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eyes. “Can you dig it?”
    â€œJimi Hendrix?” I said. “My mother loves him.”
    â€œYour mom is groovy, man,” the guy said, and then he went back into his own little world.
    Somehow, some way, I had landed in the middle of a Jimi Hendrix concert! If only my mother could see this ! I stood on my tiptoes to get a better look. There was a huge speaker system mounted on giantscaffolds on either side of the stage. I have been to a few concerts, and they usually have a giant video screen so the people in the back can see what’s going on. Not here. I squinted until I could make out the figures on the stage.
    There was a guy sitting behind a big bongo drum. There was a regular drummer too, and a bass player. But none of those guys were playing. The only one who was playing was Jimi Hendrix.

    Somehow I had landed in the middle of a Jimi Hendrix concert.
    I was standing pretty far back, but I could see that he was wearing a red headband and a white shirt with fringe all over it. He must have been left-handed, because he held his white guitar the oppositeway most people do.
    He wasn’t singing the words to “The Star Spangled Banner.” He was just playing it, with the fringe on his shirt flying all over as he whipped around his guitar and tortured the whammy bar. He never looked at the guitar. Sometimes he would lean his head back and open his mouth wide as he played. All the people around me were jumping up and down, going crazy. Nobody had ever played “The Star-Spangled Banner” like this before.
    Finally, after what seemed like a half hour, he finished the song and went right into “Purple Haze” without pausing. I knew that song, because my mom is always playing it at home.
    I looked around. The sun was low in the sky. It must have been early morning. I couldn’t figure out why there would be a concert so early in the day.
    â€œExcuse me,” I asked an African-American guy beside me. “This probably sounds like a silly question, but…what year is it?”
    â€œYou don’t even know what year it is?” he replied. “That is soooo groovy! It’s 1969. This is Woodstock, man!”
    Woodstock!?
    I had heard about Woodstock. My mother told me about it. It was a big outdoor music festival in New York that had performers like Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, and my mom’s favorite band, Creedence Clearwater Revival.
    How did I end up at Woodstock? I asked myself.The baseball card was supposed to take me to Roberto Clemente. Something must have blown me off course. Or maybe because the card was damaged, it didn’t work as well as a card in mint condition would have.
    Or maybe…could Roberto Clemente be at Woodstock? There were thousands of people spread all across this field. How would I be able to find Clemente even if he was here?
    It’s never easy. I wish just once I could travel through time and land right next to the player instead of having to go find him. Just once.
    I’m not a huge music lover, to tell you the truth. I listen to the radio and watch VH1 with my mom sometimes. But most of the groups my friends like seem to be lame interchangeable boy bands and teenybopper girls who pretty much all sound the same. I didn’t so much like the sound that Jimi Hendrix was making; but I had to admit, it was different .
    That didn’t mean I had to stand there listening to it. If Roberto Clemente was here, I would have to go find him.
    â€œExcuse me,” I yelled into the ear of a girl with frizzy blond hair, “do you know if Roberto Clemente is here?”
    â€œWhat band is he in?” she replied. “Santana?”
    She was useless. I asked somebody else, a guy wearing a cowboy hat and holding a flute in his hand.
    â€œYou mean Roberto Clemente the baseball player?” he said. “Man, I don’t know. Just groove onthe music, brother. Hendrix is a genius.”
    Huh! That’s what my mother