I know I sound angry. I am angry! There is not one safe place over here. Johnson knows very well we can’t win this war. He refuses to stop the bombing, even though his advisors tell him he should.
I will see you again, I swear.
I love you,
Ron
I slipped the letter back in the envelope, then stuffed it inside my purse. I was starting to wonder if Livy could be right. Maybe Ron was wounded with his friends, and he didn’t tell me.
Maybe Ron is missing in action.
Maybe Ron is dead.
Refusing to give that thought any more oxygen, I stood up and looked around for the last time. Still unsure what to do with my life, I got behind thousands of others walking toward the exit. No point in staying at the festival. Woodstock was about community. I had lost mine.
Hoping the answer about my future would come, I kept moving forward, knowing this much: I was sick and tired of the rain, the mud, the cold, the growls in my stomach, and, most of all, the loneliness. A cold dark mist hung over my heart, coating it in grief. Pain spread through its chambers like a hornet’s sting. My nerve endings felt as though they had been pricked by needles.
I was a hundred yards down Hurd Road when someone shouted, “Look at the sky, you guys!”
With dropped jaws, an army of folks turned to watch thousands of flowers floating down from the clouds. An army helicopter flew overhead, spilling fresh white daisies over the filthy city of Woodstock. Our beauty among the ashes.
I stood in the middle of Hurd Road as the answer came into focus.The Hog Farm.Hugh Romney had said they were my family. Kind, loving people who treated each other the way a family should were just on the other side of the forest. I could pitch in, help prepare the food. Maybe I could babysit. Best of all, I could sing when I got back to the Hog Farm!
I turned an about-face. I would not miss Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or Jimi Hendrix. I’d already missed the Beatles. There was no way I’d miss another concert of a lifetime. No one would deprive me of that.
Woodstock
Day Three
Sunday, August 17, 1969
6:00 p.m.
The psychedelic school buses were still there when I arrived. So were the tents and tepees. The stage was right where it had been yesterday. It seemed none of the Hog Farmers had left. Feeling abundantly relieved, I stepped up to the free kitchen and stood in line.
Only a minute passed before I heard a guy’s voice calling, “Suzie!”
I whipped around, hoping it was Leon—sure it was Leon—only to find a dude I’d never laid eyes on flashing me the peace sign. I smiled and signed him back. Within seconds his arm lay across my shoulders. It felt nice and warm. And he was sort of cute.
“I heard you sing yesterday,” he said. “Outta sight, milady.”
I smiled, felt goose bumps rising from the compliment. “Thanks. What’s your name?”
“Brady.” He tilted his head, studying my face. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I answered in a low voice.
“Nothingdoesn’t give a person red eyes.” He touched my nose. “Or a red beak.”
I glanced at the ground, embarrassed.I must look awful from all the crying.
He lifted my chin and tilted it toward his. Tenderly. The way Leon had done. “Wanna talk about it?”
I shook my head.
“Wanna go somewhere dry?”
I gave him an enthusiastic nod.
