I was born just a little too late to be a baby boomer, so I missed out on a lot of the cool things that happened during the 1960’s.  Growing up, one of my biggest regrets was that my parents brought me into this world too late to attend Woodstock. Granted, I was alive at the time it was going on, but I was far too young to have enjoyed or remembered much of it.

Recently, I was searching the Web for interesting facts about granola, and I came across this little tidbit: there were massive food shortages during the Woodstock festival, because more than twice the expected number of people showed up.  Granola was passed around in Dixie cups to feed the hungry.

From the Huffington Post:

Listening to people tell their experiences at Woodstock, one common thread is that everyone remembers very little about the food except for two things: “The food ran out fast and everyone shared what they had. There was a sharing mentality and the people who had come prepared were generous with what they had.”

While sharing doesn’t seem all that far out of character for the stereotypical hippie, here’s the part that surprised me:

On Sunday morning, Wavy Gravy stood on the stage and famously announced “breakfast in bed for 400,000.” In “Behind The Music: Woodstock,” Gravy credits that moment as hippies’ introduction to granola. “They had never seen granola before and we brought it to them in sleeping bags in Dixie cups.” Of course, granola wasn’t new to everyone at Woodstock, but it would be difficult to find a better publicity agent at the time than Woodstock.

If you want to read more on this fascinating tale, go check out the article.  As for me, the lack of food concessions makes me at least a little less sorry I didn’t get to attend the music festival.