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Sunday, July 31, 1994     Page: 3A QUICK WORDS: COLUMN

The beatnik within us
   
You didn’t have to go to Woodstock to be thereI’m there every day, man.
    Because I still believe in what the late Yippie political activist and
radical role model of mine Abbie Hoffman called Woodstock Nation.
   
And I don’t care who doesn’t like it.
   
That’s right.
   
I’m a 43-year-old long-haired, left-wing, 6-foot, 225-pound, liberal hippie
with an earring and a beard and I like it.
   
Conservative rich guys can kiss my peace sign.
   
Before we go any further, though, I’d like to advise many of my peers and
some older readers to stop reading. That’s right, turn the page if you don’t
want to peruse the ravings of this aging hippie who believes in peace, love
and music.
   
Straight-arrow parents might want to scan it, though, because further down
the page I’ll be telling their children something that the old folks might not
want them to know. It’s a secret passed down from me — old enough to be their
parents — to them.
   
Its wisdom will help set them free.
   
Woodstock, despite the business of music, wasn’t at all about corporate
America. In fact, most people who attended youth’s tribal gathering had little
idea what it was about. That spirit took seed there but didn’t mature until
much later.
   
Actually, I didn’t truly comprehend until I had passed 30 — the age at
which members of my generation decided an adult could no longer be trusted.
   
Teenagers rarely contemplate turning 30.
   
Twenty-five seems ancient.
   
But, come the Aug. 13 weekend, that’s how old Woodstock will be, when
dueling concerts are scheduled.
   
There’s the big millions one, which includes bands that appeal to the
younger Generation X kids and whatever it is that they represent. Then there’s
the little millions one set for the original site of the 1969 gig and its
proposed mission of renewal.
   
Tickets for the first are $135 apiece. The second one costs ninety
something.
   
he first, located 60 miles from Yasgar’s Farm where the original festival
was consecrated and a million miles from innocence, is essentially a corporate
police state whose promoters believe money can buy them love.
   
I hope it rains.
   
The event on sacred ground should be much better.
   
That’s why I’m rooting for Bethel. It’s also where I’m headed.
   
If I had grungy teenage kids that’s the one I’d advise them to attend. But
I have to admit that I’m worried. Call it tie-dyed trepidation.
   
All I want to do is park the truck, light my incense, crank up a Jefferson
Airplane tape and re-seed the counterculture.
   
I hope it’s that easy. But I doubt it.
   
America’s become a pretty dirty place.
   
Twenty-five years ago a couple hundred thousand young people traipsed into
upstate New York for three days of mud and mood music. Although most didn’t
know what they had started, they created a sacred trust to which too few of
them remain loyal.
   
Some did, though, and I hope that the parents among them raised kids who
will carry the torch.
   
By that I mean that even hip young people must become more dedicated to
freedom than their parents. They must question authority — sometimes even
defy authority in order to turn this nation, hometown by hometown, into the
fertile garden that it was always meant to be.
   
That’s what the Woodstock Nation was supposed to be all about.
   
Question war. Question greed. Question violence, discrimination and hatred.
   
Ask why.
   
Rebel. Resist.
   
Hug a Republican.
   
Okay, maybe that’s going to far, but be brave.
   
Pierce your fears as well as