I saw that Target is coming out with some “Summer of Love” items based on Woodstock. The campaign is keyed off the 40th anniversary of the event. Specifically, the stores will use the classic image of a white dove perched on a guitar neck. Many people, no doubt, will think this is a nice thing for Target to do.

I’m appalled.

Not with Target. If they feel they can market products by licensing an appealing logo, that’s their job.

What upsets me is that Woodstock is now considered pleasant nostalgia.

For those of you raised on Lil Wayne instead of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Woodstock was more than just the original rock mega-festival. It was a symbol to some of how the counter-culture was undermining society.

Hundreds of thousands of mostly unkempt hippies gathered at an upstate New York farm for a three days to hear rock bands sing rebellious ballads. It was viewed by the establishment with alarm. Mainstream America continued to regard it that way for years, and that was fine with me.

Now Target, whose annual sales were over $60 billion last year, has come to embrace Woodstock as a marketing tool. What makes this disturbing is that Target appeals to the very middle class demographic that was most appalled by Woodstock in 1969. This seems almost as unexpected as Iran opening souvenir shops with “USA” T-shirts.

Comrades, what happened to the revolution?

I didn’t go to Woodstock, but had a friend who went there in a beat-up VW bus, which is a fine cliche. More to the point, if you listened to Hendrix and Joplin, went to protest marches and had long hair, you felt part of the Woodstock culture.

I dressed in ways my parents disapproved of, and was glad they did. There was a pride in being looked upon askance as you walked down sidewalks in sandals, torn bell-bottoms and tie-dyed shirts. It was fun to alarm society.

Today, I have short hair, which some friends say is gray. I wear sports jackets to work. I worry about my mortgage, and my own children’s choices. But somewhere deep, I like the idea of still being seen as culturally disreputable. This will be harder to do now that Target thinks my unruly past is a charming basis for advertising towels.

In one sense, the music of Woodstock is tame compared to today’s standards. The festival included songs like White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and Pinball Wizard by The Who. More recently, hit songs have included Big Booty Hos, and Birthday Sex.

Still, in its time, Woodstock was seen with distress. Younger folks, of course, saw it as proof that hippies weren’t a threat — that hundreds of thousands could have a peaceful weekend despite mud, chaos and rock music.

But the country’s Silent Majority felt those same folks were the Huns –– the end of society as we knew it.

Target’s campaign reminds me of the time a few years ago when I saw a Fidelity commercial featuring the song, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, by Iron Butterfly. I was stunned. That song was a drug anthem. In the late 1960s, it’s what people often listened to while smoking grass. Now it was being used to pitch investment products, and for all I know, it still is. Don’t ask me how one of the edgiest songs of that era became a marketing tool for 401k’s.

Or how Woodstock ended up as a way to sell towels.

To me, it’s the rough equivalent of Lil Wayne and 50 Cent, both gangsta-rappers, being hired as spokesmen for Bank of America.

Frankly, that will probably happen in 20 years, and I guarantee that their fans today will be let down at seeing their anthems turned into mainstream marketing vehicles.

Just as I’m let down.

I felt a lot better about myself when society saw me as a barbarian. I never expected to become the establishment.

But in one way, I suppose it comes at a good time.

I can use some new towels.

mpatinkin@projo.com