Pete Kiendzior with Woodstock 50th anniversary banner. (Photo by Amy Porter)
WESTFIELD – This year, Pete Kiendzior and his wife, Cathy Kennedy Kiendzior, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, attending the concert by Santana and the Doobie Brothers on Friday night, Aug. 16.
What made the trip extra special for them was that they attended the original Woodstock Festival in 1969, although not together.
Pete Kiendzior, who graduated from Westfield High School in 1964, had just completed three years in the army, serving in Fort Campbell in Kentucky and Inchon Harbor in South Korea. He was 23 and working at Micro Abrasives on Southampton Road, when he and his friends Ron Riciotti and Ken Kaminski decided to go upstate to Max Yasgur’s Farm in Bethel, New York.
Kiendzior got as far as Monticello, about 12 miles away when he was told to park his car in a field because the road to Bethel was closed. They started walking, when a hippie van pulled up to give them a ride. The van driver said he had told the police he lived locally, so they were allowed to go through.
Some of the memories that stand out for Kiendzior from Woodstock include going up to the stage to ask a guy who was on next. When he went back to his group, they told him he had just been speaking to Jimi Hendrix.
He said Santana, who played on Saturday afternoon in 1969, brought the west coast sound and everybody got up on their feet. The Who and Sly and the Family Stone followed.
“When Roger Daltrey raised his arms with the (fringe on his jacket), and the lights shone on him, he looked like a dove of peace,” Kiendzior said.
A t-shirt that Pete Kiendzior bought at the 1969 festival. (Photo by Amy Porter)
Another memorable moment for Kiendzior was when he started looking for familiar faces from Westfield, and happened to step on Kevin Regan’s hand, his neighbor from up the street. Regan was there with Patricia Granfield, Christine O’Connor, John Stopa and a couple of other folks, as he recalled.
Kiendzior said he couldn’t believe out of hundreds of thousands of people that were there, it was Regan’s hand he stepped on.
He also remembers that Stopa could only stay one day because he had to get back to open the Baystate Hotel for his father the next day.
Kiendzior said there was no food or water anywhere, and he remembers getting pretty hungry. He forgot all about a ham sandwich he had brought with him in his backpack. When he remembered it, after sleeping on it for a couple of day, he took a bite and shared it with his friends. Wine was passed along the same way. “Everybody was sharing everything,” he said.
He said the Hog Farm was feeding people, but he didn’t want to go there. They had made tables out of the troughs, but Kiendzior thought they were having people eat out of the troughs, and they were going to take photos of the “dirty hippies.”
He got really paranoid when he finally went to the Hog Farm on Sunday seeking food, and helicopters surrounded them. “I thought this is it, they’re all going to kill us,” said Kiendzior.
Instead, loudspeakers declared, “Don’t worry, we’re here for you not against you,” and landed with doctors, medical supplies and food. Kiendzior learned later that New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller had sent the National Guard to help.
Kiendzior and his friends started leaving on Sunday evening. He said they didn’t stay too far away that night, and could hear Hendrix play the National Anthem in the distance the next morning. He said to his surprise, he easily found his car, and they got home to Westfield on Monday night.
After Woodstock, Kiendzior continued to work at Micro Abrasive before joining Westfield Gas & Electric, where he worked for a couple of dozen years in the gas department putting in mains, doing service calls and reading meters.
He also started a DJ business called Music Express, which he did for 25 years on weekends and evenings, playing classic rock for parties and weddings, and deejaying at the Purple Onion, up until five years ago. “I don’t like the music nowadays,” Kiendzior said.
Pete Kiendzior and Cathy Kennedy Kiendzior at stone commemorating Woodstock festival in Bethel, NY. (Photo submitted)
It was long after Woodstock that Kiendzior met and married his wife, Cathy Kennedy Kiendzior who had her own Woodstock story to tell.
They returned to Bethel for the first time since the festival seven years ago, after Kiendzior started having some heart problems. He said when he got there and stood on the same field he had as a kid, he felt this uncontrollable sensation.
“A lot of emotions,” he said. “I got over it.”
This year, for the 50th anniversary, they couldn’t get a room closer than 45 minutes away at a resort that he said ended up costing them over $317 for the night. He enjoyed seeing Santana on the outdoor stage again though.
He said the owners who bought the farm from Max Yasgur have it preserved as open space, and in the corner is a monument to the original festival, listing all of the bands that played there.
Kiendzior is still looking for people from Westfield who went to Woodstock 50 years ago. He said if anyone would like to share their memories with him, they can give him a call at 413-454-3714. However, he said, they have to be at least 50 years old.
