WOODSTOCK!!!: This Date in History

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Every time I think about how tragic the European conquest of the Americas was, I get sad. No matter what the Europeans did, if every single person who left Europe for America had been a saint who was dedicated to preserving and protecting the cultural integrity of Native Americans, I don't think history would have changed much. There were just too many endemic Eurasian diseases to which Native Americans had absolutely no immunity to have materially changed what happened. The Eurasian landmass was just too big, too populated, had too many diseases, and was so genetically diverse for the Native Americans to have stood a chance. This in no way excuses the atrocities the European invaders committed. It's just an acknowledgement that the European's malice had minimal effect. The adverse impacts of European diseases spread far faster, far wider, and were far deadlier than anything European malice could ever hope to accomplish.

It was a war where one side was shooting arrows and throwing spears and the other side was dropping nuclear bombs.
 
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Europe/the Middle East/Far East just had their devastation a 150 years earlier in the 14th Century with the Bubonic Plague. It killed as many as 200 million people wiping out a third to 50% of the Eurasian population.
 
“The day (August 13, 1961) was hot and humid, and once cars got up to speed at Asheville-Weaverville Speedway in the North Carolina mountains, the newly paved racing surface almost immediately began to crumble. It was a recipe for disaster … or a full-scale riot, take your pick.

Fans, already miserable due to the sweltering heat, seethed when the race was called just past the halfway point of the scheduled 500-lap event. Junior Johnson was declared the winner, but that seemed of little consequence. Incredibly, a few took it upon themselves to block the only way out of the track and, in effect, held competitors hostage.

Bud Moore was there that day, and he remembered the highly charged atmosphere in an early episode of The Scene Vault Podcast. This is his story.”

 
Missed it by a day...

The story of the ‘Lost Colony’ is taught to every Tar Heel school child though the true context is left aside for the most part. The English invaders were met by the inhabitants of the coast soon after they landed and treated with wariness. Two Croatoan-Algonquian men, Manteo and Wanchese, seem to have taken the lead as liaisons with the English. As a boy Manteo was painted heroically in my North Carolina history classes while Wanchese was either slid to the side or went unmentioned. Perhaps that’s because Wanchese had the clearest vision of the change to be wrought by the invasion of the Europeans. Manteo learned English & subsequently worked w/the colonizers while Wanchese rightfully suspected English goals & became a foe-both had made voyage #1 in 1584 with Arthur Barlowe & Thomas Hariot across the Atlantic and to the British Isles. In England they attended Royal Court & met Sir Walter Raleigh.

#OTD (August 13) in 1585 Algonquian men Manteo & Wanchese left England aboard ‘The Tyger,’ bound for home & Roanoke (NC).

https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../wanchese-and-manteo-conclude...
 
#OnThisDay - August 14, 1935. “President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Bill into law on August 14, 1935, only 14 months after sending a special message to Congress on June 8, 1934, that promised a plan for social insurance as a safeguard "against the hazards and vicissitudes of life." The 32-page Act was the culmination of work begun by the Committee on Economic Security (CES), created by the President on June 29, 1934, and became, as he said at the signing ceremony, "a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. " (For developments in the old-age benefits portion of the Act since 1935, see Martha A. McSteen, "Fifty Years of Social Security.")”

Link here to text: https://www.ssa.gov/history/50ed.html


This statement has been appended to the webpage: "This is an archival or historical document and may not reflect current policies or procedures."

At least they haven't erased the page...
 
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Despite what my students think, I did not attend Woodstock. I had just turned 11 and playing third base in the spirit of Brooks Robinson for Harpers Crossroads Little League was much more at the heart of my world in 1969 than Rock ‘n Roll. Still, by the late 1960s we had begun to feel the reverberations of counter culture stirrings in #DeepChatham Bonlee. Looking at photographs from those days closely the ‘bell’ at the bottom of our blue jeans was there, some pop art patterns were appearing in shirts and shorts, and instead of a buzz cut there were bangs.



