In the summer of 1969, 50 years ago, there were an estimated 350,000 to half a million people who attended the three-day music festival in upstate New York – Woodstock.

I had just finished my first year of teaching elementary school and was working in the summer as a bartender at Augie Hoffman’s Surf Club in Ortley Beach. I had heard on the radio about the Aug. 15-18 music festival in Bethel, N.Y., that had a line-up of phenomenal acts.