In this vintage 1955 photo outside the Administration Building of Camp Woodland, near Kingston, N.Y., we see young artist E.J. Gold in the back of educator Norman Studer's Chevvy pickup truck, in which campers at Camp Woodland were transported from the camp into Kingston, Saugerties, Woodstock, Mt. Tremper and other places on treks and hootnanny folksong-collecting outings with Studer, Robert and Louise deCormier, Alan Lomax and others.

Norman Studer ran the Downtown Community Center in the City, which featured McCarthy-Blacklisted Pete Seeger as music director, along with the guiding spirits of Millard Lampell, the deCormiers, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie and many many more pioneers of the protest song, which made Woodstock famous during its heyday as a Love-In Psychedelic Concert Place, a far cry from its earlier days as a glassblowing center, art colony and haven for geeks and city-dwellers seeking solitude and cool breezes -- New York City in those days before air-conditioners, which was the mid-to-late 60's, was known for 120% humidity and temperatures which soared into the 90's even on the coolest nights. Most city-dwellers of that period slept on their fire-escapes, if they were lucky enough to have one.

In the Catskills, it was cooler, much cooler, and much, much less humid than in the city, and parents who could send their kids to camp, did. E.J. Gold was one of those lucky kids who got to go to summercamp at Woodland, probably the most advanced artistically and musically of any camp of its time.