I Became a Woodstock Soldier!

A friend on facebook asked for folks to come up with interesting hitch-hiking stories. Although I've got many, I supplied this account:

I Hitch-Hiked West to East to Became a Woodstock Soldier!

It was 1969. I was anti-war and draft age. My choices were: Enlist, get drafted, pull off a crazy deferment excuse or split to Canada. The media then called who I hung with “hippies.” But really we were "freaks" given how bad the normal world had become. Besides growing long hair, doing all kinds of drugs and groovin’ on music that changed the world, I primarily was a hitch-hiking poet who carried a chess board everywhere. I was raised at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire and got to know a bit of everybody from everywhere at a young age. Often I’d run away from home to visit my new friends I’d meet every summer among those who’d visit the beach scene.

But where I was at, it was decision time. I concluded the only way to deal with the military is the honorable way. I didn't want to kill and I deeply opposed the Vietnam War. So I applied for non-combatant conscientious objection status to my local draft board. This meant they could draft me, but couldn't legally force me to carry a weapon: I wouldn’t kill anyone! Afterwards, I got the letter stating my application had been approved. The very next day I got a notice to report for induction. They done did draft me--lol!

Frustrated and uncertain, I had taken off for California with friends. Who knows, perhaps deep down I was prepping to leave the country. It was a combination of not wanting to face the music and just plain not knowing what to do. I knew if I remained home I'd end up in the army. But were I far away from home perhaps my decision would be different. So I guess I expanded my options by having a great time in California. It was Summer of Love in ‘69 on Sunset Strip!

LA was happening in ‘69! Like San Francisco and New York, it had exploded with counter-culture. I was there at the perfect time. I ended up staying a spell at Venice Beach with a couple we picked up hitch-hiking on the way to California. When my friends went back to NH and I stayed, ended up part of a cool high-end “Hippy House” in Laurel Canyon. The house was rented to someone who rented it to someone else who gave it to someone who ended up bringing in lots of people for free. By this time, there was no furniture. Only mattresses, a few tables, not many chairs and walls painted amazing colors -- black and strobe lights everywhere. It was easy to stay awake all night till the sun came up. Even then it was hard to sleep--lol!

Then a fateful day. I was awake early on s Saturday morning. I answered a knock on the door, opened it and met the house's original owners (the real owners), an elderly couple who had just returned from Europe. They asked for the person to whom they originally rented the house. I was clueless. But I knew the house was, at this particular moment, filled with variations of hippies in strange sleep patterns.

My jaw had to have dropped. I hedged, then meekly muttered, "Ah, er, ah, I don't know what to tell you ... I don't know anyone by that name." The elderly couple stretched their necks and peered inside the doorway only to get their first glimpse of the horrid condition of their home. The woman began crying. Saddened and sorry, I invited them in and said maybe someone else in the house might have information.

I left the couple in the living room and began waking up folks who I knew that knew more than me. I explained they had to talk to the couple. Meanwhile, with my two friends we got organized and sneaked out the back door, knowing there was nothing there we could defend. It was an instant conversion to becoming ‘street people.’ We were back to needy panhandling on Sunset Strip, no longer upper crust at Laurel Canyon--lol!

It’s also getting closer to decision time: Was I gonna become a soldier .. or was I not gonna to be a soldier? Was I gonna stay an American ... or was I gonna become a Canadian? Canada, at the time, was extremely supportive of war resisters. After all, the Vietnam War was immoral!

One of my friends was from New York, the other Pennsylvania. For their own reasons, they wanted to return East. There was the Woodstock Festival coming up. This simple fact of coincidence, the logic of deduction, made it easier for me to decide I'd also return home and face my own reality. I wouldn’t get to Woodstock but I would meet my fate.
I was gonna become a Woodstock Soldier -- decision made!

We bummed up as much money as we could, then began hitchin’ Wagon's East. One of us had about $20, I had $10 and the other guy $8. Back then the eggs, beans and hot dogs at a diner were were cheap ... so we had a shot at it! Our thumbs went out!

Next, we're in San Bernadino where we stayed for about eight hours, our names carved into a signpost from boredom. Suddenly a state trooper approached. The guy who had the $20 quickly jumped the fence and ran away -- never saw him again! The New Yorker and I each received a ticket for hitch-hiking, and promptly got booted from the highway. But we persevered, carried on and made it to Las Vegas. My friend had a Jimi Hendrix-like haircut and I had a Jimmy Page-like haircut -- we were a couple of 19-year-olds. We didn't look at all like the kind of people cops would like--lol!
In Vegas with barely a dime!

Having lost most of our money from the guy skipping tail from the cop, I decided to call a friend in New Hampshire for him to wire us money. Confident we had $50 in the mill, we put what we had into the Las Vegas slots. Ten minutes later we were both completely broke, wandering the streets and now and then checking Western Union. Eventually, a total full-of-himself/hippie-hating cop approached and asked unfair questions. The conversation ended with a threat to arrest us if he saw us again. Knowing the short history of the relationship between police and hippies, we opted back on to the highway thumbs out at about 11 pm.

A guy in a nice convertible picks us up and drives about 40 miles into nowhere where decides to take a left onto a road that was barely a road at all. He drops us off. We spent the night watching shooting stars, worrying about scorpions and other things that could eat us in the desert. No matter how well our thumbs worked there were hardly any cars to show them to.

Time wore on but we made it through the night only to find ourselves sweating a lot with the new sun. We're on our 12th hour in the desert. It got so bad we were breaking bottles in the road, hoping someone would get a flat tire so we could help 'em fix it -- then get a ride. People would drive by and smile. They’d wave at us, sometimes we’d get the finger. But that was okay, we were looking for folks who knew the peace sign. Many passers-by were obnoxious. Some would yelp out oddball comments and occasionally we’d get an outright scream, "fuckin' hippies!"

