THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409030233
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOAN C. STANUS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Jean and Leonard Sinnott wouldn't permit their 14-year-old daughter to attend the first Woodstock concert 25 years ago.
But they practically begged her to attend the reunion concert in August.
In 1969, the Woodstock concert took place in Bethel, N.Y., about 50 miles away from the Sinnotts' home.
This summer's reunion event was held on Winston Farm in the field right behind the family's home in Saugerties, N.Y. The family has lived there for generations. As a child, their daughter, Pam, played on the farm.
``My parents were really worried about what was going to happen, so that's one of the reasons I went up there,'' said Pam Ives, a 39-year-old Ghent resident and Norfolk chiropractor. ``I probably wouldn't have gone otherwise; I'm not the camping type.
``But once I decided to go, I got pretty excited.''
Ives and her Norfolk contingent arrived on Thursday, a day before Woodstock officially began. With her were two stepchildren - Michael, 13, and Christie, 11 - their friend Jennifer Fine, 11; and a colleague's 29-year-old ``autograph hound'' husband, Chuck Foster.
``It was great. We were there at just the right time, before the crowd came, so we got to see a lot,'' Ives said. ``My father is the fire commissioner, so he gave me a tour of the whole site from his three-wheel (all-terrain) vehicle.''
Before the crowd arrived, Ives could walk from her parents' home to the stage in about 10 minutes. Later in the weekend, it took more than an hour.
On Thursday, the Sinnotts' back yard turned into a media circus.
``We saw Bud Melman and Todd Rungren . . and we actually met Mark McKuen of CBS,'' said Ives. ``I went over to him and told him I really like his work. .
Local reporter Margaret Douglas of WAVY-TV set up camp in the Sinnotts' back yard, where for the rest of the weekend she did news reports for Hampton Roads' audiences.
Jean Sinnott became something of a media darling.
``My mother was interviewed by the media a lot, because she was worried that they were going to put a landfill in that field after the concert,'' Ives recalled. As a spokeswoman, ``She did a great job.''
Michael and Christie Ives and their friend Jennifer spent a good part of that first day checking out ``Surreal Field, '' a ``kid land'' set up directly behind the Sinnott home. The area was equipped with basketball hoops, miniature golf, computer games and virtual reality rides. With no crowd, the Norfolk kids rode again and again.
Christie Ives' favorite was called ``The Butterfinger.''
``Two people get on it,'' the Norfolk Academy sixth-grader recalled. ``You drive down this tunnel and pick up blue gems. . . and the other person shoots at colored mines. It was fun. It was better than the rides at Disney World.''
After Thursday, Ives and her family mostly watched the swelling crowd, the arrival of the performers, and other festivities from her parents' front porch.
``It was strange to see all these people walking where I used to walk my dog and snowmobile,'' said Ives with a laugh. ``It was surreal.''
Cousins, aunts and uncles, who, like the Sinnotts, also live along Mower Mill Road, congregated at the Sinnott home. The road was named in honor of the saw mill run by Ives' grandfather.
``It was like a family reunion,'' Ives said. ``Our porch became this gathering place to watch everything.''
Ives and her group did troop down to the stage to see Joe Cocker perform. The rest of the performances, they watched on Pay-Per-View. Right after she arrived in Saugerties, Ives won the cable broadcast free in a contest.
``We watched the concert on television, and then we'd go outside and could hear everything from across the field,'' she said. ``After it started raining, we watched everything on TV.''
The Norfolk concert-goers left Woodstock '94 on a Sunday afternoon. With help from her father and a state trooper, Ives bypassed all the traffic.
``I already knew all the back roads,'' she said.
In the end, she said, her parents were relieved with how Woodstock '94 turned out.
``Everyone was really nice and polite,'' Ives said. ``It was a great experience.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA
Jennifer Fine, left, attended the recent Woodstock event in New York
with Pam Ives and Ives' stepchildren, Christie and Michael.
by CNB