“I’ll never be able to pick up a guitar again,” Ron said. The blissful look on his face warmed me with a bliss of my own.
But it didn’t last. Instead of seeing Jimi on stage, I saw a giant hourglass with only three grains of sand left. On top of the hourglass hung a banner with a message readingIt is coming to an end.I tried blinking it away, but the image wouldn’t leave.
Jimi played another song I didn’t know before slipping into one that sounded vaguely familiar, not from the album Dad had destroyed but from somewhere else. It took a minute for the melody to resonate before I knew exactly what he was playing. In fact, I knew it by heart.
It was “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but no words left Jimi’s lips. Instead, they warbled through his guitar. It started out tame, but as soon as he got to “the rocket’s red glare,” the melody shifted into rage. Simulating the fury of battle with his fingertips, Jimi Hendrix unleashed the nightmarish sounds of the Vietnam War onto the audience.
My blood ran cold as he mimicked machine-gun fire, wailing emergency sirens, and sonic bombs bursting in air.Stop it!I wanted to scream.Please stop it!I was afraid it would remind Ron of his friend Freddy and send him into a full-on panic attack.
Glancing around, I saw other folks grabbing their heads, some even pulling their hair, as if they wanted to rip it out because the sounds were too excruciating to bear. Jimi replicated the turmoil that existed in the country right there on the ravaged war-torn pastures of Yasgur’s dairy farm. I could hardly stand it. No one could. We could only look at each other with agonizing, painful stares.
Jimi’s guitar personified the Vietnam soldier ripped apart and abandoned by his own country.Ron.
As our distorted national anthem came to an end, Jimi segued into “Taps,” making the experience even eerier. When it was over, I overheard someone behind me saying Jimi had served in the US Army. While that shocked me, it also made me wonder: Was Jimi’s version protest or patriotism?
The first chords of “Purple Haze” induced a loud roar from the audience. Each person left sang along with him, knowing every word. Even me. Thanks to Livy, I’d learned it from listening to Jimi’s eight-track in the car. I was sure it would be his last song, but Jimi knew I didn’t want him to stop. He played three more, plus an encore.
Then, after a simple “Thank you,” Jimi Hendrix exited the stage.
11:10 a.m.
Once the ballistic cheering died down to a low-level murmur, Chip Monck appeared for the final time. His hollow, sluggish voice sounded every bit like he’d been up four days without sleep. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so very much. We’ve got one little last trip we’d like to lay on you if it’s at all possible. There are a couple packages of garbage bags here. If on your way out you wouldn’t mind taking one, filling it up, and leaving it where you fill it, that certainly would be appreciated. Anything you can do to give us a hand to leave this area somewhat the way we found it—I don’t think it will ever be quite the same—but somewhat the way we found it, it certainly would be appreciated. It’s been a delight seeing you. May we wish you anythingthat the person next to you wishes for you. Good wishes, good day, and a good life. Thank you.”
The remaining Woodstock stragglers clapped for Chip, but their applause was silenced by the helicopter flying in to whisk Jimi away.
That was it.
The end.
Woodstock was over.
And our hourglass was empty.
Woodstock
Day Four
Monday, August 18, 1969
11:30 a.m.
The five of us stepped around mountains of trash, strolling behind thousands of others toward the exit. Good Woodstock Samaritans were attempting to pick up the trash, but our group didn’t have time. By the looks of it, the cleanup would take a month.
With the taste of despair lodged inside my throat, I felt tears pricking my eyes. But I refused to cry. I’d cried enough.
My long face must have been hard to hide. Leon tried to inject some humor. “Wait on me, will ya?” he said, tugging on the sash of my halter top. “I’m going back to look for my sleeping bag.”
It made me laugh. But only a little. Because I was unraveling. The uncertainty of our future had gnawed a hole in my soul. How could I say goodbye to the best thing that had ever happened to me? Only seventy-two hours prior, I’d had no idea of Leon’s existence. Now he was pretty much the reason I had air in my lungs.
With the second hand ticking, we stepped back over the flattened fence onto Hurd Road, exactly the way we had come in on Friday. Arm in arm, Livy and Ron led the way.Livy and Ron.It was a lot to swallow.
Thirty minutes down the road, Livy stopped in her tracks. Her shoulders slumped forward. “My feet hurt, y’all,” she said, in a whiny voice. “I’m so tired of walking.”
I was barefoot, too, but no one heard me complaining.
“You always were a baby,” Ron told her.
“That’s not true. Woodstock has worn my ass out,” she said. “It’ll take me weeks to recover.”
