The 50th
Anniversary of Woodstock
Woodstock’s 50th Anniversary is this month, Thursday,
August 15 to Sunday, August 18, 2019. Fifty years ago, in 1969 from
August 15 to 18, throngs of people came together in Bethel, N.Y. for four days
of peace, love, and music. It turned out to be one of the biggest and grooviest
rock festivals ever, and an iconic cultural and historical event. The concert
was far-out with thirty two acts including Joan Baez, Santana, the Grateful
Dead, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe
Cocker, Jonny Winter, The Band, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, Crosby, Stills, Nash
& Young, and Jimi Hendrix with what was probably the most memorable
performance of the festival—his profound rendition of The Star-Spangled
Banner.
Food was in short supply at Woodstock because the
promoters only expected about 50,000, but around 400,000 showed up—which also
created the largest traffic jam in the history of the Catskills,
forcing State police to close the New York State Thruway’s Exit 104. Plus, on
the second day of the festival, a downpour transformed the grounds of Max
Yasgur’s dairy farm into a sea of mud.
Yasgur's former farm, the site where all of this took
place, has been remembered by the opening of both the Bethel Woods Center for
the Arts and the Museum at Bethel Woods on the grounds and was also added to
the National Register of Historic Places.
I am a babyboomer but I was only 12 in 1969—too young to
hitchhike to Woodstock, unfortunately. However, I always wanted to go, so by
writing about it, I got to go, at least mentally, and I get to take all you
wonderful readers along with me as well as two of my favorite characters, Cash
and Keith. This Woodstock, time-travel, baby boomer, comedy romance of mine is
called Back To The One I Love.
The thrilling adventure of first love
and self-discovery is just as groovy the second time around.
A free-spirited, baby boomer couple, Cash and Keith, find
their marriage of forty-five years unraveling amid apathy, boredom, and retirement.
Cash feels Keith is no longer attracted to her and he's consumed with a
couch-potato life of streaming The Orville and Game of Throne episodes all day
long. Trying to hang on to their marriage and rekindle the romance they lost
along the way they turn to a counselor. The therapist uses an unorthodox
magical method of a time-traveling Volkswagen van to cast them back into the
garden...four days of Eden at Woodstock....the epic music festival... where
they first fell in love.
Will the freedom of Woodstock lure
Keith and Cash to push their individual boundaries and seek new lovers? Or can
Déjà Vu and grooving to music....truly lead them to rediscover the peace, love,
and harmony they once shared?
Excerpt:
Cash sang with him, releasing her
pain from change, the changes in her, the changes in Keith. She released her
joy at their ability to overcome them and to come together. Even if it took a
trip back in time to help them do it. Tears of release streamed down her face.
“Blows my mind,” Keith said in a tone of awe and
wonderment, speaking more about her than Jimi Hendrix. He wrapped his arm
around her.
She turned her body closer to his, breathing in his
masculine scent. She sang along with Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady,” but her thoughts
were on her foxy man.
“You are my foxy lady.” Keith’s warm breath fanned the
side of her face as he whispered in her ear.
“I was just thinking what a fox you are.” She moved out of
his embrace to dance with him.
Her mind was in a haze, floating with the music, moving
her body freely―bouncing, jiggling, dancing her heart out.
Keith clapped with Cash as Jimi Hendrix picked the strings
and worked the frets as he played “The Star Spangled Banner.”
In his hands, the inanimate object, the sleek, white
electric Stratocaster, came to life, with jolts of electricity like
Frankenstein’s monster.
This was no confused, lonely monster Hendrix created, Cash
thought. This is raw, spiritual beauty.
“The notes are
‘The Star Spangled Banner’ mixed with truth and distortion, fear and hope,
chaos and order, all fighting each other. It sounds like bombs and guns,
screams of pain, and the whirl of army helicopters, all from the strings of his
guitar,” Keith said.
“The national anthem has never been played like that
before him or since him,” Cash said, with an edge of awe to her voice.
“He’s telling a story of freedom fighting to break through
prejudices, lies, and cover-ups just by the way he’s playing the song,” Keith
added.
“He’s incredible.” Goosebumps prickled on Cash’s arms when
Jimi Hendrix laid the guitar on the stage and picked it as he ritually set it
on fire, letting hype and lies go up in smoke and flames.
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “It’s the most
incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” she said in an emptily charged, broken
whisper.
Keith gulped hard. “It blows my mind.” He slapped his
palms together, clapping with Cash, a long time after Hendrix left the stage.
“And we saw it twice, together.” She slipped her arm
around Keith’s waist.
“How special are we?” He slid his arm around her shoulder
and pulled her tight to him.
The Publisher is: CA Publishing
Genre: is Comedy Romance
Buy Links:
Bio:
Drawing on my love of a happy ending, Cornelia Amiri has
penned over 35 published romance books. She and her muse, Severus the Cat,
live amid the hustle and bustle of humid Houston, Texas, as does her wonderful
son and granddaughter. When not writing, she loves to read, watch movies, and
attend local steampunk events and comic cons. She’s currently working on the
next book in her Druidry and the Beast series and on a sci-fi comedy romance
series with a Celtic goddess as the heroine.
Buy Links:
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