Magic Markie was back in Woodstock again, as he has been almost every Halloween in decades. As darkness began to descend on the hamlet this past Friday, he was out there celebrating with the other revelers.

The community occasion for locals this year proved merely a prelude to a windswept rainstorm that shook the Hudson Valley and other regions of the state. As a hippie proverb puts it, “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

But that’s not the sole reason this year was different for him, the 73-year-old now-Floridian says. He doesn’t plan to be back next year. Or ever after.

Markie was a 16-year-old musician from Philadelphia when he attended the 1969 Woodstock festival in Bethel and decided to check out the little town that had spaw

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