Lets finish off that Peach

The Peach Festival.  Chapters 1 - 7 can be found by scrolling back, or up, or whatever...  I felt that the blog was getting too long.  Here we have the final few chapters, thoughts, musings, photos and ramblings about my time at the Peach Festival...August 15 - 18, 2013 at Montage Mountain near Scranton, PA.  If you are a linear type person, and A type personality, or have been following along, that post comes before this one. Otherwise it doesn't much matter.

It's been exactly a week since I found myself immersed in a 4-day music festival featuring bands I know and love.  I could have stayed longer... the weather was perfect, the site was great, the company delightful.  I was in my element.  But all good things (and luckily bad things too) must come to an end, so I have decided to write about it and share my perspective on it... or some of it at least.  It's as much for me, to come back to it and read it and remember it, as it is for you out there in blog-land.

DEAD-ERCISE
Just a note about this... If you want to lose a few pounds, I recommend a four-day weekend of seeing music on  lovely mountainside spot.  With all the walking and dancing and the terrible and expensive food, this could really be a great weight-loss program for Deadheads.  Think about it.  I suppose you'd have to cut out the beer to really make all that calorie burning pay off, but I'll tell you with the water park and all that shlepping, it was quite the workout each day. 

Well, at least this guy is sleeping with his dog.

CONCERT ETIQUETTE
Okay, I don't want to get preachy or judgy here... but obviously just by saying that it's clear I'm about to do both.  
PETS:  Don't bring them.  If you can figure out how to come to a show like this, then you can figure out what to do with your dog.  (Or cat, tho I've never seen a cat in someone's car.)  There's no way this is ever okay for your dog, living in your car while you are at the show, then being walked in the hot parking lot, and then getting back in the car.  
KIDS:  Yea, I brought my kids to a concert here and there when they were growing up.  But not a 4-day festival.  Kids need their routine, their food, their beds, toys, structure.  But okay.  If you do bring your kids... take care of them.  Nothing ruins my great mood more than this sentence, "She's lost her kid, someone help her."

What can I say.  I love my kids more than I love the music.  Maybe that's why my first festival was after my youngest son went to college.

Okay, I'm off my high horse.  I won't even mention bathroom etiquette, talking during songs, or cigarettes... 

Let's talk about why we even GO to the festival in the first place....

THE MUSIC and trying not to be OCD* about it.

Bobby

I love the music I love... well who doesn't?  I love being right up front, getting swept away by exciting new music. I like it really loud. I like the music to take me to new heights.  I like to hear a singer sing a phrase I've heard all my life and letting me hear it like I've never heard it before.  I get very excited watching two guitar players trade off the lead in a song seamlessly.  Three guitar players? Even better.  Love watching a jam among players who know each other so well that they intuit where they're going and miraculously a new song unfolds from what sounded like chaos a moment ago.  Delicious harmonies bringing new understanding to a song I thought I totally knew... but now wait a sec... what are they doing here... singing it in a minor key??? WHAT??? And I feel tears in my eyes that I don't even understand.  

I know people can relate to this, even if you don't like the same music I like.  The problem is at a festival like the Peach, there are bands playing at all times on three stages.  Starting at about 1:00 in the afternoon.  And those stages aren't near each other.  So that's a lot of running back and forth (HEY! They're the guys from moe. Come on!) 

or it's a moment of clarity where I say to myself...

"Juliet... you spend your life running around getting from place to place.  The people with you don't care that much.  They would be happy to just hang out.  Slow down and relax."

So I did exactly that.  I didn't go see Cabinet a second time, or run from stage to stage, or clamber to the front for Government Mule.  And it was all okay.  I had a great time hanging out with my friends Iris and Rob, and my husband Michael, on the lawn. I took pictures, created some jewelry, and even sold one of my bracelets (for $10 and a Rice Krispies Treat).   Later we packed up and moved up nice and close and I got back to my slight obsession with the music.

Pretty fancy display...

I realized that this festival was not just about the music, though the music was fantastic. It was about riding a ski lift to the top of the mountain just to ride it back down and take pictures and have a few laughs. It was about sleeping late. It was about relaxing with my husband and my friends.  It was about having a beer in the parking lot and letting things go one last time before my work becomes so intense that I might forget how to do this for a while.   

So, now what?  I found out Cabinet was playing tonight right nearby... But it was my mom's birthday so we all went out to dinner to celebrate.   I'll be scouring the paper, the internet and my email to see when the next music fix will be. While I'm writing this I've been listening to Ratdog's set from Friday night at the Peach.  And I've uploaded all my photos so I can attach a link to this blog in case the ones I've included here aren't enough.   As I conclude this lengthy blog I know that it means it's time to go back to reality.

