WOODSTOCK; THREE DAYS OF PEACE, LOVE, AND …..WORKING AT THE A & P
Poor Elaine. She REALLY wanted to get up to Woodstock in 1969. In fact, she was supposed to go and made plans to go with friends. Unfortunately, her boss at the A & P had plans of his own and that was for her to work the checkout as a cashier that legendary weekend in August. To this day she’s still complaining. (I imagine she might feel a little like Pete Best, the former drummer of the Beatles, before he was unceremoniously replaced by Ringo Starr!). And missing that concert might explain why today her favorite band is The Village People (ewwwww) !
An alum of Maria Regina High School, she was retiring from the Town of Hempstead in Planning and Economic Development with a dinner celebration at King Umberto’s in Elmont. Her co-workers had me deliver a singing telegram dressed as a nun: Sister Bernstein from Our Lady of Perpetual Motion.
Elaine has quite the storied past. And each story is more “fantastic” than the previous one. She claims Oliver Cromwell drove her ancestors out of England and they ended up in Freeport, New York, where she would hang out on street corners drinking Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill and Tang. (Cromwell died in 1658 and Freeport was settled in 1640, so there is an element of truth in that!)
Aside from being a Foosball legend, her claim to fame is that she’s had a drink in every bar in Nassau County (that’s some feat!). In the late-’70’s and early-’80’s she hung out with Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground at Studio 54 (But didn’t the V. U. disband in ’72 and not play for some 18 years?).
Her retirement plans are to settle on land she owns in Virginia, and make moonshine to supplement her income…….or to become a holistic health counselor.
Kerry
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