|
 It
was unbeknownst to Sam and Bella Yasgur of Maplewood NY, that their son
would grow to be a counterculture icon.
His name was Max, and he would fight for the rights of people
with whom he shared little in common, including matters of opinion. That
he would champion for the hippies’ right to assemble, speak and
perform on any topic important to them.
Max Yasgur stepped into the history books when he said there
would be a festival on his land. It
was a landmark event, and it was called “Woodstock”.
 Raised
on a farm, Max attended New York University where he studied real estate
law. He returned to his
family’s farm in the 1940’s which was sold a few years later, and he
moved to Bethel looking to expand.
He married Miriam “Mimi” Miller of Monticello, they had two
children, and by the late 1960’s, the Yasgur Dairy Farm had grown to
be the largest milk producer in Sullivan County, complete with its own
refrigeration complex, pasteurization plant and delivery routes.
Max Yasgur was known across the county as being a strong-willed,
hard working, man of his word, toting a pipe and having a powerful
hand-shake..
 In
the summer of 1969 everything would change.
Fifty miles down the road in Walkill NY, the planned Woodstock
Festival had been driven out and alternative land was desperately being
sought. A gentleman by the
name of Elliot Tiber, a good friend of Max, was the person
responsible for first bringing Max and Woodstock Ventures together.
Yasgur had a large farm and an initial offer was made to rent his field
for $50 dollars a day for a festival that might bring in 5,000 people
Yasgur
was aware of what had taken place in Walkill and felt it was a great
injustice. Interested in
this proposal, but making no promises, the farmer met the hippie in the
alfalfa field - a field which Max had cleared himself.
Festival promoter Michael Lang was immediately sold on the site
shown to him by Max. Lang
thought the land was perfect - a large flat plateau for concessions,
progressing towards a gently sloping alfalfa field that created a
natural bowl or amphitheater. There was a rise at the bottom, perfect
for a stage, and a lake in the background.
To Michael the land was magic and meetings were set to further
discuss the matter.
When
it came to business, Max welcomed rental fees for the event.
The summer had been miserable and rainy, and Max saw this
festival as a way of supporting his wife and children – not to mention
a large farm and his  workers. Max
was a businessman himself, and he grew wise to Woodstock Ventures.
Within a few days it had become obvious to Yasgur that this would
be more than a small event as an estimated 40,000 were now expected.
Initially offered $50, Yasgur and Lang would again walk the land,
and with pencil and paper in hand, Max figured in everything, including
what his losses would be - the crop he would lose already in the field
plus the cost to reseed the land for the following year.
With a little persuasion from his son, the dairy farmer rented
600 acres of his farm plus surrounding parcels to the Woodstock
entrepreneurs for a total of $75,000, and the deal was sealed right on
that field.
 Conservative
was the appropriate look in Bethel - short hair and covered chests.
So as word of Max’s proposal quickly traveled through town, and it
brought about an outrage from townspeople and Sullivan County elders -
someone from within was negotiating with longhairs.
Personal threats were launched, and a sign popped up reading: “
Don't Buy Yasgur's Milk. He Loves The Hippies.”
“The sign did it,” said Miriam Yasgur, “When Max saw that,
I knew darned well he was going to let them have their festival. You
didn't do that to Max.”
 Max
attended a town meeting prior to the festival to defend himself, after
hearing a number of complaints about the upcoming concert. Yasgur asked each official there if there were any legal
stipulations, within their respective departments, that hadn't been met
to accommodate the expected 40,000 people per day. When no reservations were raised, he addressed the entire
meeting saying: "So the only objection to having a festival here is
to keep longhairs out of town? Well,
you can all go pound salt up your ass, because come August 15, we're
going to have a festival!"
 At
5:07pm EDT on August 15, 1969 the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival
began. The 40,000 expected
people had grown to half a million.
The crowd was treated to some of the top names in music of the
day. They also faced
torrential downpours, mud, hunger and insufficient basic amenities such
as toilets and shelter, in what was deemed by the state governor as a
disaster area. Out of
circumstance, the crowd, mainly comprised of middle class youth, endured
the conditions through the counterculture’s practices of caring, and
sharing of all available resources, with those around them.
It was a watershed event that defined a generation, and one of
the greatest events of the 20th Century.