Except Bobby just started playing Loose Lucy...

So, reality?  Maybe tomorrow.

Thank you.  For a real good time.

This is the link to my Picasa photo album if you want to see more.
I think.

https://plus.google.com/photos/101888049983386479881/albums/5914968144397249537?banner=pwa


*OCD : meaning: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, meaning... needing to hear all the music and not miss a note, at the expense of socializing with friend and relaxing in the sun.

A Byte of a Peach

Chapter One: It Begins

Greetings from beautiful Montage Mountain near Scranton.  I am at a 4-day music festival, and I will attempt to blog it as I go... the perspective of a 53 year old woman diving in head first to a weekend of fun.  

I have been to festivals like this before, but usually I go for one day, the day when my favorite bands are all neatly lined up in a row.  I knew what to expect, as much as anyone could without having been to this site, as far as the "scene" was concerned, and I'll try to describe that to you.  And full disclosure, I am not camping at the concert site itself, but staying at a very comfortable, clean Marriott with shuttle bus service (we hope!) to and from the venue.

The author and her husband take a selfie.  Yep, having fun so far.

So why now?  Because it's the anniversary of Woodstock? (It is, but no, that's not it.)  Because we can suddenly afford to do this kind of thing? (No, not really, in fact, I don't get paid during July and August and we need a new roof. Frankly things are quite tight in the Barr household!) Well, then, it must be because we are empty nesters and we are living the dream! (Again no, and not a midlife crisis thing either.)  It's because of the line-up of music at this particular festival and the perfect timing of it as well.  I have come to really love the Allman Brothers (over the last 15 years) and my favorite, Mr. Bob Weir and his band Ratdog are headlining this mighty event.  Not to mention Rusted Root and the Black Crowes and a host of other bands that I either like or am destined to like! (Click here to see what your are missing while you are reading this blog.)

So here's my thinking.  I am here, and experiencing this great, exciting, exhausting, exhilarating experience for the first time.  Mixing it up with the teens, the Deadheads, the Allman Brother fans (who are not exactly the same as Deadheads, though there's an overlap), the locals who are just here because, well, why not and the families who came to Montage Mountain to take their kids to the water park and are probably wondering, WTF is going on here! I'm here with some good friends and my husband. There are people of all ages, and to be sure, we are among the older generation, but certainly not the oldest. 

I will try to update this blog from an app I have on my phone, and include pictures.  

Of course this means finding my reading glasses and increasing the font on my iPhone.  
But I think it will be a fun experiment in live-blogging.   Did I just invent that?

Rock on.
Chapter two

Strangers stopping strangers, or "Are you Juliet?" 

I guess it's not too surprising that at an event like this, I'd run into one or two people that I know. And it's been happening at an alarming rate! A religious school principal from Long Island that I've gotten to know from Jewish education conferences, a 21 year old friend who advised me on what to pack (who I saw about 15 minutes after I arrived), a guy we met on a Jamaican vacation, and the most surprising: A woman who said : "Are you Juliet Barr? "

Me: "Um, yes..."

I know for a fact I don't recognize her. Could it be? The blog????

No...

The woman: "Didn't you go to the Grateful Dead Movie recently? Sunshine Daydream? At Clifton?"

I did in fact. Yikes. A stalker ?

She continues: "You commented on that website and asked where people were meeting up. You look just like your picture! I'm Kari!" 

She did not look like her picture, which was a kitty wearing a tie-dye bandana. 

Ok, back to the music. 

Chapter 3: 1:09 am Saturday 

Wow! What a night of music! I'll write more tomorrow from my computer but while I'm still buzzing from the hours of dancing to great guitar gods, here are some highlights: 

•Railroad Earth and Cabinet! Great bands that I had never heard before and will absolutely go hear again! These guys can really play, harmonize and both bands bring several genres together.  I am excited for the future of live music when I hear this kind of stuff. 

•Bob Weir's set was AMAZING!! "Althea," a favorite of mine, did not seem to be a favorite of his, but he was just great on everything else. " Easy to Slip" may have been the most special surprise. Most annoying was his flirtation with Grace Potter, when he called her out for "Dear Prudence" and "I Know You Rider."  Still sporting the man capris, but he looks great to me!

