Rheum After 5: Dr. Eric Schned Shares Memories of Woodstock

In Perspective

When Dr. Schned looks back at Wood­stock now, he says it was really just one of many events during the 1960s and 1970s that helped form the attitudes and beliefs he still holds dear. He points to other significant events that impacted his life, such as the civil rights movement, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the Vietnam War.

Click here to listen to Dr. Schned’s interview.

“There was nothing about Woodstock that revolutionized my life,” he says, adding that his wife, Nancy, who was more of a hippie back then than him, has always been jealous of his Woodstock experience. “There was no epiphany or revelation, and I didn’t have any cosmic insights.”

The era was a time of tumultuous change, and Dr. Schned believes Woodstock was a reaction to all the tension people were feeling.

“All of those events helped open my eyes about a lot of things going on in America,” he explains. “I am proud that I still kept some of my idealism during all these years.”

And he does joke with friends about his Saturday night images of people smoking joints. He says observing the “field of joints” at Woodstock subconsciously influenced his career choice to the field of joints.

Carol Patton is a freelance writer based in Las Vegas.