Judy and Jerry Griffin met on August 15th, 1969, on their way to Woodstock Music Festival. They are still together.
Even though family and friends had been told the story of the couple's meeting, no one had ever seen any footage of them from the festival. This was until 2019, 50 years after their meeting.
Judy was on her way to Woodstock with two of her friends when suddenly her car broke down at the Tappan Zee Bridge, 90 miles away from their destination. Judy's friends decided to hitch a ride.
The couple reveals all the details of their meeting in an interview with People.
"I was just thinking, 'Damn, now we can't go,' and we were dying to," now 72-year-old Judy recalls.
"Then Jerry and his friends pulled up. I stuck my head in, and I saw that there was a woman in the car. I'd never hitchhiked before, but I figured, 'Well, since there was a woman, it was reasonably safe, and I probably should just get in the car."
Jerry, traveling with a group of friends in two VW Beetles, offered the girls a ride. Jerry says he felt right away that his life had changed for the better.
"I thought, 'Okay, this is definitely unusual. We just picked up this really cute girl. And I'm going to Woodstock, and I've got a tent, and she doesn't," he said.
Their meeting led to a 51-year-old relationship that involves love, marriage, two sons, and five grandchildren.
Until the release of a PBS documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary, Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation, the couple never had a picture of them together at the festival. And there was a picture of Judy and Jerry, soaking wet from the rain, covered with blankets.
"We both had cameras, but neither of us took any pictures," says Jerry.
A friend of the couple sent them a snapshot from the documentary's trailer.
"For 50 years, we've been looking for a picture of ourselves, and out of the blue one shows up," Jerry states. "We'd known each other for less than 48 hours when that was taken."
"By the time we got out of the car and set up camp, we were into each other, and we basically were together from that point on," Judy adds.
Both Jerry and Judy were raised in New York and soon discovered how much they had in common. They both wanted to live in California and traveled to Los Angeles in a VW van just before Jerry attended law school. For the past 40 years, they live in Manhattan Beach. The couple officially married in December of 1975, but they, of course, don't consider this date to be their anniversary.
"We always celebrate Aug. 15th—which is also my birthday and the day we met as our anniversary," Judy says.
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