40 years later, pages of Aquarius

When your last name is Yasgur, you get used to people asking: “Yasgur? As in that Yasgur?”

And if you’re Abigail Yasgur -- second cousin of the late Max Yasgur, who thrust the family name into the spotlight by lending his upstate New York dairy farm for the Woodstock festival -- the frequent queries make you proud enough to want to share the tale.

In time for the 40th anniversary this August of the seminal “three days of peace and music,” Yasgur has produced a children’s book called “Max Said YES! The Woodstock Story.”

Co-written by Yasgur, a librarian, and Joseph Lipner, her attorney-writer husband, the book has brightly colored illustrations by Los Angeles artist Barbara Mendes that capture the magical chaos that ensued when hippie hordes descended on the Yasgur property in Bethel, N.Y. Max himself is pictured with his characteristic dark-rimmed glasses and pipe.

The book offers Woodstock-vintage parents and grandparents a chance “to share the ideals of kindness, generosity, peace and love with future generations,” Abigail Yasgur said.

Yasgur, 54, did not attend Woodstock and never met her second cousin, who died of a chronic heart condition in 1973 at age 53. Lipner, 44, was just a tyke when the “Woodstock nation” came together against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and civil rights struggles.

But the Beverlywood residents gathered details from family members, including Max’s widow, Miriam, and individuals associated with the festival. To get into the spirit, they bought memorabilia: Woodstock ticket stubs (on EBay), a Yasgur Farms milk bottle, a Woodstock poster and a T-shirt with the logo of a dove perched on a guitar neck.

They also met Elliot Tiber, credited with bringing Max Yasgur and the Woodstock promoters together. An Ang Lee film based on Tiber’s memoir, “Taking Woodstock,” recently made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival and is due in theaters in August.

Everybody they spoke with, Yasgur said, “had wonderful things to say about Max, who was a real warm, welcoming figure.”

“What amazes me,” she added, “is he was politically conservative but loved the idea of these kids.”

The book’s G-rated text is sanitized of references to sex and drugs, and opens like this:

Not long ago,

When Mom and Dad were young

When songs of peace and love were sung

Some boys and girls got the

inspiration

to hold a giant celebration.

Although he’s now considered a counterculture icon, farmer Yasgur was by no means a hero to his conservative rural neighbors when he began negotiating the use of 600 acres with Michael Lang, a long-haired, leather-clad, motorcycle-riding promoter of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. According to accounts by Yasgur’s widow, once word spread, somebody put up a sign near their home: “Don’t Buy Yasgur’s Milk. He Loves the Hippies.”

Promoters told the Yasgurs to count on about 10,000 kids a day for three days, but an estimated half a million showed up. They heard music by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Crosby, Stills and Nash (with the newly added Neil Young).

The book captures the mood in the following verse:

Music blared from a giant stage

To celebrate the Aquarian age.

Rock songs and incense filled the air

The men who were dancing had long, long hair.

Richie Havens, a singer-guitarist who performed at Woodstock, has written a jacket blurb for the book: “Lets the light of Woodstock shine on a new generation.”

As the book’s illustrations suggest, thousands swam in Yasgur’s lake and slid in the mud. Not shown is the aftermath. Lipner said he was sorry to lose one verse in particular:

They left the land like a

garbage bin

But Max was still glad he let them in.

Joni Mitchell, who skipped Woodstock because her manager feared she would miss her appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show,” nonetheless gets major credit for imprinting the Yasgur name on the nation’s collective psyche. Her song “Woodstock” includes the lyrics: “I’m going on down to Yasgur’s farm, I’m going to join in a rock ‘n’ roll band . . .”

This summer, Yasgur and Lipner will be going on down to Yasgur’s farm. It will be their first pilgrimage.

Their book is available at www.maxsaidyes.com.

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martha.groves@latimes.com