Thursday, August 13, 2009

It was Forty Years ago today

(It should be noted that while writing this, I am listening to Country Joe and the Fish doing the Fish Cheer and the Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag, and also Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner).

The most heartwarming thing I've seen in quite a while - the Woodstock
couple is still together! Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, both 60, married two summers after the fabled weekend, "and they still live less than an hour’s drive from the original concert site of Bethel, N.Y., and within spitting distance of where they both grew up." (from dummr.com). They didn't realize their picture was being taken that Sunday morning as Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane shattered the Adirondack stillness with "Volunteers." They saw the picture as did the rest of us early the next year when the album came out. Can't you just picture that conversation, when one of their friends came running over from E.J. Korvettes with that triple LP, barking, "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude - it's like YOU GUYS on the album cover. Faaaaaaaaaaaar Outtttttttt man! What we had in mind is breakfast in bed for 300,000! Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome warmly, Country Joe McDonald!" That album really stuck in our minds.

Putting aside the importance of how far one can loog, it was great to see the Ercolines on NBC Nightly News tonight. Brian Williams somehow covered the story without a mention of expectoration, and it was just great to see that things have gone well for them! I used to look at the album cover and wonder who the heck they were, in much the same way that I still wonder who was the girl in ZZ Top's "Legs" video and also who is the woman who voices over all those margarine commercials and she snickers and chortles too much. Anyway, the Ercolines: she's a school nurse, and he's a retired carpenter. Looks like they have a nice big happy family, and the lovefest that started there in Yasgur's field 40 years ago is still going on.

How sweet!, as Deana would say! Now only one question lingers, and Brian Williams, everyone's favorite former Volunteer firefighter, failed to cover this aspect of it:

Where's the quilt?

1 comment:

Peggy said...

I just knew you would blog about that!!!!!