would have fought about his choice. I suspect there wouldn’t have been fighting, given that I knew where to find rags and chloroform in my childhood garage. I don’t think I would have made it through losing someone I loved so young.

If we had gone to Woodstock, we decided that we’d have been a twosome that sat for hours in traffic, would possibly have foregone peace, love and happiness for the opportunity to say I TOLD YOU SO about turning right at that fork in the road. We agree I ultimately would have left the car to make friends, sharing stories about where we’d come from and taking an ungodly number of pictures of those in neighboring cars. We’d have enjoyed ourselves, but we wouldn’t have been rolling around in the mud, and there’s a distinct possibility that I would have been sober. Monkey would have been more prone to experimentation, and by Saturday afternoon he’d be twirling with arms open while I handed out apples bought at a roadside stand days before hitting town. I’d giggle at him and try to take care of those asshats who’d forgotten they’d might need to eat or who’d had a bad trip. I’d wait for Joan Baez, he for Creedence. And by Saturday night we’d have had our fill and we’d take off for Vermont. For us, it would have been a nice two days, but we’d have been happy to shower, happy to use indoor plumbing, and happier still to sleep somewhere other than a tent or converted school bus. Life would go on. And that pleases me in an odd way. I’m comforted that two days would be just that. Two of many thousands. And that 40 years later those snapshots would contribute to a much larger, richer volume of memories. After all, there’s life beyond August.