PHILIP GANGI SNEAKS INTO A FOREIGN COUNTRY!!!

Photographs by John Kearon

Believe it or not, this story is exactly like the title says. The year was 1970 - the year after Woodstock. There were many rock festivals that summer trying to copy the magic of Woodstock. My friend John Kearon and I heard about one up in Ontario, Canada at the Mosport Raceway called the Strawberry Fields Music Festival. So the day before the three day rock fesival was to begin, August 7, 1970, John and I got up early and started hitchhiking up to Canada.

After hitchhiking all day, John and I finally reached the Canadian border north of Niagra Falls, New York, around midnight. Our last ride was with a young newlwed couple. The border patrol asked to see everyone's identification. Everyone showed them their id. When they got to me I got a little nervous, but decided to tell them the truth. "I don't have any id with me," I said. "The disc jockey on the radio said that all you needed was a ticket." The border partrol people said, "don't you have anything? A library card or anything at all that has your name or address on it?" So I proceeded to explain to them how I lost my wallet a month earlier and since the deejay said that all I needed was a ticket I figured I would leave my wallet at home so I wouldn't lose it.

The border patrol orders the driver to drive around the closed check point booths, make a U-turn and take me back into the United States.

This has got to be the most spontaneous of my life. I said to the driver, "when you make the U-turn go slow. I'm going to jump out and run across the field and climb over the fence into Canada." And sure enough that's what I did. I ran so fast I could feel my heart beating. I thought they were going to have searchlights on me at any second. When I got to the fence I threw my backpack over first, then I struggled for a moment and made it over into Canada. I ran to the road and started hitchhiking.

John says that the first car that came by was a cop who picked me up and did'nt even realize that I had just climbed the fence. But I don't remember that. I do remember meeting up with John the next day at the concert. There were thousands of people camped out in front of the stage area. People had formed little walkways around the festival and gave the roads names like Purple Haze Boulevard and Orange Sunshine Lane.

What a trip! Three days of Blue Blotter Avenue, Panama Red Lane, lying in the sun listening to Porcol Harum, Grand Funk Railroad, Ten Years After, Alice Cooper, Jose Feliciano, Melanie and skinny dippy in the river. What more can an eighteen year old dude from Long Island ask for.

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That's me on the left side of the photograph with my eye glasses and unshaved face.

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I'm on the right side of the photo this time, probably about one third away from the stage compared to how many people were behind me.

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Wow! Look at all those people. That's me in the center,in the bottom of the photo .

A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO JOHN KEARON FOR LOCATING THESE PHOTOGRAPHS AFTER THIRTY FOUR YEARS. THE FIRST TIME I SAW THESE PICTURES WAS JUST THIS PAST NOVEMBER 2003 WHEN JOHN E-MAILED THEM TO ME. SO, THANKS AGAIN, JOHN !!!