I remember coercing our local barber, “Hunky” Paschal, a beloved man who told mesmerizing stories about the wildness of the woods and hills of #DeepChatham, to back off with his clippers just a bit, with the permission of my Momma of course - who called him Robert, maintaining her blanket abstention from employing nickname. I’m not sure anyone would have know his real name if not for her. Her job as postal clerk had its perks when it came to names and namings.



“Hunky” was also the unofficial mayor of Bonlee, being a prominent and very available Notary Public and all, living in his shop in ‘downtown’ Bonlee. He held back with his clippers, albeit reluctantly, perhaps he already sensed the inevitability of the coming of The Hippies and the 1970s embrace and neutralizing sanitation of counter-culture fashion that would follow - a cultural inversión that would signal hard times for any barber that didn’t become at least a part-time ‘hair stylist.’



It was around that same time that I really started working in #BonleeHardware, my Momma and Deddy’s store. I, like so many, slowly but steadily began to ‘grow out’ my hair. Of course there were resisters and I caught some pretty unforgettably nasty ribbing from some of the regular customers. They were the same ones that would continue on that theme when I, beginning in 1976, started attending Carolina.



Their suggestions that my school was a nest of ‘Left-Wing Liberals’ and ‘Commies’ engaging in Free Love of ALL types while working to undermine the American Dream were in keeping with their other full-blown Helmsian ways of seeing. Senator No, after all, was in those days still dragging us down from his nightly perch on WRAL-TV where one of his favorite bloviations was calling UNC The University of Negroes and Communists (clever use of UNC there by The Right-Wing anti-intellectuals, eh? A trumpist bit of juvenile name-calling that predated modern times.) I took some of the harassment but once Deddy gave me the go-ahead I let some of the more mean-spirited ones have it right back. I will forever be thankful to him for that “The customers are most definitely NOT always right” talk.



I had begun to fall for Chapel Hill from the first time I laid eyes on the place. My older brother attended, which had gotten me into town early on, and of course a field trip to the #MoreheadPlanetarium left me wanting for more. Dean Smith sealed the deal after he got me on the “Front Porch” with his unselfish, winning brand of team-first basketball. Come to think of it, there was an awful big quotient of the “From each according to their ability and to each according to their need” in his “Carolina Way.” No wonder Helms and his people hated us so very much (dating back to Dr. Frank Porter Graham too no doubt). What a fine set of enemies against which to be measured indeed.



By the time I could drive I started heading over to Chapel Hill (exactly 34 miles through the backroads). The shops on Franklin Street were a whole new world. The Shrunken Head, The Dandelion, and smokey, dimly lit interiors smelling of beer into which, at 16 I only dared to peer but would soon enough come to love, suggested to me that there was a great deal of education stretched out in front of me. Flower Ladies and long hair, head bands, bell bottoms, and incense and black light posters and electric guitars all seductively screamed HIPPY LIBERATION!!!



So when I arrived on Commie Hill in August of 1976 I was ready for the hippies. So what happened? Punk Rock. What a musical mishmash of a time it would be - and continues to be. Of course there are more stories. Still, what happened #OnThisDay in 1969 was key.



#OTD (August 15) in 1969 the “Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Three Days of Peace and Music” kicked off - 400,000 attended, far outstripping attendance forecasts and music and youth culture was never the same.
 
donbosco said:
IMG_0389.jpeg

Despite what my students think, I did not attend Woodstock. I had just turned 11 and playing third base in the spirit of Brooks Robinson for Harpers Crossroads Little League was much more at the heart of my world in 1969 than Rock ‘n Roll. Still, by the late 1960s we had begun to feel the reverberations of counter culture stirrings in #DeepChatham Bonlee. Looking at photographs from those days closely the ‘bell’ at the bottom of our blue jeans was there, some pop art patterns were appearing in shirts and shorts, and instead of a buzz cut there were bangs.



