BY THE TIME I GOT TO WOODSTOCK

The other day, mindful of the upcoming big anniversary, I drove to my storage locker to search for my Woodstock Music and Arts Fair tickets. I was thinking maybe I would sell them to a collector. I eventually unearthed them at the bottom of a box full of random old magazines, photographs, and correspondence packed during one of my many moves. (I’ve never been good at preserving my past: no scrapbooks, portfolios, or journals for me.) After 50 years, the red “Complimentary” stamp across the three-day ticket strip had faded, much like the memories of the summer when I helped to make history, the summer that altered the course of my life.

Looking back, it must have been kismet.

Clearly, for a project this ambitious, your ordinary program notes wouldn’t cut it.

I was a 20-year-old college senior, caught up in the counterculture and turbulence of the times and looking for a summer job. Through my then-girlfriend, I was introduced to (or turned on to,