| Subject: Re: My Memories of that week-end |
Author:
Eric Berger
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Date Posted: 23:37:53 02/21/08 Thu
In reply to:
Jim Lyon
's message, "My Memories of that week-end" on 11:23:33 01/27/07 Sat
I read somewhere that there was a big reduction in the use of psychedelic drugs at Watkins Glen, but the guy who wrote that must have been in a different part of the crowd that than I was. I never saw so many different types of LSD and mescaline in such a short time ever before or after. I remember Thursday as being one long parade of happy, hairy freaks, and it seemed like every five or ten minutes, one of them would be hawking some kind of illicit substance. And with the exception of a few unfortunate souls who thought they were buying THC but were actually getting PCP, everyone seemed to be handling whatever substances they were doing quite nicely, thank you very much. Even the cops said afterward that we were much better behaved than the usual drunken racetrack crowd. We were even complimented by local merchants for our good taste when it came to alcohol, going for Johnny Walker and chablis, compared with the typical race crowd predicliction for Boone's Farm and Bud. Going to town for supplies was a trip in itself. I remember riding into town on the truck of a car. There were a couple of other guys on the trunk with me, including my pal Gus Fingado, who came with me from Ridgefield, Ct. There were a couple of other guys riding on the hood, and seven or eight more inside the car. We just couldn't believe it when we got to the gates and the cops just waved us on down the road. The cops were pretty much the coolest I ever saw in my life, as far as letting us get away with stuff for which they would normally bust us, liking smoking joints openly. I never saw any of the cops or troopers smoke, but I did see one young idiot offer one of them a joint, which the cop just waved off. Of course there was NO police presence at all in the heart of the concert crowd on Saturday. Or Friday for that matter, once they let us onto the concert field. We got there Wednesday, and it seemed that a majority of the crowd was tripping from the time we got there until we left on Saturday. OF course it was harder to gauge the character of the crowd on Saturday, since about 400,000 people showed up after we fell asleep Friday night when the Dead stopped playing and the light rain began to fall. It was so cool. We just trusted that the rain would stop, and it did. The crowd was just the right size for the field Friday. you coul get to the port-o-potties, and there was space to walk between the edges of the crowd and the fences. And you could see a point that was like, the back rows. I didn't want to go there, since we were about 100 feet or less from the stage, but I felt like I could see the whole crowd Friday at dusk.
We woke up Saturday morning in a forest of legs. And stepping feet. I imagine most of us were wakened either by someone stepping on one or another body part, or by the shriek of someone nearby who had just been stepped on. Once awake, I risked standing up for a look (the risk was that people would rush in to fill the spae you vacated by getting off the ground), and the sight was staggering. There was no end to the crowd. Humanity strethed to the horizon. To infinity. And they all seemed to want to come sit where we were! We lucked out, though. Gus was 15 or 16 and I was 17, and not particularly scary looking. But this biker guy who was sitting behind us was another matter. He looked 30 or so, with long, stringy black hair and a short beard and moustache. He was bare chested, cut and tatooed. And he had a BIG knife. He made a sign that said something to the effect that, "We camped 3 days for these seats! Get back! Then he stood there with that knife in one hand and the sign in the other. I can still make myself laugh by thining about the sight of some of the people inching their way toward us, trying to make out what was on the sign, then reading it, stopping, and going into reverse. But that was about the most violent thing I saw happen the whole time, which is pretty good for a crowd of 600,000 sunbaked teenagers and twentysomethings. According to the right wing idiots who gave us the "War on Drugs," we should have been killing one another en masse, given the fact that most of the people in this gigantic crowd were stoned on one or more illegal substances. But I never saw so much as a fight. It was the biggest party in history, without a doubt. And I have to agree it may also have been the best party ever.
My Dad had bought me a 1967 Mustang as a graduation present the week before the Summer Jam. Naturally we drove it to Watkins Glen. When we arrived in early afternoon on Wednesday, we drove into the campground, came to a good vantage point and stopped to pick a campsight. We exited my maroon Mustang just as a green 1967 Mustang pulled up just a few feet away. A couple of hairy kids around our age piled out of that car also. A moment later we recognized one another. The driver was a good friend from Irvington, NY, which is a suburb of New York City, just as Ridgefield is. For us to have arrived at the exact same moment, at the exact same spot, hundreds of miels from home remains oneof my favorite memories of the week.
Another was our exit, which came while the Band ws still playing. We had come to see the Dead, and after the three-hour "soundcheck" Friday night and the five-hour concert Saturday morning, we were ready to leave when the jumper came down in flames. We easily found our way back to my car, but finding our way out was another matter. We came early, and there were a LOT of cars parked between us and the exit, where ever that might hae been. So we took a different tack. I found a gap in the fence between the dirt access road I was driving on and the Grand Prix racetrack surface. So then Gus and I got to feel what it was like drive a Mustang ona Grand Prix track, which we followed untilwe found a suitable exit, which miraculously led to a highway that wasn't jammed. The trip home was without incident.
I'd love to see more pictures of the crowd/event, if anyone has any they'd like to share. Contact me at rf16berger@sbcglobal.net
Eric
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