I remember coercing our local barber, “Hunky” Paschal, a beloved man who told mesmerizing stories about the wildness of the woods and hills of #DeepChatham, to back off with his clippers just a bit, with the permission of my Momma of course - who called him Robert, maintaining her blanket abstention from employing nickname. I’m not sure anyone would have know his real name if not for her. Her job as postal clerk had its perks when it came to names and namings.



“Hunky” was also the unofficial mayor of Bonlee, being a prominent and very available Notary Public and all, living in his shop in ‘downtown’ Bonlee. He held back with his clippers, albeit reluctantly, perhaps he already sensed the inevitability of the coming of The Hippies and the 1970s embrace and neutralizing sanitation of counter-culture fashion that would follow - a cultural inversión that would signal hard times for any barber that didn’t become at least a part-time ‘hair stylist.’



It was around that same time that I really started working in #BonleeHardware, my Momma and Deddy’s store. I, like so many, slowly but steadily began to ‘grow out’ my hair. Of course there were resisters and I caught some pretty unforgettably nasty ribbing from some of the regular customers. They were the same ones that would continue on that theme when I, beginning in 1976, started attending Carolina.



Their suggestions that my school was a nest of ‘Left-Wing Liberals’ and ‘Commies’ engaging in Free Love of ALL types while working to undermine the American Dream were in keeping with their other full-blown Helmsian ways of seeing. Senator No, after all, was in those days still dragging us down from his nightly perch on WRAL-TV where one of his favorite bloviations was calling UNC The University of Negroes and Communists (clever use of UNC there by The Right-Wing anti-intellectuals, eh? A trumpist bit of juvenile name-calling that predated modern times.) I took some of the harassment but once Deddy gave me the go-ahead I let some of the more mean-spirited ones have it right back. I will forever be thankful to him for that “The customers are most definitely NOT always right” talk.



I had begun to fall for Chapel Hill from the first time I laid eyes on the place. My older brother attended, which had gotten me into town early on, and of course a field trip to the #MoreheadPlanetarium left me wanting for more. Dean Smith sealed the deal after he got me on the “Front Porch” with his unselfish, winning brand of team-first basketball. Come to think of it, there was an awful big quotient of the “From each according to their ability and to each according to their need” in his “Carolina Way.” No wonder Helms and his people hated us so very much (dating back to Dr. Frank Porter Graham too no doubt). What a fine set of enemies against which to be measured indeed.



By the time I could drive I started heading over to Chapel Hill (exactly 34 miles through the backroads). The shops on Franklin Street were a whole new world. The Shrunken Head, The Dandelion, and smokey, dimly lit interiors smelling of beer into which, at 16 I only dared to peer but would soon enough come to love, suggested to me that there was a great deal of education stretched out in front of me. Flower Ladies and long hair, head bands, bell bottoms, and incense and black light posters and electric guitars all seductively screamed HIPPY LIBERATION!!!



So when I arrived on Commie Hill in August of 1976 I was ready for the hippies. So what happened? Punk Rock. What a musical mishmash of a time it would be - and continues to be. Of course there are more stories. Still, what happened #OnThisDay in 1969 was key.



#OTD (August 15) in 1969 the “Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Three Days of Peace and Music” kicked off - 400,000 attended, far outstripping attendance forecasts and music and youth culture was never the same.
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The 51 days between June 28 (Stonewall raid) and August 18 (end of Woodstock), 1969 have to be among the more momentous in American history.
 
I am one of the few who did not attend Woodstock but claim they did 😏

Woodstock was a watershed event. 500,000 spending three days without violence
Altamont concert 4 months later was suppose to be Woodstock West but is was not

I own the DVD's of both concerts and watch each one back to back this time of year.. The juxtaposition is disturbing yet compelling and from a political/cultural perspective it mirrors the juxtaposition of Obama's hope for America to be followed by Trump's dystopia
 
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