I Didn't Go to Woodstock

I didn’t. I should have and I could have but I didn’t. Here is the sad tale.

I had been living in Chicago for a year and I had made some new friends. We had been running around having fun all that time and hadn’t thought things were going to change but they did. The reason I was in Chicago in the first place is because I was supposed to be going to college. I wasn’t. I was “out in the streets” with my friends.

I started out right. I was going to class every day and doing what I was supposed to do. But once I made new friends and started hanging out with them, my days consisted of working at a part time job for a little money and hanging around Old Town every free moment I had. That was where all the cool people and the hippies hung out.

One of the new friends was an Asian girl named Lori and she and I got to be very close. As soon as I got out of school and she got out of work, we would meet and walk up to Old Town and we’d look in the head shops, the record stores, the boutiques and the bars. I don’t know how we did all the walking we did, but we did it every day and night for months.

We started planning to travel and we had a few trips in mind. I had started cutting classes to work more and get more money. Lori and I decided we wanted to go to London for Christmas and so we saved and we got student passes that allowed us to get stand-by tickets on the airlines for half the price.

Mom didn’t want me to go to London, but I was grown and I could do what I wanted, or so I thought. I went to London against her wishes and I had the best time I’d ever had. Of course, it was my first vacation on my own away from family. We found a cheap hotel with no elevator and we had a blast. This trip was so much fun, we decided we had to take another one and we planned a trip to New York in August.

My parents finally realized I wasn’t attending class and that I was just running wild in the city. I had a job and I was working, but they decided it was time for me to come back home. They came to get me in July and we sat together in a bar and watched the men walk on the moon and then they took me home to Galesburg.

A month later, Lori and I flew to New York. We had a friend who had an apartment on the Lower East Side and that is where we stayed. When we got there, she told us about this big concert that was happening about 60 miles north of New York in this place called Woodstock. The Who were playing and so was Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Sly and the Family Stone. It sounded good till I realized it was going to be outside and that the concert would last 3 days. What the hell?

Look, I admit it. I’m prissy. I don’t like being dirty and I never have. When I was a child, if I was outside playing and my hands got dirty, I had to run in the house and wash them. My Mom was trying to put us out so she could have some peace and there I was coming back in every 5 minutes. I guess it irritated her endlessly.

But anyway, I was going to have to sit on a blanket for 3 days and nights?? Use a port-a-let? What would we eat? Sleep? What if it rained? I said no.

Lori said, “Brenda, it’s the Who. Roger and the fringe. Keith Moon and those eyes. You remember.”

Yes I did. We had seen them just a few months before at the Kinetic and we fell even more in love with them than we had been just listening to their music. And we had gone to the hotel afterwards and talked to them more. Yeah, I remembered.

But did I want to sit outside on a farm in the dirt with ducks and crazy people smoking God knows what and walking around naked and ….well, you know. And no, I didn’t.

Another of our friends agreed with me. She wasn’t enthused about an outdoor concert either. I didn’t mind if it was a concert that was over in one day. I could take that. But three days? The tickets were kind of high for us young chicks to swing especially since we’d just flown to New York and wanted to have some fun there. We could go hang out in clubs in the city and dance and meet cute guys and not have to sit in the dirt.

We talked about it all day long. A friend came over who had a car and he was going. He had room for us if we wanted to go. We looked at each other and asked again. Should we go to Woodstock? Did we want to see Sha Na Na? Did we want to see Canned Heat? How about Ten Years After? We did want to see the newest supergroup, Crosby Stills and Nash. But did we want to see them bad enough to sit in the dirt for 3 days?

No.

Our friend left with two girls and the rest of us stayed in New York. We dressed up and went out that night and had a blast. Later the next day, we heard that thousands of people had shown up at the festival. They were coming from everywhere. The freeway was closed and the concert was free because so many people were knocking the fences down and climbing in. It was all over the news.

Lori said to me, “Maybe we should have gone.” I was beginning to realize I’d been wrong. We should have gone. We thought about hitchhiking up there. Yeah, we did that. It was safer back then than now. But our friend reminded us that the roads were blocked with traffic and that we’d never get there.

And then it rained. It rained and rained all night long. We didn’t go out that night.  We ate pizza and sat around listening to music and talking. We thought about what it must have been like to be sitting out there with a howling driving storm like that and once again, we were glad we hadn’t gone.

When our friends came back, yes, they were dirty, but they were lit with a happiness I hadn’t seen in years. They said it was the greatest moment of their lives. They couldn’t describe it, but it had been life changing and though they had been uncomfortable for a short while, the love they felt from everyone, the way they all helped each other and the amazing music they heard made it worth a little dirt.  It was one of the biggest events of our generation and we missed it because I didn’t want to get dirty. I was ready to kick myself.

