While strolling through my neighborhood, I saw a woman wearing a “2017 Woman’s March On Washington” sweatshirt. I said, “Did you go to the March in Washington?” “No.” she replied, “But I bought the shirt.” It was her—-“Wish I had been there”—- moment.

If I had a dollar for all of the people who claimed they had attended the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, on a dairy farm, in the Catskill Mountains, I’d be able to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Granted, these big historical happenings are memorable, but often it’s really the little daily events, that impact our lives in ways that we cannot immediately appreciate or measure until much later.

In  August of 1969, while 400,000 free-spirits were letting loose at Woodstock, I remember losing my adventuresome two-year-old son, Josh in a department store. All it took was a quick glance away from him and he was gone. I knew that my husband would never let me back into the house without the kid, and the operational word was PANIC!  After everyone in the store knew his name from my shouts, I finally found him dancing in the shoe department. He had attracted an appreciate audience, and it was his pivotal moment in popular music history. I was convinced that at that event he had joined the counterculture generation. Gratefully, I left the store, child in hand, and passed some hippies who gestured the Peace Sign.  I think maybe one Grandma gave me the finger, but am not sure.

In spite of my negligent mothering (for which I have never forgiven myself) my free spirit son turned out okay. He learned to play the guitar and is now a science writer for NASA covering profiles of Earth Science Data Users.

Joni Mitchell said, “Woodstock was where half-a-million kids saw they were part of a greater organism.” I don’t know what those kids did after the experience, but I do believe that even small gestures, made by a few people, can help to heal the world. In 2018 we should all  learn from our mistakes, and do the best we can to  protect our rights, our safety, our health and our families.

And, it can’t hurt to keep dancing—-even if it’s in the shoe department.

Esther Blumenfeld