Beverly “Cookie” Grant hitchhiked to the Woodstock music pageant in 1969 with no ticket and slept on straw. Ellen Shelburne arrived in a VW microbus and pitched a pup tent.
Fifty-five years later, the 2 longtime associates lastly obtained again to the backyard, however this time in excessive type.
The ladies, now 76, have been not too long ago handled to a two-bedroom glamping tent on the upstate New York web site outfitted with cozy beds, a bathe, a espresso maker and Wi-Fi.
No mud from drenching rains this time. They sat in pavilion seats to look at exhibits by Woodstock veterans John Fogerty and Roger Daltrey.
“We’re like hippie queens!” Grant joked over breakfast throughout the journey earlier this month.
The Bethel Woods Middle for the Arts, the not-for-profit group that runs the positioning, rolled out the tie-dyed carpet for Grant and Shelburne to advertise its new glamping services and to delve deeper into Shelburne’s trove of pictures from the generation-defining pageant held Aug. 15-18, 1969.
The once-trampled hillside by the principle stage is now a manicured inexperienced area close to a Woodstock-and-’60s-themed museum and the live performance pavilion.
However the return go to nonetheless purchased again a flood of reminiscences. Shelburne was capable of retrace the steps she took as a 21-year-old faculty scholar within the pictures taken by her then-boyfriend, and future husband, David Shelburne.
“I’m taking a look at this individual within the {photograph}, who’s me, however an individual simply beginning out in life at that age. And now I’m wanting again at kind of bookends of my life,” Ellen Shelburne mentioned. “All these a long time later, I’m again at Woodstock and it simply brings all of it up in such a optimistic approach.”
Grant and Shelburne didn’t know one another in August 1969 they usually attended the live performance individually.
Shelburne got here from Columbus, Ohio, with David Shelburne, his greatest buddy and one other girl. They bought tickets, obtained there early and purchased ponchos at an area retailer after rain was forecast. She slept in a pup tent.
“I used to be by no means chilly, moist, hungry, muddy, soiled, uncomfortable or depressing,” she mentioned. “It was the full reverse.”
Grant went to Woodstock on a lark.
An extended-haired surfer she knew named Ray got here as much as her and a buddy on a seaside in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and mentioned, “There’s this music pageant taking place in New York. You wish to hitchhike up there with me?”
Grant’s buddy dropped out alongside the way in which, however she and the surfer made it to the city of Bethel. The final driver dropped them off on the fringe of the epic visitors jam outdoors the pageant and gave them a blanket.
Grant walked the final a number of miles to Woodstock barefoot.
Each ladies have been wowed by Jimi Hendrix, The Who and different musical acts, but in addition by the nice vibes from the 400,000 or extra individuals who converged on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm some 80 miles northwest of New York Metropolis.
“If we wanted meals, somebody gave us meals. Somebody gave us water. We would have liked nothing,” Grant mentioned.
The 2 ladies met months later in Columbus, the place they every ran retailers adjoining to Ohio State College with the lads they went to Woodstock with.
And so they every married their live performance companions, although Grant obtained a divorce a number of years later.
David and Ellen Shelburne ran a movie and video manufacturing firm collectively till he died 4 years in the past.
Grant moved to Florida and finally turned a chef on mega-yachts earlier than beginning her personal enterprise offering crews for these huge boats.
Every girl stored a spark of the Woodstock spirit. Shelburne mentioned she’s “caught within the ’60s and pleased with it.”
They obtained the bug to return to the pageant web site final yr after offering oral histories in Columbus to curators for the Museum at Bethel Woods.
Similar to in 1969, the ladies have been offered what they wanted throughout their latest lengthy weekend of peace, love and nostalgia — although this time it was a “Luxurious 2 Bed room Safari Tent” with a entrance deck and the bathe in a rest room. And when it rained this time, they have been capable of keep dry within the museum.
On a sunny Saturday, Bethel Woods senior curator Neal Hitch drove the ladies round in a golf cart to discover the spots the place David Shelburne shot his pageant pictures.
In contrast to others who targeted their cameras on the stage, he documented festivalgoers tenting, swimming, promoting items, stress-free and having enjoyable.
Hitch famous that David Shelburne’s photographs are additionally helpful as a result of they’re in sequence, that means they inform a narrative.
At one cease, Shelburne stood by a tree line as she held a photograph of a discipline filled with campers.
She was standing on the spot the place her late husband took the {photograph} and was wanting on the identical discipline, minus the campers, 55 years later.
Visibly moved, she mentioned “oh” a number of instances and set free a deep breath earlier than exclaiming, “Wow!”
It broke her coronary heart that her husband isn’t within the images, however she felt his presence that weekend.
The ladies ranged throughout the pageant web site over a number of days, from the stage space to the woods the place distributors had arrange stalls.
Regardless of the modifications — the luxurious tents, the fences, the museum — the ladies mentioned they acknowledged the identical mellow, pleasant vibes right here that they skilled as 21-year-olds.
And so they have been thrilled to immerse themselves in it once more a long time later.
“It’s very fantastic to see that it’s in historical past endlessly,” Grant mentioned, “and we’re part of that.”
Supply hyperlink
