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Article: What Woodstock really was
- Article from:
- Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- Article date:
- August 30, 2009
CopyrightCopyright 2009 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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WASHINGTON
H.L. Mencken, probably America's greatest journalist of the past
century, often enraged his readers with remarks such as "Puritanism
is a haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
So, during this month of August, puritanism must have truly
suffered as millions of Americans celebrated the 40th anniversary of
Woodstock, or more correctly, "The Aquarian Exhibition," which
unfolded in 1969 on 600 acres of cow pasture in Bethel, N.Y. In
addition to Bob Dylan, it had a population of about 200 country
folk.
The previous large gathering of American dissidents had been a
year earlier when, in Chicago, the Democratic National Convention
nearly erupted into an urban insurrection ...