"The Summer of '69"

Synopsis: When Doc Brown surprises Marty on his high school graduation night with a gift of two tickets to 1969's Woodstock Festival, he is floored. Taking his girlfriend Jennifer along with him, the two of them take in the sights of the historic music event and befriend a young hippy couple expecting their first child very soon, Aura and Stormy. One night, while Jennifer is out for a walk alone, Stormy runs into her, paniced. Aura is in labor. While Stormy fetches a doctor, Jennifer stays with the young woman and is forced to deliver the baby--twins, as it turns out. A few days later, when Marty and Jennifer return to the future, they discover a different world then they had left. Doc Brown's farmhouse is abandon, Marty's parents are split up, and Jennifer works at a local biker bar for Biff Tannen! What did they do that caused this new world to happen? Can they fix it?

Length: Approximately 40,000 words

Written: July 1995 - September 1995

Revised: March 1997; August 2000 - January 2001

What's New in '01: Firstly, I changed the story title. "Alternating Times" was always a little awkward to me, and when going through my notes on this story from back in '95, I found a list of title brainstorms. One of them was "The Summer of '69" and this one appealed to me more now -- maybe 'cause I like that Bryan Adams song, maybe 'cause this story did take place, mostly, in that time frame. I dunno. But I decided to change it anyhow. The story is 2,000 words longer than the original but, again, it was a case of a lot of new writing replacing the old, so whole segments of the story are brand new. As well as the reasons behind what caused the world Marty and Jennifer see, which I better explained and clarified. It's a rather tricky concept that my brain had so much fun dealing with. And this is what held up the revisions forever, too. Once I hit upon the solution in December, I finished the rest of the work pretty quickly.

Author's Notes: For a long time, this was one of my favorite stories, and one of the most historically accurate (probably). I was obsessed with the research on Woodstock for some reason -- and I've never had an interest in that event. But when conducting research for this story, I checked out every book I could find, read articles written by people who attended -- even rented that movie documentary about the event to see the performances and sights first hand! I think the result of my hard work can be found in this story; to me, it seems the most vivid in terms of those little picky details. Originally I intended to have the background be the French Revolution instead of Woodstock, but when I saw a poster for Woodstock '69 at a place called (seriously!) "60's Cafe" on the Oregon Coast, I knew that would work much better! Ironically, there is one very very eerie date coincidence that didn't come to light until a couple years after the story was originally completed. When I started the story in July of 1995, I calculated which date Marty and Jennifer would most likely graduate high school. Using calculations which I have since forgotten, I finally settled on Saturday, June 7th, 1986 to be the most logical date. So imagine my shock and surprise when I discovered the spring of my senior high school year that I was going to be graduating my high school on Saturday, June 7th, 1997! However, my ceremony took place at 3 P.M. -- had it taken place in the evening as was the case in the story, I think I would have freaked out altogether!

CHAPTERS 1 - 6 CHAPTERS 7 - 12