by Bob Spitz
“How about Sly?” Mel asked.
“I don’t know, man. They’re jivin’ everybody. Shit, Sly didn’t show up for his last two gigs and the promoters almost had a fuckin’ riot. Cops, dogs, the works. Who needs that kinda shit. I can just see a hundred thousand kids stormin’ the stage when we announce that Sly hadda cancel. He’s bad news.”
“But can you afford not to have him?”
Michael shook his head indecisively. “I don’t know. I wish I had some kinda guarantee that he’ll show. I’m just not sure yet.”
Lang had made splendid headway in booking the show. Like a chain reaction of egos, once a top act deemed the Aquarian Exposition a worthwhile date on its tour, those feverishly trying to hang on to celebrity begged their agents to get them on the bill. The few gaps left in the three-day extravaganza would eventually fill themselves. All Michael had to do was to sit back and wait for the phone to ring.
The most important thing now was the preening of Mills Heights. The industrial site needed a dramatic face-lift nothing short of an act of God. The staff was raring to go, but nobody had yet picked up a shovel.
Bill and Jean Ward spent hours pondering the lay of the land in an attempt to determine a starting point for their group of sculptors. During the first week in Wallkill, they took several long walks with Mel Lawrence crisscrossing the field, wandering through the woods, sitting in the orchard. They wanted to design a visionary model city. Within this city, they’d emphasize the symbols of the festival nation by creating communities: places where people ate, slept, cared for their health, performed their bodily functions and entertained themselves. Each facility built on the site somehow had to convey the message of a brotherhood working toward the common initiative of peace. At the same time, it was essential that they maintain the earth’s natural beauty. Their original concept had been to create gigantic metal sculptures such as they had done at Miami Pop. That type of art—roughhewn, fierce, and larger than life—was, however, inappropriate for Woodstock. It carried no message, instilled no feeling of tranquility; it was brash and arrogant and would only jolt the senses of those who came to unwind.
“We’ve got a terrific opportunity here,” Jean explained to the artists back at Rosenberg’s. “We can attempt to tackle something that all of us have been taught in theory but which we’ve not had access to: land and heritage. You guys saw the scenery on the way up here. This part of the country is positively beautiful. I think we should forget about sculpture and allow the land to dictate what we do.”
“It means that you’ll have to concede to us more of a responsibility in preparing the festival grounds,” Bill Ward specified to Lawrence. Likewise, the artists would be compelled to participate in interrelated, practical matters such as paving the roads, clearing brush, and excavating stone paths through the woods since every stroke would affect their finished canvas.
Bill spent several days hidden away in a corner of the field office sketching their ideas for Lawrence’s approval. Working from an aerial photograph of the field, which Mills had taken a year before, he subdivided the land into parcels, added paths, removed natural obstacles, and penned in a variety of wooden structures where stands were planned. Lawrence studied the renderings, making several suggestions; however, for the most part, he and Ward were on the same wavelength. Once the designs were resolved, Bill took a day off, drove Mel’s car into Brooklyn and purchased work gloves, machetes, hammers, hatchets, and sledgehammers for the crew to get started.
Jean turned her thoughts to productivity and came upon an unforeseen problem almost immediately. On one of her trips through the field, she had left the barn and walked in a direct line about three quarters of a mile up the side of the hill where the audience was slated to sit. All of a sudden, she noticed that the weeds covering it changed color; their dull leaves turned pointed and shiny. It was covered with poison ivy. Her heart sank. There was another massive patch of it flourishing over the rise of the hill and continuing on back into the area designated for camping. It had to go—every last stitch of it—before they got started with the actual sculpting of the land, otherwise it would be ground into the dirt and just as contagious as if still on the vine. Along with several of the art students, she tried cutting it with a hand mower, but there were too many trees in the vicinity and they couldn’t get close enough with the machinery to complete the job. The only thing left for them to do was to get down on their hands and knees and to pull it physically out by the roots. Since this was not quite the type of job for which everyone readily volunteered, turns were assigned and rotated so no one person was exposed to the ivy more than anyone else. Not that it really mattered. Within a week, everyone except Jean was covered with a rash and had to be taken to a doctor in Middletown to receive shots.
Once most of the poison ivy was eliminated, the rest of the overgrown field had to be sheared. The work load was monumental in comparison to the retinue of co-workers. There was no time to screen personnel or even hire experienced landscrapers. Instead, Jean practiced on-the-job training with a pickup team of vagabond hippies. She and Mel hired kids who were drifting by and stopped to see what was taking place on the Mills property. None of these kids, called hippies by preference, had any money, nor did they seem to care about being able to afford such luxuries as motel rooms or sumptuous meals. They weren’t overly industrious by any stretch of the imagination. All, however, were quick to accept a job at Woodstock, which, in return, would provide them with “a place to crash,” three meals a day, and pocket money to help send them on their way to the next destination. A continuous flow of hippies subsequently joined the field crew and put in a day’s honest labor before partaking in the partylike atmosphere after dinner. They pulled their brightly decorated Volkswagen vans and campers off the road by the barn, picked up a sickle, a clipper or a scythe (or merely improvised and used their hands), and set to work manicuring the festival grounds. The results were immediate and immensely gratifying.