When the movie came out, we went to see it and we must have seen it 4 times in a row. I was ready to cry. I felt the peace and love just watching the movie. I saw the happy faces and I was angry with myself all over again. We just couldn’t believe that we had been so close and had missed that concert. We loved every moment of that movie and I am sure that we all have seen it at least over a hundred times in our lifetime.

Lori was a good friend. She never once said, “Brenda, we really messed up.” She didn’t blame me although I blamed myself and I still do. If I hadn’t been so prissy and worried about getting dirty, we could have been right there at the greatest concert ever like thousands of other people my age had been.

We could have seen Crosby Stills and Nash perform for the first time in front of people. We could have seen Janis Joplin late that night and Grace Slick early in the morning. We could have seen Jimi play the National Anthem. We could have been there for it all. We had no inkling that hot weekend in New York that it was going to be one of those moments that would change everyone’s lives whether they had been there or not. We didn’t know it was the end of an era. We just didn’t know.

Eventually though, I did go to Woodstock. Years later, when I was married, my husband and I visited a friend in Monticello, We were driving around and she took us to this little shop that was a kind of Woodstock museum. The real one hadn’t been built yet and they were seeking donations to make it come true. I bought some posters and post cards and prints and then we drove over to the sight where the concert took place.

There is a huge marker there with the names of everyone that played and I sat there looking at them and closed my eyes and thought about what had happened there all those years ago. This was hallowed ground now. You could still feel the love and peace that had been there. There was no one there but us and I just sat with my thoughts and realized I really HAD made it to Woodstock after all. Many years later, but I had been there.  I took pictures of the marker, wiped away my tears and left.

I do wish I had gone with Lori. She died last year and I felt even worse that it had been my fault we missed Woodstock.

I think about something Graham Nash said; if everyone who said they’d been to Woodstock really had been there, the Earth would have tilted on its axis. Well, I’m not one of them. I wasn’t there.

I didn’t go to Woodstock. 

And Now What?

One night a few years ago, I noticed an ad on the Internet asking “Could You Have Lupus?” I took the quiz and answered the questions and the results were, talk to your doctor, you may have lupus. No, I said. I’m just stressed and tired and I put it out of my mind.

A few months later, my right hand and arm suddenly swelled up and I could not bend my fingers. If I tried to move my fingers, it hurt. I went to the doctor after nothing seemed to relieve the swelling and I began a battery of tests to determine what the problem was. Was there a blockage to my lymph glands? No. Was it linked to the shoulder surgery I had had a few years prior? No. Were my nerves working properly? Yes. I had an MRI, x-rays, and the whole 9 yards. No answers. I went to a “hand” specialist. Eventually, my doctor suspected rheumatoid arthritis and sent me to a rheumatologist.

All this time, the joint paint had increased to a dull pain level that never stopped. I was born with Beta-Thalassemia, so I was used to some level of pain and I kept going even though I was having more pain and I was getting more and more exhausted from the simplest things.

I could not stand on my feet and lecture my students for longer than 10 minutes before I got dizzy and felt like I had run 50 miles. I was getting more and more cranky and ill tempered since exhaustion and constant pain were becoming a steady part of my life as were the persistent rashes.

I had inexplicably begun to have rashes on my chest and I thought it was from wearing silver necklaces and I had stopped. But I broke out no matter what kind of necklace I wore and soon, even if I wasn’t wearing a necklace!

After two visits to the rheumatologist, she said to me very matter of factly, “You have lupus. It’s a low level right now, but it’s there and you have it,” and she moved on to another subject like it was nothing.

I felt like I had been slammed in the face. I couldn’t think. I just heard those three words, “You have lupus,” and I froze. I thought of people I knew that had lupus that had died. Was this a death sentence? Much later, I realized that I had not stopped her and asked questions.

I went to the Internet again and began to look up all the information I could find. Did this have anything to do with all that I had been through? The problem with my hand, the rashes, coughing, heart racing and the pain? Was it why my hair grew so slowly and was suddenly so thin?

I found this information: “Lupus is an autoimmune disease where the body's immune system becomes hyperactive and attacks normal, healthy tissue. This results in symptoms such as inflammation, swelling, and damage to joints, skin, kidneys, blood, the heart, and lungs.

