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WILKES-BARRE &mdash; It was 51 years ago this week.
				What? You don&rsquo;t remember?
				Hey man, on Aug 15, 16, 17, 1969, Woodstock happened, man.
				An estimated 500,000 people showed up for three days of peace and music, man.
				It really was a scene.
				Man.
				And now, some 51 years later, a museum sits atop the hill where &ldquo;the&rdquo; concert was held in 1969. Over the hill an amphitheater has been built to house concerts in state-of-the-art fashion.
				I&rsquo;ve been to the site some 15 times. I usually walk around the former alfalfa field, find a nice spot in the grass and lay down and close my eyes and I hear all the music again.
				And I have been to the interactive Museum at Bethel Woods where former hippies, baby boomers and even those who weren&rsquo;t around in 1969 get a pretty good feel for what happened in this rural New York town in August of 1969.
				But for the true Woodstock aficionado, the real attraction is the bowl-like field where hundreds of thousands of people gathered and had the time of their lives.
				The Woodstock monument marks the historic site at the corner of Hurd and West Shore roads. To the left is the bare area where a wooden stage was built.
				Duke Devlin, now well into his seventies, was the &ldquo;site interpreter&rdquo; for the museum. His job was to answer questions from visitors about the site and the event that he attended. Duke drove to Woodstock from Texas in 1969, and he never left.
				In 2009, on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, I interviewed Duke.
				&ldquo;A lot of people come here and they don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;re looking at,&rdquo; Devlin said. &ldquo;It was `the&rsquo; concert, man. Three days where people came to breathe air that was never breathed before.&rdquo;
				Duke once told me that Max Yasgur was meant to be the man to make it happen and Bethel was the perfect place.
				&ldquo;Do you know the term Bethel in Hebrew means House of God? Think about it,&rdquo; Duke blurted out.
				That&rsquo;s Duke, pure and simple.
				&ldquo;I love my job,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d do it for a box of Twinkies and a Yoo-hoo.&rdquo;
				Devlin said the highlight for him in 1969 was meeting Max Yasgur and listening to him speak to the crowd.
				&ldquo;When Max got up and welcomed us all you could tell it was a sincere message,&rdquo; Devlin said.
				Then he recalled Yasgur&rsquo;s speech:
				&ldquo;The important thing is that you&rsquo;ve proven to the world that a half a million kids &mdash; and I call you kids because I have children that are older than you are &mdash; a half million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music, and I God (sic) bless you for it,&rdquo; Yasgur told the crowd.
				Yasgur was 50 when the concert was held and he died in 1973 at the age of 53.
				In 2009, Ralph Liff, then 91, lived on Route 17B close to the concert site. Ralph graduated high school with Yasgur.
				&ldquo;I remember that weekend very clearly,&rdquo; Liff said, taking a break from his yard work. &ldquo;That road right there was a parking lot. Thousands of kids walked right by my house here and they all were friendly.&rdquo;
				Liff said the road was shut down for four days, causing him to miss three days of work and his nephew&rsquo;s wedding.
				&ldquo;That was OK,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What were they supposed to do? They had to park someplace. Those kids all showed respect and never caused a problem.&rdquo;
				Liff told me his wife walked over to the site to check it out.
				She came back and said, `Ralph, you&rsquo;re not going to believe what&rsquo;s going on over there.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;It was a weekend to remember,&rdquo; he said.
				Sure was.

Beyond the Byline: Woodstock was held 51 years ago — remember?