by Dave Williams
Bobbi Ercoline died a few days ago. She was 73. Nick, her husband of 53 years, paid her a simple yet powerful tribute:
“She lived her life well and left this world a much better place. If you knew her, you loved her.“
I never heard their names before this week but suddenly realized I do know Bobbi and Nick, I’ve known them most of my life. They’re the kids on the cover of the iconic Woodstock soundtrack album published 54 years ago.
The picture of Nick holding Bobbi in a blanket on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, New York, freezes a moment in time that symbolized my generation’s place in history; we were naively idealistic kids who believed we could end war and hatred by simply declaring we’d have nothing to do with them.
They called us the Peace & Love generation.
“We are stardust, we are goldenWe are billion-year-old carbonAnd we got to get ourselvesBack to the garden”
– Woodstock: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Peace is elusive but Bobbi and Nick found lifelong love on a wet hillside in August of 1969.
Our generation is still hanging on to the dream.