Comments & Curiosities:

“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” You know who said that? Three Dog Night said that. Well, they sang it actually, in April 1969.

It’s true — one can be a desperately lonely number. But if you’re in the market for some interesting numbers, try 1969 and 40. 1969 is a very easy year for me to remember, along with a gazillion other people around the world, including the Orange County Marketplace, which was born in 1969.

That may be why when the Orange County Fair is a memory and the Marketplace reopens its doors (just an expression, it doesn’t really have doors) it will reboot with a two-day tribute to the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 that turned a muddy cow pasture in upstate New York into a monument to rock, roll and the tie-dyed, totally stoned whacked-out ’60s.

On Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 15 and 16, the exact dates of the blowout at Woodstock now forty years past, two ’60s retro bands will recreate the sounds of that legendary weekend and pay homage to Janis Joplin, John Fogerty, Sly & The Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Arlo Guthrie and more.

The concerts are at noon and 2 p.m. daily, no charge with your $2 swap meet admission, to say nothing of face painting, tie dye vendors, a hippie on stilts and one-dollar hot dogs.

If I get out there, I’m heading straight for the hippie on stilts, which is not something you see every day.

Today, the 1960s seem quirky and crazy and fun, sort of, but for those of us who got to see them in person, not so much.

The Sixties were America’s nervous breakdown and 1969 was the year the wheels came off. What went on in ‘69? Wow. Where does one begin?

It was actually a good year for Hollywood, with “Midnight Cowboy” (I’m walkin’ here!); “Easy Rider” (Head out on the highway / born to be wild,) and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (“Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you!”).

On TV, the Vietnam War and the protests over it were never-ending and a new children’s show with a really big bird, a grouch that lived in a garbage can and two underachievers named Bert and Ernie made its debut. In sports, it was a jaw-dropping year.

They laughed at Joe Namath when he predicted that his underdog Jets would win the Super Bowl, but they did, and no one on the planet predicted that the Mets would beat the Orioles in the World Series, but they did.