• Allmans were great, especially when Greg let Warren take the lead. A nice surprise came near the end of the set when they invited Bob Weir back out for a very bluesy "Good Morning Little School Girl." 

And remember in chapter two, I mentioned an educator friend that I had run into here? Amazing karma connected us where we needed to be. Her seats were right next to mine! I enjoyed the show with her tonight and look forward to spending time with her again tomorrow. I still can't get over that! A photo will be coming soon of the two of us. 

I can't wait for tomorrow!!

Chapter 4

Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, and Steve Kimock. Yea. 

Chapter 5

Different font to show that I am no longer at the festival. Yes, that's right. It's Sunday night, and I'm home.  You know how they say they have charging stations? Well, they CHARGE you to charge your phone at those charging stations.  Big scam.  So my brilliant plan to live blog while at the festival... well as brilliant as it was... turned out to be a good old fashioned plan to keep a hand written journal which I am now transcribing into my blog.  And it's probably better this way.  I can edit.  I can add photos. Did I mention I can edit?  So here we go.

Chapter 6:  My husband sometimes sleeps at concerts.

Deadheads are very forgiving about this.  Looking back, he has a long history of concert-napping, and if you've been a fan as long as we have, then you might even kind of get it. Remember those old shows?  Come on... there were about 20 minutes between EACH SONG!! So think about the second set of a Grateful Dead show in about 1979 or 1980... drum solo followed by a really long instrumental tuneless jam ... some of us might go use the bathroom and get a snack.  And others, MANY others, I might add, would use that time for a quick (30 minute) power nap.  (Except we didn't call them power naps back then.  We called them Drums ->Space, but not the point.)  

As I mentioned earlier (chapter 3) we had assigned seats for the headliners of the show on Friday and Saturday nights at the Peach Fest.  I sat next to my new/old friend Karen, from the education world, and my husband Michael found himself next to a great guy, Mick, and Mick's friends Pat and Amy.  (Those ARE their real names.  Hi if you happen to read this! The friends we came to the show with were in the next section over.) Somewhere during the Allman Brothers' set on Friday night, Michael dozed off, as he is wont to do. Mick gave me a look, I smiled back and asked him to please keep his voice down, so we wouldn't wake him.  When the music picked up, Michael woke up and rocked on 'til the end of the show.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon.  Michael and I are hanging out by our car, enjoying cocktail hour before the show.  Along come Mick, Pat and Amy... another great coincidence in a huge parking lot that they walk right past us... and Mick makes a few jokes... about Michael being awake long enough to finish his beer and so on. We go back and forth at Michael's expense, and throw in a few barbs about Greg Allman and say good-bye until later.

Now, to steal a line from Ron White, I tell you that story, to tell you this one... As I say, Deadheads are much more forgiving than other fans.  

Several years ago, I'll guess '93 or '94 (I could Google it now that I'm home, but I don't feel like it) we went to see the great and wonderful Eric Clapton. The show was in the never wonderful Long Island.  Getting there from New Jersey is horrible.  We got there, it was a Friday night so OF COURSE there was traffic.  Michael had been up since 5:30 am, worked all day, and, okay, let's put it out there, has never been a huge fan of the the Mighty Slowhand.  So at a certain point in the show, he dozed. I was up and dancing, and a few guys were yelling.  I suddenly realized that they were yelling at us.  Actually they were yelling at Michael.  

"Wake the fuck up! You can't sleep during Eric Clapton!" 

"How can you sleep? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

And other things as well.  Worse things that I won't type.

Then they started throwing things at him. 

Luckily he slept through all of this and has no memory of it at all. 

Well of course he does now because I've told the story about twenty times.

So, okay. He falls asleep during concerts sometimes.  If I feel like he's missing something crucial I wake him up. It doesn't bother him and it doesn't bother me.  And if it bothers those "Clapton is God" guys... well... they need to wake the fuck up.

Chapter 7: How to Pack for a Four Day Festival 

You need to know this about me.  I'm the one who needs a suitcase just for my shoes. I'm a low maintenance kind of person, but I like to have a lot of stuff to play with.  I have my hobbies, I like my music, and I enjoy eating and drinking.  So when I don't have to get on a plane, and there are no passengers in the back seat, I tend to fill the car up until there's no more room.  So, you might want to take these packing tips with a grain of salt.  Actually, I brought salt and pepper, of course, to season the food.  I also brought Krazy Salt, a 50's throwback seasoning that helps a hardboiled egg become delicious. 

Funny that I have not uploaded any concert pix yet, but I manage a photo of Krazy Salt.

