Hay Now!
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History August 12 - 18.
Bethel, New York, experienced a lot of rain in the spring of 1969. For farmer Max Yasgur, the wetlands curtailed the production of hay, which he used to feed his 650 cows each year, helping him become the largest milk producer in Sullivan County, about 70 miles northeast of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Max’s parents were Jewish immigrants, and he grew up on the 600-acre farm after spending time in college studying to be a real estate lawyer. He and his wife had a son and a daughter.
By the late 1960s, Yasgur was in his late 40s, a conservative Republican and a supporter of the Vietnam War. His political views didn’t dampen his desire to close what he saw as a generational gap when a unique opportunity came up unexpectedly.
During the same time as Max looked for ways to pay for the production of hay, four friends from New York City conceived and financed an event that would become one of the largest in American history. The idea came from an initial plan to build a music studio out in the woods.
Instead of building a random music room, the four entrepreneurs (Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rsoenman, and Joseph P. Smith) decided to hold a music festival in Woodstock, New York, where the Birdclytte art colony began in 1903 and grew into one of the most popular in the country.
After securing a place to hold the festival near Birdclytte, the landowner pulled out of the project. In came Max Yasgur and his diary farm in Bethel, some sixty miles southwest of Woodstock. A deal was struck, and Max’s hay problem was solved with the instant cash that would be used to purchase the commodity from out of state.
Despite locals who fought to prevent the event from happening, 50,000 tickets were sold as soon as the festival was announced. Word spread, and soon hundreds of thousands of people descended onto Max’s farm to begin three days this week, August 15 – 18, 1969, when the Woodstock Music and Art Festival occurred. Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, The Grateful Dead, Janice Joplin, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and many other acts performed rain-soaked sets while wasted on various drugs.
Sullivan County declared a state of emergency, and Governor Nelson Rockefeller threatened to send in the National Guard because having half a million people standing around on a dairy farm listening to Sha Na Na was not to be tolerated. Damn hippies.
What I love about Woodstock is that Max wanted to bring people together. He once said that old people like him needed to reach out to the younger generation and connect on their commonalities.
Max was 49 when he said this.
Look, I’m all for connecting with young people, but I’m not old. I’m not a half-century old, and even if I were, I’m still not old. I’m only old when I say I’m old, which is only in stupid contexts with other people my age.
But our thanks to this young man, Max, who unfortunately passed away at age 53, for the gift of the counterculture. I hope his cows ate well with the imported hay.
Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here's what I got:
1. New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey resigned on August 12, 2004. The Democratic Governor took office in 2002 and took along an Israeli security expert with him, which caused constant chatter about the relationship between the two men. Threatened with a sexual harassment lawsuit from Golan Cipel, the married McGreevey announced he would resign after admitting he had a sexual relationship with Cipel. McGreevey then became the first openly gay governor in United States history. McGreevey is now the Executive Director of a nonprofit that helps former inmates secure work.
2. The Wizard of Oz premiered on August 15, 1939. Adopted from the children's fantasy novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the movie would become the most-watched film of all time. The story is about a little girl who wants to leave Kansas and lands in a mysterious place called Oz but finds herself surrounded by men of all shapes and sizes who are idiots. Our heroine, Dorthory, is saved by another woman who has to explain that good witches exist, and Dorothy wakes up to find out the entire thing was a dream, which I guess is the only way you could explain men’s stupidity back in 1939.
3. The first Issue of Sports Illustrated appeared on August 16, 1954. Volume 1 Number 1 featured a cover of two major league baseball teams, the Milwaukee Braves, and the New York Giants, squaring off in Milwaukee. What’s funny is that the Braves moved to Atlanta ten years later, while the Giants moved west to San Fransisco in 1958, and SI went down the toilet around 2018 when it separated with longtime publisher Time, Inc.
Okay, I will be upfront and let you know that this week is full of softball playoffs, work, two doctor appointments, Anonymous being out of town, and celebrating the major accomplishments of my favorite in-laws. Therefore, there will not be a Friday edition of the next round of election rankings.
Please accept my apologies.
But let’s talk about what I should rank next year. I’ve ranked presidents, states, constitutional amendments, and presidential elections. What should be next?
Let me know in the comments.
Have a great week. Thanks for supporting Okay History. You are the best. I’ll see you here next Monday.
Okay,
Chris
How about controversies and scandals? You could do Teapot Dome, the XYZ Affair, the Zimmerman Telegram. There’s a lot of them and they are little-known and interesting.