Finally, a VW bus comes rolling along, with a neatly-dressed hippie couple in the front. They pull over. Running up to the bus I notice it has New Hampshire plate. I qup to my friend, "I wonder if I know ‘em!" We open the side door, climb in the back, they both turned to us and I immediately realized I knew the driver. Didn't know him well personally (and he didn't know me well personally), but we recognized each other. Then came the almighty, "Hey, I know you" and life suddenly was joyful again. We had great conversations. It turned out the driver was the guy who opened the very first head shop at Hampton Beach. He'd just gotten married and he and his wife were touring the country in the VW bus.

Not only did they rescue us and get us out of the desert, at one point we found a swimming hole. So we went skinny-dipping, got all smoked up, drank some wine from a ‘real hippy wine pouch’ ... we had a great time in the desert. Sort of like an oasis feeling. The good vibes were like the wind to our backs!

My now very good Hampton Beach head shop friend drops us off at a good spot. Somehow from there we ended up in Provo, Utah. Here, we met a rock n' roller who told us we had to go to the rock concert on the mountain. We said “Sure!” He brought us! What a blast! There, we met two girls who afterwards brought us to their home in Salt Lake City. 1969 was the Summer of Love and now we were deep in the joy of what’s called The Hitch-Hiker's Delight!

The Utah experience changed the hitch-hiking time table. When we finally got back on the road we discovered a new vibe was in the air. Maybe it was the leftover effects from being with the girls and the rock concert -- it was a great show. Anyway, when the girls got us back onto the highways, we discovered a dozens of people hanging out on highway on-ramps all hitchin’ Wagons East. They too had long hair, wore tie-dyed clothing, passed around granola, played guitars and we were all singing songs!

Presently, hundreds or thousands of hippies from the West were migrating to Woodstock! Me? I was gonna become a Woodstock Soldier!

While in Salt Lake City in a dreamy state of consciousness, I somehow managed to get the Las Vegas Western Union money transferred to Denver, thinking we were gonna be in Denver. Big error, bad chess move on my part. Route 80 didn't take us through Denver. So I call my friend to get the money transferred to Rawlings, Wyoming.

Once there, we encountered a gang of cowboys who clearly seemed like they wanted to beat the crap out of us. One of 'em said, "Look at the rangatangs!" Another said, "Let's get 'em!" Full of love, peace and understanding, we ran as fast as possible away in fear. Back on the highway, we get a ride. At the next rest stop I transfer the money from Rawlings to Cheyenne. We made it to Cheyenne, found it a nice place and got what was remaining of the dough, each money transfer reducing the amount. It didn’t matter the amount, we were golden!

No longer withstanding the slings and arrows of hitch-hiking broke everything got better and better. Now we were hitch-hiking with confidence plus luck stayed on our side. From ride to ride, at every on-ramp, Route 80 was full of hippies. Every ride became a fun ride. Woodstock though it hadn’t yet happened, was already in the air. Folks were breathing it early. Not me, however. I was fated to become a Woodstock Soldier.

Then came a ride came another ride a VW bus, this one already full of hippies. It became nine of us as we scrunched in. We were smoking pot, singing songs and being all sorts of happy for miles and miles and miles. For some reason, I don’t remember why, we ventured into Omaha, where we got lost. Seeking help, our driver pulls next to a police car and asks for directions. We went the way he said only to find ourselves on a dead end street. Suddenly, a dozen flash-lit police cars surrounded us. We, to them, were dead meat!

With hardly any conversation with the driver, they yanked us out of the VW bus and lined us up against it. It became exactly like the famous song by David Peel & The Lower East Side: "up against the wall, mother-fucker!" We wuz gettin’ frisked.

While the frisking was going on we were looking through the bus windows at cops inside searching with flashlights for pot. When the blue lights came upon us we hid a big bag of pot at the bottom of a box of books at the very rear of the bus. Looking through the window, I saw an officer shine his light into the box. He picked up a book. Put it in the hand where he was holding his flashlight, then picked up another book. Seeing only a box full of books and his hands full of books, he gave up.

My friend and I, observing this, began laughing. A cop yelled "shut up!" Another one yelled “where’s the pot?” He promptly accused us of having been up on Nebraska’s Route 20, insisting that that we had been picking marijuana plants. He wanted to know what we did ‘em.

Except for the small amount in the box of books, which they never found, we were straight-sure innocent. Meanwhile, the conversation between us went something like: "How come you got long hair?" "How come you got short hair?" "Isn't it hot in the summer time?" "Isn't it cold in the wintertime?" We told them all about Woodstock and told they they should also go. After about a 40-minute hassle, they finally freed us, even though didn’t wanna let us go--lol!

Everyone on this bus, but me, actually got to Woodstock!

As a side note, I became a soldier and went through the boot camp and advanced training at which point I had evolved from being a non-combatant conscientious objector into becoming a full conscientious objector. What ensued in this process was a very long and interesting struggle and experience (a whole 'nother story!). Ultimately, I received an honorable discharge as a Conscientious Objector -- a proud Woodstock Soldier!

(song begins with one-minute moment of silence)

Masters of War by Bob Dylan, Performed by Michael Weddle

Tempting though was to carry on to Woodstock, I continued my journey! With the snap of my mind I easily could have decided for the concert!!! But, in my mind, I already had become a Woodstocker: I hitch-hiked east, smoked pot, shared music, exchanged stories and listened to and recited poetry -- I sang songs with those who went!!! So, in spirit, I was there too!

By The Time I Got to Woodstock ...!

The War Rages On, Written and Performed by Donovan