John Hartford Memorial Festival, Beanblossom, Indiana

One of the best things I've ever done was work at a Girl Scout camp in Colorado the summer after I graduated from college. It's beautiful -- Pike National Forest. I signed on to be one of eight camp wranglers, meaning we were the horse girls. Not only do the horse girls get to be minor celebrities to the girls at camp, but we didn't have to camp with the girls, so we didn't get to experience the fantastic drama the counselors told us about: late night puke sessions, girl fights resulting in tears, homesickness, etc. We had it made. We got up at five, herded horses through the fields into the barn, saddled 20 or so horses, then hit breakfast. After we just took turns taking girls on the trails through the forest. I saw the camp director as a hero, thinking that maybe I should do that job someday. I'm still getting emails about camp jobs. I'm still considering being a camp director.

It's not as glamorous as I imagined back then, I'm sure. She spends the winters doing paperwork in an office. She troubleshoots. She definitely gets in on some of the puking and homesickness. But giving kids this summer experience they'll never forget is pretty rewarding, I'd imagine.

Sommer, one of the girls I worked with, had a boyfriend who was doing Americorps for the year after he graduated from college. I think everyone with a heart for other people and a sense of adventure would be well advised to look into Americorps. Those in Colorado lived in an army bunkhouse, very communal living, and were sent on different missions each week or each month. If there was a devastating fire somewhere, they'd all be packed up to go help the Red Cross distribute supplies and generally help where needed. During the special Olympics, they each got their own team to keep track of and make sure got to the events. The people who did this spoke very glowingly about this experience; they said they constantly had tears of joy over the kids. If I had it all to do over again, I'd definitely spend a summer teaching camp and a year at Americorps.

The reason I thought of it, and the reason I bring it up, is just that music festivals are summer camp for adults, all crammed into one weekend. After Jammin' at Hippie Jack's, I was more than excited to travel a few hours up the road for Hartford.

Brown County Indiana is a gorgeous place, heavily wooded with tons of hills and lakes. The small towns south of Indianapolis are cute, quaint, maybe even a little touristy. Bakeries, breweries, bistros and gift shops line a lot of the highways in towns. Less franchises, more local. Love it. Love to see small town owners making a living doing what they love to do, whether it's bake tarts or brew beer, than to see people spending money at those same old places that now line every town in America. All their gross food tastes the same, just reheated off a truck... let's stop going there. Let's make room for local owners to run respectable businesses with local food where they care, and it's not just teenagers doing weird stuff in the bathrooms, less than thrilled if people pull up to give them business.

We HAVE TO, or all that will be left is a landscape pockmarked with Subways. Yuck. It's so gross I swear you could never tell which sandwich you're eating. Order whatever you want; it all tastes the same. And get some "delicious" veggies on it, that have been freeze dried when they easily could have gotten fresh. There's nothing good about that.

Okay, so back to what I LOVE rather than what I think is barftastic. Festivals!! I'm kind of a dum dum, so I didn't know how amazingly awesome John Hartford was. He started this thing: newgrass, he and Sam Bush are largely responsible for the modern bluegrass that gets more and more popular. Out of that, many many new sounds, bands, voices.

Hartford wrote one of my absolute favorite songs ever too: Long Hot Summer Day
Here it is:

If you've heard it before, it's likely the Turnpike Troubadours cover. If you dug that, watch this one too. If you don't want to, it's not like it's integral to the matrix. Do what you want.

Here's some pictures from Hartford...

The whole thing was unreal. I pulled in on Wednesday afternoon and set up camp. Within a day the whole place was brimming with people, many of them had been to several, if not every Hartford fest. They jump out of vehicles and hug and kiss people they see each year, making a point to camp together again and again. There's people here from everywhere-- I've met plenty from this area of course, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and I've seen tags from Colorado and Texas. The people who love this LOVE it, and wouldn't miss it. Some of 'em are sitting around thinking of next year's right now, I guarantee it.

Somewhere in the middle of this, I fell in love with resonator guitar and bought one. I make a point to go see every band that includes one. I just love it; I love the sound, I love the slide. It's never too late to learn anything. I've met several people who started picking in their 40s. I've been playing violin, wishing to fiddle, since I was about 12. I still hurt my own ears with the thing. By this comparison, dobro is heaven. I already sound better at it than that crazy fiddle.  I have no aspirations of every playing on a stage, and I won't pretend I think I'll ever be good enough, but I see all these people sitting around camp at festivals, playing together, and that looks to me like heaven. I've "played" the camera for years; it's been one of the loves of my life, but it's certainly a solitary endeavor. This music thing is something that gives you that charge from creating, but you get to do it with other people-- it creates more variations than the light.  I spent so much time in life decorating space-- now I wish to decorate time-- time's a more interesting concept as you climb the hump over 40.

DOBRO! As played by Jerry Douglas.

I got to talking with some dudes at the show; we were in post Billy Strings bliss I do believe (and seeing Billy is bliss, it's a freaking enchantment and if you ever get the chance, GOOOOOO, but also, SHUT UP. Don't go to shows and talk through the songs. Concerts are for LISTENING, not talking. Nobody wants to hear about your latest Etsy purchase. I promise. You can talk about that stuff OVER BY THE BAR, not in front of people who are there to hear someone they've been saving to see, and DON'T CARE HOW MANY MONTHS IT TOOK YOU TO KNIT THAT SWEATER, KAREN.

Anyway, we're talking and this young guy walks up and he needs to get past us to get to... who knows? We weren't really in a walkway. So he does some ninja moves for us, in slow motion, and we think he's just having fun with us, so we have a little fun with him. One guy says, "You may pass if you can answer two questions... WHAT is your name?" and I piped up, "WHAT is your favorite color?" and the boy just stared at us. "He didn't get the reference I guess." The other guy finally says, "Naw, the poor kid's on acid and you guys are freaking him out." Ohhhhhhh!!! Haha. Well then, enjoy exploring a blade of grass for 3 hours, kid! Hope the universe opens up and lets you know we're all  in this together.

People have some misguided thoughts on acid. I'm not sure what I think, but Sweden's been doing research for years and in tiny doses, it's doing incredible things for people with depression. I'm for anything that will help us. The REASON it treats depression is because for whatever reason it seems to join new connections in the brain. These connections tell an awful lot of people that nature is grand, things are okay, and we're all connected. It even gives some people a charge of feeling they're witnessing some aspect of God. I'm for that. I'd advise anyone to be very careful, start with tiny amounts and only in very safe places, especially nature, with good people who will take care of ya. Anyway, that's what I would do, were I ever to try it. For now, it's music festivals that give me that feeling of being connected to other people. That's what it's all about; it's THE ONLY WAY to cure depression-- feeling connected, valuable, part of a community that cares for you and needs you.

*jumps of soap box and heads for Eastern Kentucky, heard there's an arts community there that very well could need me, but who knows*