I’ve been traveling back in time to Max Yasgur’s farm and the Woodstock music festival.

My generation, a half million strong, was at Woodstock 40 years ago this month. I was a short distance away at my Dad’s place in Middletown, N.Y., listening to radio reports of clogged traffic on nearby roadways.

Why did I miss out? It wasn’t like I had something better to do. I was 22 and between jobs. It would have been an easy thing for me to toot on up the Garden State Parkway and join the Woodstock Nation.

And yet I did not. The truth is, Woodstock was totally beyond me. It had only slightly greater allure than a Teamsters convention in Newark.

Yes, cultural history would be made that weekend. Yes, the lineup — the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix — will always define a golden age in American music.

Unfortunately, my head was focused on something other than musical revelry.

I was in the Army. I was at Dad’s because I was in transition. I had orders reassigning me from a missile unit in the Bay Area to Greece to watch over NATO nuclear warheads.

Woodstock. Warheads. I was too young to reconcile the two.

It wasn’t that I was anti-hippie or anything. I liked anti-war songs as much as the next guy. A year or two earlier I had attended a Country Joe concert at New York’s Central Park where the audience had spelled out an anti-war expletive. I shouted out the letters with as much gusto as anyone else.

August 1969, however, wasn’t the time for a Country Joe replay. Not when I was wearing a crew cut, starching my fatigues and preparing to ship out.

There were other issues. I recoiled at the prospect of hunkering down with so many of my fellow humans.

Back in the day, the military was rapped for enforcing mindless conformity on those unlucky enough to be snared in its tentacles. I had a similar view of those streaming toward Bethel, N.Y. I thought of those people as lemmings.

Woodstock was billed as an “Aquarian exposition.” Even at the time, it only vaguely made sense, suggesting a place where human consciousness would flower in glorious new ways.

I was unmoved. Not only did I not want to be a lemming, I didn’t want to become an Aquarian either. I liked my highly anxious, draft-dodging, ROTC-joining consciousness as it was.

When Woodstock veterans reminisce, they tend to gloss over the harsh conditions that weekend. The rain, the mud, the sleep deprivation, the lack of food. They focus on the love and the music.

I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t have been able to get beyond rain, mud, sleep deprivation and hunger. Those adversities would have been deal breakers.

And let’s not forget the drugs, for me another deal breaker. The prospect of bobbing for three days on a sea of blissed-out humanity gave me the willies.

Nothing personal, y’all. Party on. I’ll catch up when Woodstock albums and movies come out.

Back at Dad’s, I was trying to psych myself up for Europe. I wasn’t going to Greece to admire the Parthenon and eat souvlaki. I was going to baby-sit an arsenal of nukes.

This weighed on my mind. Might not the fate of civilization as we knew it rest on me and my ability to do my job? 

Yes, Woodstock was a big deal, but putting Kevin Courtney in charge of nukes was a much bigger deal.

My year in Athens was uneventful. Nothing exploded. I was able to settle in and have my own mini-Woodstock. At the Air Force BX, I bought albums by many of the Woodstock performers. Canned Heat, Joan Baez, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Creedence Clearwater Revival. I played their songs on my BX sound system.

Watching over nukes in Greece turned out to be a cushy job. I never lacked for a warm bed and hot food. Never was I cast out into the elements.

Woodstock was something else altogether. I don’t think I would have been tough enough.

Kevin can be reached at 256-2217 or Napa Valley Register,  P.O. Box 150, Napa 94559 or kcourtney@napanews.com