Under normal function, the immune system makes proteins called antibodies in order to protect and fight against antigens such as viruses and bacteria. Lupus makes the immune system unable to differentiate between antigens and healthy tissue. This leads the immune system to direct antibodies against the healthy tissue - not just antigens - causing swelling, pain, and tissue damage. (* An antigen is a substance capable of inducing a specific immune response.)” (Medical News Today)

Sometimes I think it‘s just a cruel joke and that it’s not real. Then I reach to pick something up and that biting pain in my arm is REAL. I wake up feeling like someone took a baseball bat to my whole body and it takes me a while to get going. Or I go for a walk on a good day and I get halfway home and the fatigue hits me like a sledgehammer and I wonder how I will make it home.

A visit to the doctor drains me so completely that I have to force my legs to keep going and to ignore the pain and the fatigue and somehow I make it home and up the stairs to my bedroom and I fall into bed just barely able to breathe. I ask myself again: Now what?

Lupus is incurable. Because it has so many symptoms, it can be difficult to diagnose and it is hard to treat. More women than men suffer from lupus and African-American women more than white women. This makes the fact that the first drug released for lupus works better for white women than black women baffling. Shouldn’t they have worked to help those who suffer the most?

Since there are different strains of lupus, there are different drugs that we are often given to alleviate the pain, the swelling and other symptoms of the disease. But many of us suffer because some of the drugs have awful side effects or really don’t help that much. And lupus is one of those diseases that does not alter the way you look so you may be in horrible pain and still look pretty good. Try telling someone how you feel when you look good. They often think you are either a hypochondriac or just plain crazy.

Living with lupus is difficult but we keep in mind the alternative and we  remember that having lupus used to be a death sentence. We find a way to go on and have a good life. We have no choice.

Are We Too Old?

I left two jobs in the past ten years because of age discrimination. My position had been eliminated from one company but I could not help but notice that many of my fellow ex-employees were all over 40 years old. There was a lot of gray hair in that room. I wanted to believe that age had nothing to do with it but there were just too many people in that room who were noticeably older. I had a bad feeling.

It was obvious in the second job too. The supervisor that hired me had moved on and a younger woman took her place. She was uncomfortable with us older employees and she’d been there less than a year before all the workers over 40 were gone, me included.

She brought in other younger workers like her and they all hung out together during and after work hours and the rest of us saw the writing on the wall. Her friends came in early, stayed through lunch, went to dinner together and often worked until late in the evening. They were single, lived alone and work was their lives. They were aggressive and pushy and the rest of us were out in the cold.

They were noticeably uncomfortable with us older workers – they didn’t know how to properly address us and because we didn’t share their overwhelming drive, they regarded us as slow-moving losers. It didn’t matter that we knew what we were doing and usually were better at it. We just didn’t fit in. Being with us was like hanging with their parents.

Now that the economy has bottomed out, many of us older workers find it hard to find a job. The unemployment rate for those over 55 has been around 6 percent according to figures obtained by the Government Accountability Office in December 2011. And it takes older workers longer to find new jobs – nearly 35 weeks as opposed to 26 weeks for younger workers.

We have the skills, experience, talent and drive but often, we can’t even get an interview. When we do, we often find we are facing employers who are young enough to be our children and the reality that no matter how good we are, our age will keep us from getting that job. Or we see a job we know we can do but suddenly, there are requirements added to it that we are unfamiliar with. For example, most public relations jobs now want applicants to also be skilled in desktop publishing and graphics. I’ve learned to do some graphics work, but it was never the focus of my training so I don’t even apply for those jobs.

Mature workers are being pushed aside and it’s not even subtle anymore. Many have been without jobs for extended periods of time and what little unemployment they had has run out. Life has suddenly gotten very scary for a lot of people who should be easing into retirement, but are suddenly forced to try to get Social Security or disability benefits way too soon and are often rejected. Everyone is ready to put us on the shelf, but we are not ready to go. We still need to live and pay bills.

Older workers are often excellent workers, are patient, work well with the public and have a strong work ethic. They are willing to learn new skills and can work with much younger supervisors. And yes, we don’t mind teaching younger workers what we know and we can learn a lot from them. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, so why is there so much resistance to hire mature workers?

Some of the reasons given are that older workers want more salaries than some companies are willing to pay. More experience often translates to more money and employers are balking when they can get younger workers for less money. There is also the thought that older workers drive up the cost of benefits because of higher incidents of medical care.

Some employers think that older more experience workers will accept a job while they are looking for another higher paying position and don’t want to risk bringing them on. Looming retirement is another cause for concern as is inability to work with a younger boss.

But one serious problem older workers face is unfamiliarity with the current technology. Many find working with online resumes and applications difficult if they are not familiar with modern job searching. They are at a disadvantage of they have not learned to use the technology available such as computers, tablets, smartphones and social media.

