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Eyewitness to History: student writing contest winners
Current Events, May 6, 2005
Peace, man! Two music lovers chill on a bus at Woodstock in 1969. CE reader Cailyn Kelly got the inside scoop on what it was like to attend the concert.
History is more than just dates and places. It is the story of ordinary peopleliving through extraordinary events. This year's wining Eyewitness to History Contest entries are no exception. In them, a former hippie recalls watching Janis Joplin sing at Woodstock, a veteran describes chilling images of the Vietnam war, and a nurse recounts her role in the world's second successful infant heart transplant.
Although we received hundreds of impressive entries, these three interviews stood out because of their candid descriptions and unique perspectives. Enjoy.
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Woodstock Three Days of Peace and Music
by Cailyn Kelly South Paprk Middle School, South Park, Pa.
Imagine if all of your favorite musicians got together for a gigantic outdoor concert. That's what happened to Robert Foster on Aug. 15, 1969, when some of the decade's most famous bands headed to upstate New York for Woodstock, a three-day festival celebrating peace and music. Cailyn Kelly interviewed Foster to find out what it was like to attend one of the grooviest concerts in history.
Q: How did you first hear about Woodstock?
A: Well, I was a hippie. I played folk music in a coffeehouse ... with my band, and someone put up a poster saying there was going to be an arts festival and rock concert in New York.
Q: Whom did you go with and how did you get there?
A: The folk group I played with consisted of three guys and two girls. Howie ("Buck"), Phil ("Slick"), and I ("Bear") decided to make the trip.... We ... loaded [my car] with food and blankets and started out on our trip.
Concertgoers walk through the crowd to get closer to the stage at Woodstock, a three-day music festival in upstate New York. About half a million people attended. At right, Jimi Hendrix wows the crowd with a song.
Q: How many people went to the concert?
A: The concert promoters expected 50,000 people total, but by Saturday afternoon about a half million people were there. The concert was held on a big farm. There were so many people arriving so quickly that the people in charge couldn't keep up with selling tickets, so it became a free concert. People just kept pouring in.
Q: When did you get there?
A: We left early Thursday morning and arrived that afternoon, and they were still setting up.... We parked in a field about 25 miles from the concert and walked.... [Police] actually closed some major roads because people were just parking their cars on the highway and leaving them.
Q: Where did everyone wash up?
A: There was a lake, I think they called it White Lake ... where everyone bathed. By the time we were done, they could have called it Mud Lake!
Q: What was the average age of the people at the concert?
A: The youngest person I met there was a newborn baby, and the oldest was a 92-year-old man. Most people were around 18 years old. I was 20 at the time.
Q: Where did you sleep?
A: We took blankets and just lay on the ground. It rained a lot ... so we spent a lot of time hanging in people's tents. The people there were amazing. They shared everything, including their tents and their food.
Q: What bands played?
A: Oh, my garsh! There were too many to remember. Every happening band was there. ... Janis Joplin shined. She was the queen of the show. Howie and I climbed a speaker tower to see her perform. She sang "Take a Piece of My Heart" and "Try Just a Little Bit Harder." I'll
We [also] saw Jimi Hendrix; ... Creedence Clearwater [Revival]; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; The Who; Blood, Sweat, and Tears; and the Grateful Dead.
Q: What band, in your opinion, had the best performance?
A: There was no best. Everyone was excellent. There was music coming out of these people that we never heard before. So many songs were born during that concert.
Q: Were there a lot of problems at Woodstock?
A: Surprisingly, no. Considering all the different groups of people, things were pretty calm.... The police tried to control drug use, but when they would arrest [people], they would put them into this little trailerlike thing, [and] we would just open the back window and let them out. Those are some memories of that weekend that I will never in my life forget.
Conclusion: I learned that Woodstock was the greatest concert ever held. There will only be one Woodstock ever. That concert was really the turning point of music. And back then, the musicians didn't play for the money; they played because they loved to perform. Woodstock was the best rock concert ever. Everyone will always remember when music played for three days straight for everyone to hear.
Vietnam War A Living Nightmare
by Samantha Delaney Corunna High School, Corunna, Mich.
In the 1960s and '70s, the United States sent millions of young men to fight in the Vietnam War (1964-1973). The United States feared that if Communist North Vietnam con quered South Vietnam, communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia. North and South Vietnam agreed to a cease-fire in 1973, but the fighting quickly restarted, and the North defeated the South in 1975. Samantha Delaney interviewed her uncle Jimmy about his experience on the front line.