• • •
Howard Mills, Jr., remained aloof from his diligent tenants. He did, however, quickly adjust to playing the role of lord of the manor by, each day, swinging his Coupe deVille off the road and bouncing it across the field to inspect their progress. Mills had no complaint. His original plan had been to unload the family land; now he could simply sit back and collect an unexpected bonus while waiting for the right industrial concern to make him an appetizing offer. The land, in his eyes, had outlived its agricultural purpose; so, in fact, had Wallkill; now, he had to make a move that would elevate his lot and, naturally, his net worth.
Mills had told a neighbor at a party that the “Woodstock hippies were going to make Howard Mills, Jr., a household name—not only in this town, but in the state as well.” The woman, who had known Mills most of his life, almost dropped her drink; the vacant smile on Howard’s face had the lifeless quality of a wooden puppet. “You’ll see. First I’ll run for county supervisor,” he bragged. “Then, when all this nonsense is over with, I’m going to run for governor of New York. No one will be able to resist Howard Mills. No one.”
The couple who owned the bungalow colony, the Rosenbergs, derived no such satisfaction from the alien beings who had invaded their quiet haven. The hippies had become, if anything, a nuisance. They refused to come to the dining hall with shoes on their feet; the sweet pungence of strawberry incense had a discomforting effect on the traditional Sabbath dinner of boiled chicken and soup; and the psychedelic vans surrounding the entrance, in which the crew members slept, were beginning to scare off potential guests. Those who were already there for their summer vacations were grumbling. They resented having to share the shuffleboard block and swimming pool with the hippies, and their kids were being chased from the basketball court while Mel Lawrence went one-on-one with his staff. Within two weeks after Woodstock Ventures’ arrival in Bullville, the Rosenbergs intimated that they’d feel a lot better about their business if the hippies looked for
another home.
They were not the only ones with a grievance. Their reaction, in fact, was subdued and respectful in comparison to other reactions from outsiders. A prominent Middletown politician who was in the midst of a campaign for reelection must have blanched when he saw them arrive. He pulled Goldstein and Lawrence aside the afternoon they opened the field office and said, “I just want you to know that you’re not welcome in this community, and I’m going to do everything in my power to see you don’t remain here.” (His ardor might have been violent had he known a prominent member of Woodstock’s staff was having sexual relations with his daughter.) It was one issue on which both he and his constituents agreed. The next day, the threatening phone calls started; not many at first, but enough to instill feelings of paranoia and fear in their peace-seeking hearts.
“If you hippies don’t get the hell out of our town, you’ll be sorry.” Click.
“We don’t want you filthy pigs in Wallkill.” Click.
“You’ve got two days to move out of here or we’re going to burn that barn down with all your people locked inside.” Click.
“If you don’t clear out, you’re going to die.” Click.
Penny had taken most of the calls during the first week. At first, she was reluctant to tell anyone about the incendiary messages for fear it would interrupt the headway they were making on the site; she also did not take them too seriously. But the increasing venom in the anonymous voices frightened her. She had to tell Lawrence.
“Shit!” he snapped. “I figured we’d run into a fair share of rednecks up here, but I didn’t think they’d come on that strong.” He thought about it for a few moments while Penny watched him. “You’re right, Pen,” he said finally, “it’s fuckin’ scary. I’d better call the kid.”
Lang had gone back to New York that morning. With time closing in, and urged on by the beginning of work on the site, he stepped up booking negotiations. Michael was in the uptown office when Lawrence finally tracked him down.
“Circle the wagons, man,” said Michael. “It looks like we’re gonna have a helluva fight on our hands. Sounds to me like those assholes want blood.”
“Hippie blood, Michael. They made that real clear on the phone. Think you oughta tell Pomeroy?”
“Not yet. He’ll be up there this weekend, and the two of you cats can kick it around. Try to ignore it for now. If it gets any worse, call me and I’ll get in touch with him. Got any idea who’s pullin’ this shit?”
“Take your pick. How many people did you say live up here?”
“Very funny, man.”
“No. No it’s not.”
“Hey, Mel, you guys clean up there?”
“As best as can be expected. No heavy stuff. Everyone’s doin’ their share of grass, that’s all.”
“Well cool it, okay?”
“That’s gonna be tough, Michael. Most of these kids aren’t gettin’ much bread outta this deal. You can’t ask ’em not to get high.”
“Just tell ’em to be cool about it. Nothin’ on the site. We can fight those assholes all the way down the line if we stay clean ’cause we aren’t doing anything wrong and we got permission from that zoning board or whatever. If anyone gets busted, we’re done for. Even if it’s not one of our own guys. They’ll make a whole scene out of something like that. And we’ll be guilty no matter what. Not only that, I’ll bet anything they’re dying to get the goods on us. Once they do, we’re blown.”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
“Hey—and Mel, keep your eye out for a narc. It could be any one of those kids.”
Lawrence hung up the phone and asked Penny to gather everyone into the barn as soon as possible. He could not afford to let this matter slide. The same thing had happened to him in Miami. Every cop was looking over his shoulder just panting to make the bust that would close them down. It was all they could do to stay calm and follow through on their jobs.
