Hope

On the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, I was watching tributes. It's nice to see the time when hope was so high, everything seemed possible and righting wrongs seemed a generation's mission. It was also fascinating for me personally to see the strength and struggle it took to enjoy the event, took me back to my own version of Woodstock and the odd circle that occurred.

Despite how I feel some mornings, I'm too young to have experienced Woodstock. But less than a decade later, I joined forces with a friend to leave Dallas-Fort Worth for Austin and an outdoor event we'd heard about there.

As near as I can recall, it was an odd amalgamation of bands. I think it was the Steve Miller Band high-flying off its album "Fly Like An Eagle." It was The Band with its ties to Bob Dylan and unknowing to us on the verge of dissolution with one of the best concert movies ever, "The Last Waltz." It was the band Chicago in its heyday. And it was a California band that was touring supporting a self-titled album and was working on something it gave us previews of called "Rumours."

Like many outdoor events in those days, the ticket sales and basic requirements didn't match up. The road to the venue was a two-lane country path that was soon jammed to immovability with thousands. Almost everyone abandoned cars and walked miles to the site, the bands' tunes wafting over hills somewhere in Austin I still can't identify. It was that walk that created camaraderie, all of us suffering together and sharing information on the music as we struggled to the site. We were joined, supportive, hopeful.

Years later when I called Austin home, I found that a curmudgeonly co-worker who tried to hide a gentle soul and with an eclectic past had been one of the promoters of that show. He cussed about the difficulties and financial loss, I told him the feeling I walked away with. I think he liked it.

One day, I found that man was gone. He wasn't young, but from all I can tell, he wound up taking his life. It's likely he was sick and didn't want to suffer. It's even more likely he simply lost hope.

In these days, I feel that way sometimes. The world's unsteady, the nation is vitriolic and intolerant in its disagreements, the economy seems to sit upon me like a bully on a playground. I look at the macro and micro and feel hopeless.

That night watching the Woodstock documentary, I enjoyed the old hope. I recalled the feeling of the Austin show that occurred after the hippie hope had been pummeled by stupid war, social revolt and assassination. I thought of the karma that let me tell the man who had given me that experience that I'd held on to it.

And I thought hope is something that survives because you don't know what will happen. And that unknown can be uplifting when it occurs. You've just got to find the strength to wait for it.