Woodstock

Woodstock triathlete Steve Levickas has been keeping busy since competing in the Ironman World Championship in October 2010. Unfortunately, he spent part of this time recovering from injuries - first a broken finger in November and then a frayed labrum in his shoulder. The latter injury required several months to heal properly and the nasty winter weather provided yet another setback. Steve relished his return to outdoor cycling in April. In May, Steve competed in the Columbia Triathlon, held at Centennial Lake.

Woodstock Inn 1415 Woodstock Road Woodstock, 410-750-3673 www.woodstockinn.net DON'T MISS: Renovated building and menu for this historic tavern. Hot appetizers, wraps, sandwiches and sliders. A hefty Cowboy Delmonico steak and a bacon-n-egg cheeseburger on standards. Live music, open mic Tuesdays and biker nights once a month in the outdoor beer garden. Open 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily. Flavors of India 7185 Columbia Gateway Drive Columbia, 410-290-1118 www.flavorsofindiainc.com DON'T MISS: Selections of lamb, goat, tandoori specials, “fusion salads,” delicacies and desserts fill the menu.

I was 17 in 1969, but didn't make it to the original Woodstock for a number of reasons, the main one being that I was a jerk who spent that weekend working in a pharmacy in upstate New York."

Woodstock triathlete Steve Levickas has been keeping busy since competing in the Ironman World Championship in October 2010. Unfortunately, he spent part of this time recovering from injuries - first a broken finger in November and then a frayed labrum in his shoulder. The latter injury required several months to heal properly and the nasty winter weather provided yet another setback. Steve relished his return to outdoor cycling in April. In May, Steve competed in the Columbia Triathlon, held at Centennial Lake.

SAG HARBOR, N.Y. -- We are between Woodstock revivals at the moment. There was one at the end of July in Rome, N.Y., and there will be one in Bethel, N.Y., on Sunday -- the site and date of the original in 1969.So far the reviews are not good. The fire, looting and rape that ended the first 1999 revival do not seem to match up well with the old legend."This was the nicest bunch of kids I've ever dealt with," said the local sheriff, a guy named Louis Ratner, back in August 1969. This time the sheriff is using the Internet to try and track down kids who wreaked havoc in Rome.

First, the suicide of rock star Kurt Cobain, now Woodstock II. How many more cultural touchstones have to be offered up to convince baby boomers that they're out of it -- or will be very soon.Many pundits observed this incarnation of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in upstate New York as nothing like the original: The Woodstock of 1969 was the love child of spontaneity in a crucible of war protest; Woodstock '94 was the test-tube fetus of corporate sponsorship in an era of boundless commercialism.

Nobody knew what to expect at Woodstock the first time around.When the promoters were putting the original festival together 25 years ago, they figured there would be good music, pleasant weather and a crowd of just more than 60,000 people. Instead, they wound up with a half million people (few of whom actually paid admission), torrential rains, and ancillary problems ranging from road-choking traffic to a chronic shortage of food, medicine and sanitary facilities.This time, they're prepared.

These days, it's almost a mantra for me to complain that the best stuff is on cable TV. I won't say that tonight, though. Tonight the best stuff is on pay-per-view -- unless you're sick to death of the whole Woodstock '94 thing, in which case the best thing to do with TV tonight is to do without it.* "Tales From the Crypt" (11:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- The second of these two repeats, featuring Faye Grant as a housewife who is unnaturally inspired by her daytime soaps, is a very funny episode of "Crypt" -- Alan Rachins of "L. A. Law" offers fine support.

Doug Sergeant was a young, three-piece-suit banker 25 years ago when hundreds of thousands of America's young counterculture went looking for free love, peace and a good time at Woodstock.But standing on a Catonsville park-and-ride lot yesterday with an assortment of young and old, the gray-haired, 52-year-old conservative-turned-hippie was on his way to this weekend's Woodstock '94, the festival marking the silver anniversary of the monumental rock concert.He and more than 200 others were headed to upstate New York to sell food for the Ellicott City-based Boardwalk Fries, which has been subcontracted as one of a handful of vendors to feed the estimated 170,000 concertgoers.