It took about fifteen minutes for the crew to wind down their jobs and find their way back to the barn. When they arrived, Mel was leaning against the railing in the hayloft.
“Sorry to have to call you guys in here in the middle of the afternoon, but we’ve gotten some bad vibes from our neighbors and it couldn’t wait.” A chorus of groans rose from the gallery below him. “It seems they don’t want any of our filthy, dope-smokin’, mother-fuckin’, hippie rapist kind up here in their God-fearin’ community.” The profanity skipped along like a tuneful children’s song and drew a laugh. “Now, I know we haven’t given anyone any reason to come down hard on us like this, but they’re afraid, and we gotta let it slide by so we can get the gig on. So I gotta ask you to lay off the dope for a while and to be on your best behavior. And if you’re ballin’ one of the local chicks, for God’s sake just make sure it’s not some politician’s daughter.” Several of those below him laughed less than the others. “A lot of these redneck fuckers are gonna be lookin’ for anything to jump on us with, so we gotta play by their rules. You’re gonna be stopped whenever one of the local pigs is in the neighborhood. Just be polite. So if you’re cool they’ll pat you on the head and send you on your way. And, for Christ’s sake, don’t ever carry any dope on you. That’s the first thing they’ll look for. They’re gonna search you from head to toe every chance they get. You get busted, we’re gonna get the shoe and you better like prison food. If you’re clean, there’s no charge they can make stick. You wanna get high? Just be cool about it. Keep it around your bedroom and only light up if you know everybody who’s in there with you. We’re gonna fight to stay here, and we’re gonna win.”
Two days later, on June 9, a visitor in a black three-piece suit carrying a briefcase arrived at the barn to “speak to the man in charge.” Penny referred him to Lawrence.
“What are you people doing here?” the man asked with practiced insouciance.
“What’s it to you, pal?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what it is to me, wise guy. I represent the Wallkill Town Council, and anything that takes place within the town’s limits is our business.”
Lawrence apologized for his ill-mannered behavior. “It’s been a rough two days for us,” he said. “We’ve had some pretty bizarre calls lettin’ us know that we’re not exactly welcome around these parts, and I’m a little on the defensive side.” Mel introduced himself. “What can I do for you, uh . . .”
No reciprocity was forthcoming. The man offered no clue as to his identity. “You can start by telling me what you’re doing here.”
“Sure.” He climbed down the ladder from the loft. Lee Mackler was at her desk by the door and kept her eyes trained on the stranger. “We just broke ground for our festival, the music and art fair we’re having in August. It’s gonna take us about two months to get it together and . . .”
“How about your permits? Do you have zoning board permission?”
“We don’t need permits. Two of our guys went before the zoning board a couple of weeks ago, and they were told that it was beyond that body’s jurisdiction. In effect, they gave us their blessing. Mr. Mills told us the same thing.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Under no circumstances are you allowed to make any renovations on property in this county without the proper permits. From the looks of things,” he said, swinging his nose in a half circle, “you’ve broken the law. I suggest you cease what you’re doing immediately. I’ve got to report this back to my committee. There may be a fine.”
Lawrence shook his head in disbelief. This guy was putting him on, he thought. Someone—probably Goldstein or one of the others—put some clown up to playing a practical joke on him. But they wouldn’t do that knowing how pressed he was for time. “Don’t fuck around with me, pal.” The man took a step back toward the door. “You go tell your committee that we don’t intend to move a foot off this place. We paid to rent this land, and that zoning board of yours told us it was cool to
proceed. We’re proceeding. Now you can beat it unless you’ve got a warrant.”
“Then I think we’ll have to seek an injunction to teach you your rights.”
“You do that! Interfere with our plans and we’ll slap a suit on you guys so fast you won’t know what hit you. Go on—get outta here, and don’t come back without eighteen bucks for a ticket to the festival.”
Lee Mackler was already dialing Lang at the production office.
“Asshole,” Lawrence muttered when the man was out of hearing distance. “What are you doing?” he asked Lee.
“Trying to get the curly-haired kid.” She tried several numbers, but Lang was not to be found.
“Never mind. Put through a call to John Roberts. I want to find out just what rights we’ve got up here.”
Roberts shrugged it off as an oversight on the town’s part. He told Lawrence that the zoning board of appeals, the group Mills had him see, had given him and Joel their complete approval. “There’s been a breakdown in communications somewhere along the way. It’s only a matter of time before that group representative gets it straight. Don’t worry about a thing. Just to double-check, I’ll put our lawyer on it right away and get back to you.”
• • •
Lawrence got in touch with Stanley Goldstein who decided it was high time to begin a public relations drive in the town. He, in turn, contacted the Times Herald Record, the Middletown newspaper with the largest circulation, and offered to give them a story about a major event that was going to take place in their community. The story, a short piece outlining the festival, appeared the next morning in the June 11 edition of the paper. It defined their association with “Howard D. Mills, Jr., of Scotchtown, a well-known land developer,” as Goldstein hoped it would. It was essential that their efforts be linked with local names and places to soften their impact on the residents.
