CAPE MAN REMEMBERS WOODSTOCK '69

A teen-ager fresh out of high school, George Dordoni wanted to see sitar master Ravi Shankar. He quit his summer job and bummed a ride to Woodstock 1969.

He joined 350,000 others celebrating peace and love and music in an upstate New York farmer's field.

This weekend, as thousands are reliving Woodstock, Dordoni remembers the original.

He works at Southeast Missouri State University as assistant director of the Campus Assistance Center and international student adviser.

But 25 years ago, Dordoni was interested in the music promised at Woodstock, especially Shankar who taught the Beatles' George Harrison to play the sitar, an Indian instrument.

So Dordoni and a friend bought tickets and quit their jobs at a Catskills hotel. They arranged a ride because neither owned a car.

It was Wednesday prior to the weekend event. "Even as early as it was, we got stuck in a traffic jam getting there," Dordoni recalled.

They arrived with no sleeping bags or food or any other type of preparation. Dordoni's friend promptly ran off with a girl. "I never saw him again."

On his own, Dordoni hung out. He spent one night in a commune called Hog Farm whose leader was named Wavy Gravy.

He spent time with a commune of followers of an Indian guru named Meher Baba. The guru's motto: "Don't worry. Be happy."

Finally the first concerts geared up on Friday. "I sat myself up on the first hillside from the stage, and then it was pretty amazing as people started pouring in," he said.

Shankar performed. "When he started to play, it started to rain," he said. Dordoni was one of the few who braved the downpour to hear the Indian sitar music.

Drugs were a part of Woodstock, but Dordoni said he saw only marijuana. "And at that time smoking marijuana wasn't such a big deal. I heard about people taking acid, but I didn't see any of that, and I saw no hard drug use at all."

Woodstock was about music and kindred spirits spending time together, Dordoni said. He characterized most in attendance as tolerant people who were against discrimination and the Vietnam war.

"To have all those people feel the same way was a very powerful, good feeling," he said. "It was a real loving kind of feeling."

But Dordoni's ideology lasted only midway through Saturday. "I was just too tired and hungry and dirty," he said. John Sebastian was singing "Sweet Dawn My True Love" when Dordoni walked out.

He left Woodstock, but a part of Woodstock stayed with him. "It made my commitment to the ideals of the time that much stronger, knowing so many people felt like I did," he said.

Ah, the times they have changed, Dordoni said. This weekend's Woodstock reeks more of commercialism than marijuana smoke. But he said perhaps the young people attending Woodstock in 1994 will develop the same ideological bond as their counterparts in 1969.

"I think the magic is in the music," Dordoni said. "When the music starts and they hear Ziggy Marley and Jimmy Cliff and people like that, they are going to really get a sense of Woodstock."

Today's young people don't have such clear evils to oppose as the Vietnam war, Dordoni said. "But there are a lot of things they can be fighting for to make the world a better place."