Opening day attracts Woodstock concert veteran

BETHEL, NY — Joan Lafferty returned to the site of the Woodstock festival on opening day of the Museum at Bethel Woods on June 2. Lafferty said she made the three-hour trip from Clinton, NY on her 59th birthday to “have a good time,” after suffering a tough year in her personal life.

She went to the original concert in 1969 with nothing more than a “box of crackers and a bottle of wine.” It worked out in the end, however, because everyone who brought food shared it with people nearby. Lafferty said she remembers, among other things, lots of walking because she and her friends had to park so far away from the concert site.

Lafferty arrived at the museum with Marianne Kaplan of Kent, OH. Kaplan’s twin sister had accompanied Lafferty to the concert in 1969. Kaplan decided not to go because she was eight months pregnant. “I didn’t want to have the baby at the concert,” she said, although noting that four other expectant mothers did just that.

Before taking off for the museum, the women had painted “Woodstock or Breast” on the windows of their van. Lafferty said she saw a sign with those words while traveling to the original concert and it has amused her ever since.