For the over 65 crowd

[dtaylo1066]

 

[Robin L]

If somebody's 65, that would have made them 12 when Woodstock went down. I was 14. The gap between the commercials and the programming on this edition on Dick Cavette's show is immense, but the Firesign Theater managed to throw this curveball at the ad at 35:35 right over the plate:

 

[Chrispy]

While my mom was a big Dick Cavett fan, suspect she turned this episode off. I didn't know of it, but didn't watch Dick Cavett myself back then (I was 13)

 

[anmpr1]

Cavett was generally thought of as a more hip intellectual type, as opposed to Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. Carson was king, IMO, but his show came on so late on the East coast that you couldn't watch it. Almost midnight. Brian Wilson's tribute to Johnny was at least as funny and weird as Carson could sometimes be.

I don't remember Woodstock being that big a deal at the time--at least where I was. I guess if you were in the NY area it was different. When the 3 record set came out everyone bought a copy. And then the movie. I didn't care for acts like Melanie, but I was pretty wowed by the Ten Years After performance, a band which I owned their records. Alvin Lee made me want to play an ES-335, which I could never afford.

It was a pretty weird time. A lot of anti-war, anti-government stuff going on. Not like today, where that sort of 'anti-establishment' rebellion doesn't seem to click with the kids too much. I could have it wrong, though. Just my impression.

 

[dtaylo1066]

I was only 13 at the time but had an 18 year old brother and was spending the summer about 1 hour drive south of Woodstock.

 

[tw 2022]

Cavett was generally thought of as a more hip intellectual type, as opposed to Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. Carson was king, IMO, but his show came on so late on the East coast that you couldn't watch it. Almost midnight. Brian Wilson's tribute to Johnny was at least as funny and weird as Carson could sometimes be.

I don't remember Woodstock being that big a deal at the time--at least where I was. I guess if you were in the NY area it was different. When the 3 record set came out everyone bought a copy. And then the movie. I didn't care for acts like Melanie, but I was pretty wowed by the Ten Years After performance, a band which I owned their records. Alvin Lee made me want to play an ES-335, which I could never afford.

It was a pretty weird time. A lot of anti-war, anti-government stuff going on. Not like today, where that sort of 'anti-establishment' rebellion doesn't seem to click with the kids too much. I could have it wrong, though. Just my impression.

It was the draft that turned off the kids, they didn't want to fight a political war.. I don't blame em.....as the great Muhammad Ali said " ain't no Viet Cong ever called me a "ni****" i certainly understand the thought...

 

[RayDunzl]

It was the draft that turned off the kids

My Draft Lottery Number for 1971 was 292

 

[tw 2022]

My Draft Lottery Number for 1971 was 301

Yepper, you lived it, and it kinda sucked..

 

[Ken1951]

My Draft number was 172, from the 1970 Draft Lottery. Woodstock was definitely a thing. It was an "interesting" time and had been for a fair number of years.

 

[Chrispy]

My Draft number was 172, from the 1970 Draft Lottery. Woodstock was definitely a thing. It was an "interesting" time and had been for a fair number of years.

Testing my memory now....think my draft number was low-mid 200s in 73 before it was abolished....had me envisioning Canada at the time.

 

[RayDunzl]

The 1970, 1971 and 1972 Draft Lotteries for the Vietnam War

 

[Ken1951]

Testing my memory now....think my draft number was low-mid 200s in 73 before it was abolished....had me envisioning Canada at the time.

I was pretty safe. I had a student deferment as I started college at 18 in 1969 and stayed until I graduated in 1973.

 

[mhardy6647]

There was a flowering in the life sciences in the US (biochemistry, biophysics, and molecular biology) that was spearheaded by guys in those days who went and stayed in graduate programs at places like Berkeley instead of... visiting Southeast Asia.
It was also about that time that women began to make some inroads into the life sciences (biology seemed to me to have been a little more accepting of women earlier than the other "hard" sciences*), but there were a lot of draft-eligible fellows hangin' out in the labs in those days.

____________
* My class in grad school matriculated in the fall of 1980 -- and was half female. I don't think that was the case in chemistry or physics in most US schools in 1981.

 

[Chrispy]

I was pretty safe. I had a student deferment as I started college at 18 in 1969 and stayed until I graduated in 1973.

Looking up some history seems I was out of consideration in early 73, might have gotten the draft number late 72....just an activity I'd hope we can evolve from sooner than later but seems we still have too much stupid testosterone types around.

 

[Doodski]

I was living in British Columbia in The Kootenays at the time as the crow flies maybe 2 miles from the USA-Canada border and a 3.5 mile drive. I was old enough that I was allowed to swim at the local municipal pool in a city of ~3500 on the side of a ski mountain. The city was pretty liberal, hippy and ski bumb oriented. The draft dodgers where crossing the USA-Canada border and living in the bush to avoid being caught and drafted. They would come to the swimming pool I took lessons at and they would swim, shower and shave and whatever and then disappear back into the bush. I told my mother and she said that something very important was happening, to just be patient and to not get in their way. Then we ran across draft dodgers along the Pend Oreille River in British Columbia. Same stuff. Very close to the USA-Canada border, safe haven living in the bush and just wanting to escape from what they wanted nothing of.

 

[dtaylo1066]

My hippie brother was sweating bullets as we watched the draft on black and white TV. It was the height of the war and any number under about 60 or so was probably going pronto. I think he pulled somewhere in the mid 200s.

I turned 18 in October of 1974 when I was a senior in H.S., and still had to register, but registration with the Selective Service System was suspended on April 1, 1975, so I was one of the last of a generation of those who had to register.

 

[Tom C]

I had to register when I turned 18 in ’78. Never had a draft number, though, obviously.

 

[anmpr1]

I was only 13 at the time but had an 18 year old brother and was spending the summer about 1 hour drive south of Woodstock.

The event reached counterculture mythic proportions, for sure. Everyone likes to embellish their life story, but at the time and for the next few years I can't tell you how many people I ran into that claimed to have 'hitchhiked to Woodstock'. My guess is that five times as many people said they were there as actually attended.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The event reached counterculture mythic proportions, for sure. Everyone likes to embellish their life story, but at the time and for the next few years I can't tell you how many people I ran into that claimed to have 'hitchhiked to Woodstock'. My guess is that five times as many people said they were there as actually attended.

Surely you jest. It must be more like 20 times.

 

[dartinbout]

I was born in January '53. My draft number was 305. I had been given a ticket to Woodstock and had a ride. The weekend before I "'met" an art student from Philly. She invited me to visit and I hitched there, from Baltimore, instead of going to Yasgar's farm. A "bird in the hand" as it were... I don't regret it. Not the 1st time I followed where the direction of my inbuilt divining rod led me, rather then make, in retrospect, the wiser choice.