| INDEX | BETHEL 2000 | BETHEL 2001 | CLAP YER HANDS | ON STAGE THIS TIME | YASGUR'S BARN |
Jesse Okolicko Slokum Goes
BACK
To Yasgur's Farm
Ever WONDER How Many DAYS have passed since August 15, 1969?
Jesse Slokum
Meets Steven Gaskin
In Yasgur's Barn
| Friday afternoon, I was doing door to the stage watch cat
duty inside Yasgur's barn, when I noticed "the guy setting up his
tent" walk by. I saw a Steven Gaskin for President lapen button
pinned to his jacket and realized the tall beatnik stranger was the
selfsame fellow! I walked up to him, and introduced myself, telling him
that I'd been on the Bus Caravan in it's last two weeks in 1971. It was
important to me to thank this mahaspirited man for imparting a
very wise phrase back then: one can effect by assuming the other's GOOD WILL" by qualifying the statement with "Hardly a limit" - knowing what your limits are is essential to the recommendation) Saturday morning, Steven walked up to me in the barn and addressed me as Jesse. He remembered my named, saying, "I like to work with people I share history with. I've been given ten minutes to speak on the stage out front today. Would you introduce me?" For an instant I was overcome with the kind of rapid fleeting thought one might expect in such a moment, yet I quickly gathered my suddenly scattered wits, shrugged my shoulders to unlock my tied tongue, and said, "...SURE!" I then spent sometime pulling a coherent sense of my approach together. When the time came to the microphone, I took a deep breath, and walked out onto the stage to speak. "Hi! My name is Jesse Slokum, and this is my first re-union. Those of you who've already met me or found my web-site surfing links from the Woodstock69 home page know my story of being filmed in the audience August 15, 1969 over in Max's alfalfa field, when Richie Havens asked us all to clap hands along with his FREEDOM Medley. And, that I didn't discover this until the movie came out in 1970. By 1970 I was quite aware of Steven Gaskin, his Monday Night Class through the book of the same name. While residing in Bloomington, Indiana, I found out that His bus caravan would be making a stop in Bloomington, to make its presentation in IU's Alumni Hall...After some friends decided to join the caravan, I met up with them in Colorado...and was with the caravan until its conclusion in 1971. A lot of time - 29 years has gone by. Things Steven said then have proven very helpful to me. Now the road we ride has brought us all back to this place. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Steven Gaskin." I was extemporizing at the time but the above gives you the gist of the words that came to me. You'll find plenty of worthwhile reasons to visit the FARM, set up in 1971, in Summertown, Tennessee, by many members of that bus caravan. I will let the Farm's site speak to you... I have had people in my life tell me they were "Trying to Survive..." My, my...my heart moaned for them...Bleak House indeed, to use a phrase Charles Dickens immortalized...Sustaining is more like it! Here's a place where people can learn to foster and practice such concepts: Ecovillage Training Center Check out You're INN At The FARM, too... |
You can go to Recollections from here, and visit Jesse's Cyber Cafe.
NOW, YOU CAN "play" with WAVY GRAVY
in THE CyberEther!!!
| Healing resources |
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See this phrase translated! |
"My heart's in the highlands, gentle and fair..."
*****All materials copyrighted 1998-99 Jesse Slokum*****
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