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ROCKFEST |
EPILOG AND LOOSE ENDS This was the last news article I found on the festival: Court Continues an Order Barring Catskill Festival ALBANY, July 16 (AP)- A State Supreme Court justice granted continuation today of a temporary court order blocking a music festival at Mountaindale, in the Catskill Mountains. Justice Russell G. Hunt agreed to continuation of the restraining order against Orwell Ventures of New York, pending' arguments July 28 in Monticello. He said that was the earliest date the court could hear the issue. The sponsors of the festival had scheduled a program for July 25. Two festival events have already been canceled because of the court order. At the Summit Hotel in Fallsburg last weekend, meanwhile, an impromptu rock concert drew a crowd estimated at 10,000.
Nelson and Tom did catch a ride from Podink all the way to Pittsburgh getting there about at 2:00 am. Before Denver they first visited San Francisco. Nelson came back to town some 6 weeks later. When he arrived his folks were visiting Portugal. Being an ice cream junkie he walked downtown to the local Friendlys... a regional ice cream and burger chain. After hitchhiking 7000 miles without incident, Nelson was stopped and frisked by a cop in his own hometown. It was hardly the welcoming party he might have hoped for. We did learn a few key lessons from Gonkers. When we heard about the Powder Ridge festival to be held in Connecticut a few weeks later we followed the story closely in the news. Bill and I even drove there a few days early to scout the area out. Not that it did any good. Our best-laid plans still fell apart. That story is here. In the weeks to come, we had a few more Cocknose Parties. Who would have guessed Wally would have a taste for Apple Butter. It took two parties but he managed to finish off the rest of the jar. We Gonkers survivors looked on in awe as he drank the stuff. The free Gonkers Dope was forgotten about. On the trip back I rode shotgun and left it on the “glove compartment” of Devil Bus so it could easily be disposed of in the event of a bust. Unfortunately, I forgot about it, only to discover it a month later as Greg and I headed the Strawberry Fields festival to Canada. Doh! Not that we ultimately made it. That would have been a bummer getting caught crossing the border! Paranoia is only as good as the quality of one's awareness. 1971: My Horse Piss bottle also survived. At the Powder Ridge festival that I attended a few weeks later I learned how to make Steamboats..... pipes made from bottles that shot smoke deep into a victim’s lungs. The Gonkers Steamboat, as it became known as, lay around in Gingerbread Man until it was broken the next spring. I did manage to salvage the labels. 1972: In the next year or two, while researching this story, I ordered a number of topographical maps from the USGS. For the first time I knew where we were and what we missed. If we had only known there was an abandoned 1000’ RR tunnel running beneath the Summit Hotel I'm sure we would have checked it out. 1975: All those years I wondered whether Horse Piss was truly bad wine or whether we were just truly bad judges of wine. I finally found a package store that could order it. It was up to $5.00 a bottle. Yikes! Talk about inflation. I passed. I was curious but not that curious. 1978: I returned to Gonkers and South Podink. Little in either town had seemed to change. The region was still run down. One notable difference was the Summit Hotel was gone, obviously destroyed by fire. Word was it happened between ’70 and ‘71. By ’78 the hotel grounds were badly overgrown. At the time I didn't did find out where the main Festival site had been... but I suspected it was at the New Prospect Hotel. 1990: I returned again to the scenes of the crime. The Summit Hotel grounds were now 20 years overgrown. Famous Food Fair was finally closed. I did find, then hiked, the abandoned RR tunnel. I had been told bears hibernated in the tunnel and I had to wonder whether the dark shape I’d seen in silhouette deep in the tunnel was a bear. Halfway though the tunnel the NiCad batteries in my small flashlight died. Fortunately, they lasted long enough to prove the black shape was but a large pile of bricks that had collapsed from the roof. I could deal with cave-ins... a bear in the dark would have been another matter. While in town I stopped in a Jewish pizza shop. Why didn't we think of pizza 20 years before? It would have been perfect! On the other hand, maybe it’s best it didn't occur to us. I learned that strict Jewish dietary law prohibited having a dairy product come in contact with meat. A pizza without sausage or pepperoni? Now that would have been sacrilege! 2001: The Internet is a fabulous way to meet people. A search for keyword “Summit Hotel” and “Fallsburg” led me to a page where someone was inquiring about the mini-Woodstock that happened there. His name is John and was ten at the time. His family used to spend several weeks each summer at a cottage next to the Summit Hotel. I hope to include his recollections here. I may also have a lead on one of the Mountaindale promoters. Who knows… maybe all that film that was shot still exists!! After all, Richie Havens played!
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