I need a favor. If any of you run into my 17-yar-old son and he asks if I went to Woodstock, tell him yeah. In fact, tell him you saw me there. (You may as well look cool, too.) 

For the record, I didn’t go to Woodstock. I was 15 that summer, and just had my curfew extended to an hour after the street lights came on, so hitchhiking to upstate New York for a rock concert would have been a hard sell. 

Anyway, here’s the deal: over the past couple of years my son has really gotten into music. He plays a couple of different guitars, all with the common denominator that they’re really loud, especially when played after midnight. Some of his high school friends also play instruments, so they jam together (although they never call it “jammin’, and I’ve learned not to use that word around them), and they talk a great deal about music. 

For me, this is a bridge across the generation gap. I had two passions growing up: sports and music, both of which I got, at least in part, from my dad. The interest in sports he fostered in me over a number a years. As his only manchild, I had to follow the local sports teams because, well, what else do guys talk about? Sharing his knowledge of sports (with a special emphasis on why devotion to the Steelers is second only to a commitment our church—which, by the way, he left to my mom to instill), was as much his responsibility as teaching me to belch, shave or drive. 

His contribution to my interest in music occurred all at once. One day, when I hadn’t even yet grown my first zit, he showed me a dusty old stack of vinyl records he rescued from a back shelf of his closet. “Hold these … but be careful,” he said, as he then cranked up the old Victrola. (Okay, our record player wasn’t that old. I’m just trying to set a scene here.) We spent the next hour or so listening to the scratchy stylings of such Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw, Frankie Laine, Bing Crosby and others.  

I think I mumbled something about how these singers and musicians weren’t that bad; I wasn’t about to admit that I thought they were pretty good. But the best part was, after that day, the old man and me shared a bond forged by music. 

So, not long ago, above the screech of Green Day or Jane’s Addiction or Nine Inch Nails, I overheard my son tell a friend that he discovered the incredible talent of Jimi Hendrix. Aha, an opening, I thought. So I started a conversation with him about the great artists and the classic songs of the ‘60s—you know, the ones Madison Ave. uses in commercials today as they not-so-subtlely try to appeal to Boomers and old hippies to buy cars and cell phone service. 

After a few minutes of extolling the passion and power of such rock legends as The Who, Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, Creedance Clearwater Revival, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, I realized that listening would be believing. So I bought him the Woodstock 25^th Anniversary Box Set—four discs of music from perhaps the single most memorable events of our generation. Or, as John Sebastien put it, “Woodstock was beads and colors and flowers and sunshine and beautiful people.” He conveniently left out the fact that the days of Aug. 15-18, 1969 on Max Yasgur’s 600-acre farm in upstate New York also offered rain, mud, mile long lines at the portable toilets, and opportunities for more than 500,000 young people to experiment with things they probably didn’t tell their parents about when they handed them some souvenir beads. (It was, after all, the Summer of Love.) All, by the way, for the price of an $18 ticket. (The box set costs about $55.)

But, hey, it’s all about the music, man. So I introduced my son to Arlo Guthrie wailing about “comin’ into Los Angeleees” …. Sly and the Family Stone … Joan Baez … the Band … I told him, in particular, about Country Joe and the Fish and their “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’ to Die Rag” and how he should listen to it with the sound down a bit so his mother doesn’t hear Country Joe admonish the crowd with the queen mother of obscenities. 

I also told him you really had to see Joe Cocker and his spastic way of performing to really appreciate him.  

So, if you run into my son and he asks about Woodstock and, in particular, who might or might not have been there, do me this favor and just say, “It’s a little hard to remember every little detail, if you know what I mean.” If you want to be my friend for life, you might also say, “There were a lot of tall, good looking guys with long hair there.” And if you don’t want to add that Sha Na Na called me up on stage to help with “At the Hop,” I understand. But remember: I get by with a little help from my friends.

Ron Cichowicz, vice president of development for Gateway Rehabilitation Center, is a Pittsburgh-based author and lecturer and luncheon speaker. If your business or organization would like to invite Ron to present a program on the “Positive Benefits of Humor” or other topics, contact him at roncichowicz27@comcast.net, or call (412) 885-4543.