Never made it to Woodstock

I never made it to Woodstock. Or Byron. Byron? <br /> <br /> Yes, Byron, Georgia, was the scene of a Woodstock-like music festival, one year after the granddaddy of them all.<br /> <br /> The audience it commanded rivaled the numbers that showed for Woodstock. But, not some of the sideshows the upstate New York venue had... starting with the rain.<br /> <br /> Know where Byron, Georgia, is? Somewhere down toward Macon. <br /> <br /> Though I never made it to Woodstock or Byron, I did get caught up in some of the Byron-bound traffic just before July 4 weekend in 1970 as I headed south on I-75 to Florida. We passed and were passed by scores of car, trucks, VW vans ("peace buses," they were called) headed to Byron. Most were adorned with peace symbols, some with American flags, many with paintings of flowers... their drivers and passengers flashing us with the "V" peace sign as we all sped south. These were, after all, the "flower children" of that time in our country's history.<br /> <br /> Woodstock had drawn about 500,000 people a year earlier to a 600-acre farm in Bethel, New York, for four days of music which was, at times, overshadowed by the death, near-death, drug overdoses, nudity, and other sideshows that have come to symbolize the mammoth gathering.<br /> <br /> Various Web sites estimate the crowd in Byron at between 200,000 and 400,000. But, there were no reports of major violence, no deaths... but lots of music and a haze of marijuana smoke over the race track where the festival was staged. It was enough of a distraction, though, to cause a State House of Representatives committee to hold special hearings on it afterward.<br /> <br /> No, I never made it to Woodstock or Byron.<br /> <br /> You see, my hair was too short. And, besides, I probably had Air Force Reserve duty the next weekend which was always getting in the way of the hippie inside me. <br /> <br /> I did make it to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, though - ground zero for the hippie movement - when it was in its prime. A buddy and I had a layover on a flight to Hickam AFB in Honolulu from Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta. Though were not in uniform, the cop we stopped to ask for directions to Haight-Ashbury apparently still couldn't figure out why two clean-cut, well-shorn young men wanted to go to that "place"... or words to that effect. Reluctantly, he told us and we were on our way. <br /> <br /> "If your going to San Francisco... be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." (First line to Scott McKenzie's 1967 hit "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)")<br /> <br /> Ahhh... those were the days.<br /> <br /> Or maybe not, considering what was going on in a place called Vietnam and in the streets and on the college campuses in this country.<br /> <br /> Maybe not.<br />