Yasgur
made an appearance onstage at the festival and uttered the words "I
am a farmer" to which he received thunderous applause.
At
the end of the 3 day celebration Yasgur took the stage and made his
moving "I Am a Farmer" speech to the thousands of spectators,
becoming a highly revered figure among the hippies.
Max fought for them all, and they knew it. He became the father image for Woodstock and its patron
saint.
To Hear Max
Yasgur address
the Woodstock crowd, download Realplayer
In
the months that followed the event, Max Yasgur’s name was dirt
throughout Sullivan County, and he paid a high price for the profit he
made. In addition to facing
the scorn of neighbors, he battled first-hand the crisis created by the
vast number of concert-goers, who crowded his 600 acres.
On January 7, 1970, Max was sued for $35,000 in property damages
by neighboring farmers.
Max
had wanted that land to be developed into a park area.
He offered 5 acres of land overlooking the stage area to the Town
of Bethel for $1, but the community wanted nothing to do with it and
indicated that it would not be welcome. For years following the concert, the people of Bethel opposed
any publicity connecting them with the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival
in any way and went so far as to exempt themselves from any New York
tour guides. Mrs. Yasgur
admitted: "The community did not want to encourage young people to
come into the area."
In
1971, looking back at all that happened, Yasgur remarked: "The
worst thing about Woodstock was that there were just too many. I wouldn't have done it if I knew there were going to be half
a million instead of 40,000... Bethel is a rural town and can't service
a crowd that big... I had no right to have any kind of affair that would
block vital services from reaching my neighbors."
Max
was a crusader against drugs, and once said: "Provided all
facilities were available, if a festival could be held drug free --and I
know I'm dreaming-- they
could have all the private sex and nudity they wanted."
| The use of drugs on
his land bothered Max a great deal; LSD in particular. "Any
kid I can get off drugs means more to me," he commented,
"than endorsing some nutty product." Before he died,
hundreds of festival-goers wrote to say that as a result of
Woodstock and the personal ideals Max publicized later on, they
quit drugs. As Yasgur put it: "To me this means
everything." |
Max
sold his business and retired to a winter home in Marathon, Florida,
where he worked as a realtor. There
were a number of offers to market his name on merchandise, but he turned
them all down, believing that it would be wrong to try to capitalize on
something that was, in his words, "an accident".
The only things that he said he disliked about Woodstock were the
use of drugs, especially LSD and the immense size of the crowd, as it
was far beyond his expectations.
Max
Yasgur toured Israel about two years after the concert and had the
opportunity to meet Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.
Ben-Gurion went down the receiving line, speaking to each guest. Max
said to Ben-Gurion, “I'm Max Yasgur of Bethel,” and Ben-Gurion
shakes his hand and says, “Oh yeah, that's where Woodstock was, wasn't
it?” said Liberty's Lou Newman, a friend of Yasgur's.
On
Feb. 9, 1973, the dairy farmer suffered a heart attack, and was taken
from us at the early age of 53. There
were many who attended his funeral, and there were those who chose to
pay their respects by visiting the site of the historical event that he
made possible. He was laid
to rest at the Ahavath Israel Cemetery, Liberty, NY., and will be
forever remembered.
Max
was, and still is, highly respected as a man of his word, for his
idealism and for his modesty, for his peace and for his tolerance, and
is best characterized by a comment he once made to his wife: "When
I decide that I have to drive by someone in need of help and not stop,
that's not the kind of world I want to live in."
In
Memory
| Thank you Max and Miriam
Yasgur for providing such a
beautiful place
for the Woodstock event.
You helped to create history |
Max Yasgur poses at his farm near
Bethel, N.Y. in this 1970 photo.
|
In
1971, Yasgur completed five chapters of a book he was
collaborating on, and all the material has been recorded. The
Woodstock Letters would have been a compilation of his favorite
correspondence. Work was cancelled when publishers convinced him
people would be more interested in an autobiography. Max eventually realized that people were interested in what
he had to say and would respect his idealism and he began to
record his personal memories and took a strong stand against
drugs. Included in his Woodstock memorabilia are hundreds of notes
from festival goers saying “Thanks for letting us use your
land”. Maybe,
someday, that book will come out, but for now, for his wife and
grandchildren, it's a precious record of a man who was proudest as
a successful farmer and as a good provider for his family. |
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