Donny York reflects on Woodstock

 “My experience of Woodstock was that, for reasons having nothing to do with a drug high, there was just a goofy feeling of magic in the air there.  A performer, but not famous and recognizable, I could wander in the crowd and witness that there was an obvious disaster underway–but nobody getting hurt!  I encountered nothing but cheerful human warmth, and individuals taking good care of each other, sharing resources.  It wasn’t socialism, no people’s committee directing anything in top-down fashion, just one-on-one caring and patience while we waited for the music to go on despite repeated delays. It amounted to a real love-in—not sexualized, just very brotherly.  And it felt like heaven.  Woodstock’s lesson for the ages was not that “socialism works” (as proclaimed in many of the free urban news weeklies back then, notwithstanding emergency services to the festival from the Nixon-era grown-ups); it was that brotherly love really does have its magical power.”

                                                                      -Donny York, C0-Founder of Sha Na Na