Youthful impatience kept me from participating in one of the most important pop culture events of the 20th century -- and I'm glad.

The year was 1969, and I was looking at two promotional posters on the wall of an indie record store in Richmond's Fan district -- the Woodstock Festival in upstate New York beginning two weeks into August and the Atlantic City Pop Festival, which would begin Aug. 1.

Two years before, the Monterey International Pop Music Festival in California pioneered the way for days-long musical extravaganzas. But these posters advertising a wonderland of music jammed into three days were something new to long-haired, counterculture kids on this side of the continent.

Woodstock or Atlantic City?

Atlantic City Pop Festival was the first on the calendar, so my friend Dan and I threw a change of clothes and a couple of sleeping bags in the back seat of my mother's yellow Mustang and headed toward the Garden State. Why my schoolteacher mother handed her wayward son the keys to her beloved Mustang for such a venture is to this day one of life's great mysteries -- like the lone shoe on the side of the road and the presumption of a Paris Hilton acting career.

An idyllic crowd, setting

At 20, I was rock 'n' roll crazy. I had skipped school in my high school senior year to hitchhike to Knoxville, Tenn., to see Bob Dylan, so I was no wide-eyed innocent when it came to significant musical events.

But this was something else and it cost only 15 bucks for three days.

Procol Harum, Santana, Chicago, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, B.B. King, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Janis Joplin, The Mothers of Invention, The Byrds, Canned Heat, Dr. John, The Buddy Rich Big Band, Buddy Miles, Little Richard, Tim Buckley, Booker T. & the M.G.s, Joe Cocker, Joni Mitchell, and more. A bargain by any measure.

We arrived at the woods adjoining the Atlantic City Race Track, the site of the festival, and set up camp in a grove of pines a short walk from the venue. There was no charge for camping and we sneaked into motel swimming pool patios to shower.

The race track itself conveniently accommodated the estimated 100,000 concertgoers over three days and the acoustics from the bands playing in the infield were sharp. A mellow army of music fans in jeans and tie-dyes, granny dresses and bell-bottoms, cutoffs and bare feet, funky hats, wire-rimmed glasses and lots of hair in every imaginable configuration spread itself across the concrete bleachers.

A gentle breeze kept temperatures cool. Locals were friendly, the police were generally unobtrusive, and there was still that pre-Altamont feeling of brotherhood.

A blend of wood smoke, pot smoke, incense and patchouli floated on a gentle wind. The whole scene was idyllic and that was even before the music got started.

I can't brag about being in the swamps and suffocating humanity of Max Yasgur's Woodstock farm, and I don't care. I actually got to hear the music I had traveled hundreds of miles to experience, and I could clearly see the musicians.

For a guy from Salem, it was exotic and intoxicating.

Carlos Santana explained that his band wasn't the blues outfit that was advertised and proceeded to float dreamy Latino rock along the breezes that cooled the race track.

Janis Joplin punished her vocal cords in typical Janis style and boogied with her sax player. Frank Zappa chased a guy off stage who tried to grab the Mothers' head man's guitar. Joni Mitchell fled the stage in tears after four songs. Little Richard threw his pants into the audience on the last night. Action, comedy and drama. These moments stick with me to this day.

Memories worth having

I still have the promotional poster for this event on my wall featuring a long-haired beauty, her face decorated with psychedelic paint. After 40 years, it still evokes memories.

I can see the Ohio kid with the red bandanna around his neck fingerpicking his Martin guitar like Doc Watson and Mississippi John Hurt in the festival off hours. I can see the young woman anointed the Ripple Queen dancing around a campfire with that retro alcoholic beverage in the distinctive bottle in her hand. I can see my girlfriend smoking one of her mother's filched Pall Malls on a hot August afternoon, looking fine in shorts and sandals, her hair dark and straight, wearing the Atlantic City Pop Festival T-shirt I brought her with the big peace sign on the front.

George Bernard Shaw said that youth is wasted on the young. No disrespect to the great Irish playwright but, George, you would have had to have been there.