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After Woodstock, Wavy Gravy wanted to keep the energy going.
He returned to the Hog Farm commune, where he discovered
"every hippie in the world had moved to our house." Gravy got a
few thousand dollars from Warner Brothers to finance a proposed
movie, " Medicine Ball Caravan." The idea was to round up some
Merry Pranksters and Hog Farmers, travel across the country in a
bus and film the trip. The movie was never released. Somehow, the
group ended up in England. Throughout the early and mid '70s,
they traveled to 13 countries, including Turkey, India and Nepal,
distributing free food and medical supplies along the way.

Krassner and his fellow Yippies tried to build on Woodstock. They
helped put on a "Pow Wow Symposium" at Hog Farm
headquarters in New Mexico. But in December came Woodstock's
bad twin, Altamont, where the Hell's Angels worked security - and
some stomped members of the audience. In 1970, the trial of the
Chicago Seven began, and the Yippies focused their energy and
money on freeing the defendants. Krassner and Ken Kesey decided
to collaborate on "The Whole Earth Catalogue Supplement," the
successor to the post-hippie bible, "The Whole Earth Catalogue."
In the early 70's, the entire radical community began to dissolve as
its members went their separate ways. Krassner returned to New
York, where he continued to perform and publish a newsletter. In
1974, Krassner moved to Venice, California, to a house by the
ocean a block from actor Dennis Hopper's house.

Max Yasgur toured Israel about two years after the concert and
had the opportunity to meet Israel's first prime minister, David
Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion went down the receiving line, speaking to
each guest. "Max said to Ben-Gurion, 'I'm Max Yasgur of Bethel,'
and Ben-Gurion shakes his hand and says, 'Oh yeah, that's where
Woodstock was, wasn't it?" said Liberty's Lou Newman, a friend
of Yasgur's until the dairy farmer's death of a heart attach in 1973.

Yasgur's farm was subdivided and sold by his widow, Miriam.
Most of that land is still pasture, fodder for the cattle herd of Bud
Russel, who owns the old Yasgur farmhouse in Bethel.

As Woodstock began to fade into legend in the early '70s, the
Town of Wallkill was tagged as the hometown of the uptight,
much to the consternation of Wallkill Supervisor Schlosser.
Wallkill was only trying to protect itself from a horde it was not
prepared to handle, he said. Besides, added Schlosser, who retired
from politics in 1984, the promoters lied to the town, and that's
never mentioned in Woodstock lore. "That is what bugs me about
this whole thing, " Schlosser said in 1989. "They have been
allowed to perpetuate that myth for 20 years.. "

Woodstock's medical director, Dr. William "Rock Doc" Abruzzi,
went on to specialize in the medicine of drug abuse. Drugs brought
Abruzzi prominence, but they also provided the means for his
downfall. He was charged in 1974 with anesthetizing female
patients and molesting them while they were unconscious. Two
years later, minutes before he was to go to trial, he pleaded guilty
to sexual abuse. Abruzzi's saga didn't end there. The state's
highest court ruled that a police officer violated Abruzzi's rights
when he watched the doctor abuse his patients through an
examination window. Abruzzi never served his prison sentence,
but he did lose his license to practice medicine in New York. He
has since dropped out of sight and can not be located. To this day,
Abruzzi has his supporters, including Nurse Sanderson. "He was
framed," said the nurse, who retired in 1980 and left Middletown.

For the next decade, Woodstock was virtually a cliche for all that
was goofy about the '60s. By 1980, the world had moved on.
Rosenman and Roberts were still in venture capital, but instead of
funding concerts, they were dismantling conglomerates and
handling mergers. "The transactions that we were involved in
would have been vetoed if they'd known about Woodstock, "
Rosenman said. "It wasn't exactly broadcast in our resumes.

Kornfeld was the one who was able to use his Woodstock
credentials. He remained in the music business, promoting rock
acts and albums. He worked with Bruce Springsteen and Tracy
Chapman. Lang too, stayed in music. His title as Woodstock's
producer gave him a certain cachet with superstars of the business.
Lang signed a Long Island singer named Billy Joel to his first
record contract. He was Joe Cocker's manager. But even Lang
downplayed Woodstock. "I didn't talk about it for years," he said.

Country Joe figures his fate was sealed right after he shouted:
"Gimme an F. After the movie came out, that's all I was known
for," McDonald said. "Its pretty hard to top the 'Fish Cheer.' I
don't know if I can do that.' The Fish Cheer was McDonald's
improvised call-and-response that began with 'Gimme and F' and
concluded with " What's that spell? (Expletive!)" McDonald's
musical career went from Woodstock into a slide. By the '80s,
Country Joe said he'd had it with the music business. "I won't
make another record again unless it seems commercially viable,"
he said in 1989. "I just don't have the burning desire to make a
record that nobody wants to hear. You spend a year to do it, and
it doesn't sell more than 1,000 copies. That's not cost-effective.
Music is something that needs to be heard." McDonald said the
problem was he was still writing "sociopolitical and anti-war"
songs. "Today, politics and war isn't good box office," he added.
When McDonald tours, it's for a handful of fans at tiny folk clubs.
He might even turn up at the occasional '60s revival show, but
only if the price is right. "I don't like doing these nostalgia
things," he said, "but when people offer me the right amount of
money, I'll do it. I wouldn't even write a story about myself. I
wouldn't waste my time." By 1991, the year he recorded an
acoustic album, " Superstitious Blues," Country Joe had changed
his tune. In 1994, he appeared in a Pepsi commercial featuring a
Woodstock reunion for yuppies.

A guy named Louis Nicky from Brooklyn bought about 40 acres
from the widow Yasgur at the intersection of Hurd Road and West
Shore Drive in Bethel. A couple of tons of concrete - the footings
for the main stage at Woodstock - were tumbled off in the brush in
the northeast corner. Nicky didn't really worry too much about
the history he'd bought. He just wanted to run a few horses, but a
bout with cancer caused him to abandon the plan. Twice, the town
put up a sign identifying Nicky's land as the site of the concert.
Twice, the sign was stolen.

For years, no one celebrated Woodstock's anniversary, and
Augusts came and went without notice. People who wanted to stop
by Yasgur's farm and reminisce weren't always sure they were at
the right place.

In the late '70s, a ragtag bunch started celebrating every August
with a three-day party. Around 1978, a welder named Wayne
Saward came out for the party. "And it was, like, super-quiet," he
recalled. "There'd be 30 people there, at most. And that was in the
middle of the night. Then in 1984, Saward started, pretty much
alone, to build the world's only monument to the event. It's a 5 1/2
ton marker made of cast iron and concrete; landowner Louis
Nicky paid $650 for concrete and casting the iron. Once the
marker went up, the site became a kind of counterculture shrine.
Visitors started showing up randomly, staying for a few minutes,
then leaving.

The magic that is Woodstock continues...it's in the air!