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"IT was the summer after my first year of college, August 1969, and I was 18 years old. I had landed a job as a copy boy at the New Haven Register. Although my duties were mundane -- delivering mail, passing out issues of the paper as they came off the presses, running for coffee -- I thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of working in the newsroom, watching reporters and editors work furiously to meet daily deadlines In August, near the end of my summer tenure at the paper, I asked managing editor Charlie McQueeney, a crusty old-time newspaperman, if I could take a couple of days off to ride with the music editor to Woodstock. McQueeney recognized that I had not missed a day of work during the summer and gave me the time. The music editor drove me and a freelance photographer, Dan Garson. We arrived at the festival site two days before the music began. The stage was not yet constructed and no more than a couple of hundred people were there. When the music editor got his vehicle stuck in an alfalfa field and had to be pulled out by a tractor, he announced in frustration that he was going to visit a friend in Canada. He handed me his press pass and told me to call a story in to the Register's city desk by 3 p.m. on Saturday. I reminded him that I was a copy boy and had never written a news story. He assured me that the weekend would be a flop and nothing would come of it. So I was left on my own with a half million other people at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair for three days of peace and music. As the music got under way, I used my press pass to go backstage, which for an 18-year-old music lover in the 1960s was, well, really far out. I mingled with the rock idols of the day. I remember being on the stage when Santana played his set. There was a lot of dancing, a lot of marijuana. On my return to college a few weeks later, my dorm mate, Tim Russert, later of \"Meet the Press\" fame, jokingly proclaimed to me that he was the only one at Woodstock who was drinking beer. I was enjoying myself a bit too much to address the daunting task of writing my first news story until about 1 p.m. on Saturday, just a couple of hours before I was to phone in the piece. I made my way to the press tent and took a seat in front of a typewriter. I could see from their press passes that I was sitting next to a writer from Rolling Stone. On the other side of me was a writer from Time magazine. And across the table was a woman from Paris Match who had just gotten off a helicopter where she had been taking overhead photographs of the crowd. And then I began to write. Using the one finger, hunt-and-peck method, I plodded my way through a news story. I could feel the incredulous gazes of the writers around me, but I was too young, too naive and was having too much fun to feel embarrassed. I did meet my deadline and phoned the story to the Register. Not surprisingly, my story was terrible. It never ran. My only responsibility of the weekend was out of the way and I returned to the festivities.I was really looking forward to seeing Jimi Hendrix, but the music acts were running way over schedule and I had to get back to New Haven for work on Monday morning. I left after Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young finished their set. I arrived at the old Register building on Orange Street for work an hour late. Executive Editor Robert J. Leeney, a gem of a man who was always kind to me, encouraged me to write an article based on my Woodstock experiences for the Sunday paper. The music editor, who had driven away from one of the top stories of the year, was in obvious disfavor with the editors for passing on the festival. So he took my story, embellished it a bit, and submitted it with a joint byline -- his name, of course, above mine. My article was published under the headline: \"Aquarian Festival: What Are The Kids Trying To Tell Us?\" Back then, I was one of the kids. We didn't go to Woodstock to change the world. We went to see the premier rock bands of the day and enjoy the music with friends. But over those three days of peace, love and music, something did happen. The Woodstock Nation was born, and the world did change, if only for a nanosecond. For three days, three glorious days on the fields Max Yasgur's Bethel, N.Y. farm, there was peace. There was love. And there was some of the greatest music of all time. Kevin O'Shaughnessy is a lawyer in Spokane, Washington. His e-mail address is kos@cet.com."
<https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/I-went-to-Woodstock-and-all-I-got-was-this-11638069.php>