SAUGERTIES, New York -- What's it like at Woodstock '94?That depends in large part on where you are. Meander onto the field in front of the North Stage, where Joe Cocker and Crosby, Stills and Nash were playing, and you're instantly awash in a sea of humanity. Movement is limited and slow, as more than 100,000 sweaty, seminaked (and in a few cases, more than seminaked) fans crowd in, each pressing ever closer in the vain hope of getting a slightly better view.Take a walk through the Eco-Village, and it's as if you've wandered into a sort of hippie bazaar.

Walter Fullwood strode up to the window of the Snowball Stand in Woodstock on a recent, steamy afternoon and handed over a bag of four "empties" before placing his carryout order. One of the stand's original customers, he has made weekly summer pilgrimages from his Ellicott City home of 42 years to the nearby rural spot since it opened in 1975. He has also made a habit of returning the cardboard containers as a courtesy. Fullwood requested four of the 101 varieties of the tasty treat Tuesday, including chocolate with a center of marshmallow for his wife, Marilyn, and plain vanilla for Winston, their 2-year-old Australian shepherd.

Like the hundreds of thousands of people who were at Woodstock, Bob Somers has stories. But he's one of the few who also left with a T-shirt, a red one he lucked into and held onto even as he changed from a 19-year-old who skinny-dipped with strangers in the rain into a guy with a government job, a wife he met through golfing, two docile dogs and a tract house in a Columbia subdivision. Over the past 40 years, that red shirt became a a link to a mystical weekend and a reminder that no matter how respectable, conservative — or, heck, ordinary — he comes to look on the outside, inside there's a shaggy-haired kid who just wants to make the world a better place.

National Geographic photographer George Grail's slide presentation, "Life on a Wharf Piling in the Chesapeake Bay," takes place at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Howard County Conservancy, 10520 Old Frederick Road in Woodstock. Discover techniques that animals develop for camouflage, reproduction and adaptation to changes in the tides and environment. Call 410-465-8877 or go to hcconservancy.org for more information.

In Jim Slayton's and Rob Hradsky's living room, a verse has been painted in flowing script over the camel-back sofa. It reads: "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." For the two men, that simple saying is indicative of their life's work, joy and sacred pledge to the care of their four adopted children and the reason for their move into a 6,500-square-foot Colonial-style home in Woodstock, Md. "We have a commitment to adopting," said Slayton, a nurse in the Howard County Public School System.

On Wednesday, December 2, 2009, JENNIFER RUSSELL, 42, of Towson, beloved daughter of Sharon Flannery Spies and the late Edward J. Russell; loving stepdaughter of James L. Spies; dear stepsister of Jay Spies. Friends may call at the home of her mother and stepfather on Saturday, December 5 and Sunday, December 6, beginning at 1 P.M. Private interment will be in Granite Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Woodstock. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to The Chimes Foundation, 4815 Seton Drive, Baltimore, MD 21215.

This year's free Little Italy Open Air Film Festival concludes tonight in the same way it has concluded almost every year since 1999: with a screening of Giuseppe Tornatore's 1988 "Cinema Paradiso," the story of a young boy growing up in a small Italian town, where his only real friends are the man who runs the local movie theater and the films he shows. Graceful and poignant, with an understanding of both the magic of the movies and the romanticism of a childhood recalled years later, "Paradiso" is a crowd-pleaser of the first order.

Saugerties, N.Y. -- After a half-million people descended on Max Yasgur's farm for the first Woodstock in 1969, someone boasted from the stage that the festival was the third biggest city in New York state.Woodstock '94 isn't quite as populous as that (although no precise count was available, ticket sales were said to have passed the 200,000 mark by Friday evening), but it is more like a real city than its predecessor was. It has its own roads, housing, plumbing and it has its own police.

They are stardust, they are golden, they are prices for a good night's sleep in the Woodstock area during the coming festival weekend.Homeowners, like nearby hotels, are hoping to cash in on the one thing the open-air festival can't provide the 150,000 concertgoers: a roof over their heads at night. Spare bedrooms or entire houses, quarters ranging from the plain to the palatial, locations just down the road from the Saugerties, N.Y., festival site or farther from the madding crowds-- they're all for rent, at a price.