But many of us are very technologically savvy and can work with younger people on an equal basis. And many are energetic and want to work past retirement age. Some will have to as their pensions have vanished in the inclement economic climate.

Employers and employees both will have to forget the assumptions they have about older workers in order to right the wrongs that are keeping qualified workers from having jobs.  

This should not be an Us vs.Them situation. Finding jobs is hard for all of us and we should be willing to work together. Companies benefit when all the employees work to ensure their success.

The Good Wife

Why is everyone piling insult upon the injury in Holly Petraeus’ life? Because she doesn’t look like a hot young model? Because she looks like a 50+ year old woman who raised her family and moved numerous times because of her husband’s job?

Why is it expected that she is supposed to take the blame for his indiscretion? It’s her fault because she isn’t hot? She “let herself go” so it is understandable why he wanted a younger hotter woman ?

What kind of thinking is that?

Maybe it’s because I’m over 50 and I know how drastically the thinking about women changes once we are no longer young and hot. Yes, I know, I don’t look my age but the truth is, I know how old I am. I’m no young hot babe anymore either. 

But should I work harder at the image because it’s “expected” of me? Do I owe it to the world to look desirable way past when it should matter? Why can’t I be loved because I am a kind and loving woman? Because I am intelligent, funny, self-confident and sensual? Why does being older render a woman unlovable?

Life is unkind to women in many ways but to me, one of the coldest realities is that regardless of how good your heart is, how smart you are, how efficient and capable you are, no matter what, if you aren’t “beautiful,” nothing else you are matters that much. We are always first judged by our looks and everything else is secondary.

This becomes especially difficult once you reach that point in life where those pounds are really hard to get rid of. Hard when those lines creep into your face and that gray is taking over your hair. Very hard when those once perky breasts start to go south, that cute butt starts to sag and the waistline has expanded. Yes, there are some women who can delay this aging thing for a while, but let’s be honest, it catches up with all of us eventually.

But does it make you less a woman? To me, it is one of life’s ironies that just when your self-confidence is highest, when you finally get what it’s all about, when you no longer worry about little middling things that really don’t mean that much, when you are at your sexual peak, when you know what you are doing and are most likely to be the best lover ever, you are no longer considered attractive or even desirable.

The men who should be available to you are now attempting to grasp onto their own flagging grip on age are chasing girls half their age. It keeps them young, they say. They want girls who are still able to give them children even after they have raised a set with you and should be anticipating grand children instead. It makes them feel the very thing they say we aren’t – desirable.

We all know what is going on when we see an older balding or gray haired man with a young girl half his age, and we know it isn’t true love. General Petraeus and George Clooney are two different animals. Younger women want George for the same reason older women do – the man is famous, intelligent, rich and he puts the G in gorgeous.

General Petraeus is no George Clooney. Let’s face it, he’s no hunk of burning love. He’s rather skeletal and nervous looking for my taste. But he’s a powerful man and probably has a nickel or two to rub together. Power makes him attractive to younger women. I guarantee you Ms. Broadwell would not have been willing to engage in a verbal catfight over him had he not been who he is.

Men delude themselves every day by thinking that a young hot woman wants his old worn out butt because she loves him. Not true. She wants something from him. She sees him as being some form of security for her and she is willing to offer up her young hot body and even have a child or two in order to get it.

I have had numerous conversations with young women who find the thought of sex with an older man repulsive, but add they will choke back the gag factor if he has enough money.

But all this is overlooked while everyone happily bashes his wife for not being “beautiful.”

Doesn’t it matter that this woman has done valuable charitable work, she has given freely of her own time to help others, she has raised the value of her philandering husband and has suffered in silence over these 37 years of marriage and now must endure public derision because she looks like a 50 plus married woman with children and a life should look?

Why is his cheating her fault? If she had concentrated on her own looks instead of her marriage, her family and her life, we’d say she was shallow and selfish. Did she break some vow by “letting herself go?”

Have we lost sight of the fact that she is the one who was wronged here? If he is prosecuted for his completely ludicrous behavior, it is entirely possible that he will lose his pension and that her life will be economically impacted as well. How is that her fault?

Now he is sitting at home in disgrace. He had to leave his powerful position in the government. He’s right in the media storm as more and more distasteful information comes out about his ridiculous behavior and the silly self centered woman he risked it all for.

And who is sitting by his side, undoubtedly wondering what she did wrong, feeling the pain of knowing her husband cheated on her with a younger, more attractive woman and questioning her own femininity?

And who are we, the public, to add to her pain by blaming her because she isn’t beautiful?

How much does the poor woman have to suffer?

Holly Petraeus did nothing wrong other than marrying a philandering, selfish, lying childish man.