he quintessential image of Woodstock may be the one at
right, the blanketed couple embracing on the cover of the
Woodstock album. Fifty years, two kids, and four grandkids
later, that couple—Bobbi and Nick Ercoline—are still very
much entwined.
In August 1969, Bobbi Kelly and Nick Ercoline, both 20 and
living in Middletown, New York, were hearing reports about the
festival traffic jams in nearby Bethel. Their best friend, Jim “Corky”
Corcoran, a Marine corporal who had just returned from Vietnam,
suggested they go. “I knew it would be something we’d never see
again, probably in our lifetime,” Nick recalls to LIFE. Along with the
“required beverages,” the friends piled into Corky’s mom’s Chevy
and headed out. Arriving at the festival on Saturday, they found a
spot and stayed through Sunday morning. Nick and Bobbi greeted
the dawn with an embrace, as Corky slept under his army blanket (to
the right of Nick and Bobbi in the photograph). Bobbi says the irony
of the photo taken at a peace festival occurred to her only recently.
“Here we are depicted as hippie flower children,” she said, “and
here is our Marine, lying on the ground.” Asked if she and Nick were
hippies, Bobbi laughs. “I worked at a bank, and Nick was a college
student working two jobs—construction and bartending.”
The first time the couple saw the photo was when Corky
brought them the album. Today, a copy of the photo—a gift from
photographer Burk Uzzle—hangs in their home. Uzzle described the
photo to Smithsonian magazine in 2009: “Gracie Slick of Jefferson
Airplane was singing, bringing up the dawn. And just magically this
couple stood up and hugged. They kissed, smiled at each other, and
the woman leaned her head on the man’s shoulder. I just had time to
get off a few frames, then the light was over and the mood was over.”
The mood never really ended for the Ercolines. Says Nick, “The
mud, the garbage, the chaos—and you see a couple, hugging each
other, and this is all we need. That’s a pose we’ve been striking every
morning for the past 50 years.” Says Bobbi, “That photo has become
such an integral part of our lives. When I look at it, I’m so grateful that
I can share it with the person I’ve loved for 50 years.” Then she adds,
“I think our world needs another Woodstock. We need kindness in
our world. We just need more kindness.” —Amy Lennard Goehner
Forever Young
The photograph has become a symbol for
Woodstock. The loving couple? Still loving
86 LIFE WOODSTOCK
