Monday, August 17, 2009

The girls you don't kiss.



Unless you've been asleep or living in a cave, you know that 40 years ago a half million people came together in upstate New York.

I was a young GI at the time, stationed at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, learning how to call in hard rain on the unsuspecting.

A couple friends said to me, "There's a big concert in New York this weekend, you wanna go?"

I had a date that coming weekend, and there was a high potential for some skin-on-skin activity. So I said no.

And I missed Woodstock.

What's worse, I didn't get laid, either.

It's one of the regrets I've accumulated as I've grown older, the missed opportunities, the roads I could have taken, the places I could have seen. But instead, I took other roads and saw other places, and it all worked out. No complaints.

But it is true what the philosopher said: "It's not the girls you kiss you regret, but the girls you don't kiss."

So, Woodstock is one of my regrets, which in the big picture isn't so bad. It just taught me to say yes more often.

How about you? What bounces around your skull in still moments and anniversaries? What, or who did you let slip away?

I'll leave you with one of my favorite, often overlooked pieces from Woodstock. This is John Sebastian, tripping his ass off on acid.

He hadn't expected to play, but was asked to do a 15-minute acoustic set while they swept water off the stage so the electric players wouldn't get zapped. Like a trouper he got up and held it together long enough to do a couple of songs, even if the lyrics did drift away a time or two.

2 comments:

Gerard Saylor said...

I was going with a college friend to CO in 1994 when the second big Woodstock was going on. We briefly discussed turning around and going to NY instead. I'm glad we didn't. I met a wicked hot chick when we got back to MN. (But, I was still too afraid of girls.)

Anonymous said...

I used to say no, and never got to kiss the girl.

Then I learned to settle, and... Well, that ended with a brief, nauseating return to the dating pool.

By then I learned to seize the day, and have a I family I never dreamed possible.

Go figure.