So, here you have the step by step instructions for packing for a festival, for grown-ups:

1. Do all the laundry in the entire house.
2. Call Text a young person who has actually been to a festival. Ask for some tips.  Edit that list so it's appropriate for someone your age.  Add it to your list.

(My list had a baby list, which went on to have twins. I needed a small suitcase just for my list.)

1. Take the day off from work to start getting ready.  
2. Deal with your kids/pets. (If you are bringing your kids/pets to the show, please see my next entry about concert etiquette.)
3. Clean up your entire house, or do the best you can and prioritize.  For me, it was kitchen, cat boxes, bedrooms, bathrooms.  NEVER leave the washing machine or dishwasher running when you're gone, by the way.
4. Now you can (and really should) start packing!
5. Sunscreen, bug repellent, flashlights, citronella candles, beach chairs, lawn chairs, coolers, ice packs, ice, beach blanket, beach towels, hats, sunglasses, raincoats, umbrellas, shoes that can get wet, shoes for walking, sandals, extra sandals just in case, long pants, shorts, t shirts, sweatshirts, toiletries, medication, jewelry, i-stuff (pod, pad, phone and cords), laptop if necessary, little bluetooth speaker, corkscrew and bottle opener, books and magazines.
6. Food and drink... this is your choice of course.  I hardboiled eggs (as noted above) and brought bread, cold cuts, mustard, tomatoes, hummus, babaganoush, 4 different kinds of pretzels, including the stale kind, pita chips, 2 different cheeses, yogurts, and cottage cheese. I had bananas and peaches which got kind of mushy, but we ate some of them.  We had beer and tequila, and our friends had wine and vodka.  I packed 2 knives, a cutting board, napkins, forks, spoons and plastic knives.  I did forget plates.  We managed to get all of this in my little red Prius, and I was still able to see out the back. 
7. Things I brought that you might not bring: My bead box, so I could play and create. My laptop to upload photos and to write.  My husband also brought his laptop because he had to do some work on Friday and he wakes up much earlier than I do. (See chapter 6!) We had a lot of limes to go with the tequila.  You may not need to bring limes. That could save you some room.  It also turned out we did not need four chairs, but we had no way of knowing that.  

So, how would YOU pack for a 4-day festival?  Did we NEED all that stuff?  Well, now let's not confuse want with need, okay?  We did not need the flashlights, bug repellent, or citronella candles, but I think it was a good call to bring them. 

And it could be argued that one pair of sandals might have sufficed. After all, Bob Weir wore the exact same outfit all three days he performed.

Continued in the next blog entry... with photos and picasa link ...

Once In A While You Get Shown the Light

August 6, 2013

I'm in the midst of composing two other posts... but this just happened and for all of you teachers, educators, and counselors out there who wonder why we keep fighting the good fight... this will remind you, and make you feel like truth, justice and the American way is on your side.  Or at least you'll feel all warm and fuzzy for a few minutes.

I got a call from my son yesterday.  He works at the URJ Eisner Camp, so a call is rare.  He was on his way back from a doctor's appointment so he had time to chat.  (Let's not think about the fact he was using his phone while driving, okay?)

First things first.  How'd the appointment go? This is not germaine to the blog, but as a Jewish mother, I wouldn't want you to think that we didn't discuss my son's health.  He and I then checked in on the rest of the family, and I told him about some adventures I had. 

Then this.

Mom, do you remember a kid named Alex P. back from when you were the principal at Temple B'nai Emunat Yisrael? 

YES!  Of COURSE I do!  I LOVED Alex!  

Well, he is in my friend Steve's bunk, so I don't know him that well. Apparently he had a pretty good first half, but then all his friends left, and he's struggling during the second half of camp.  When he comes to adventure he seems like a good kid but Steve said he's starting to act-out in the bunk.  Then when they were at Limmud (the educational period of camp) he was asked who his role model was. He said, "Juliet Barr."  I wasn't there, but Steve figured out that it was you, Mom.  So I reached out to him, and told him who I was, so he would know he had a connection and a friend.

I was temporarily speechless.

Then I went on to tell my son about my special connection with Alex, and what I thought might work... he was really great with younger kids and took on responsibility very well.  I felt like reaching out to Alex's mom, but I might just hold on to this moment.

I am his role model.  Why?  Because I saw past his behavior and into his heart?  Because instead of punishing his "attitude" I saw something beyond it, found a way to turn it around and allowed the synagogue to become a safe place.  I'm sorry the rest of his teachers and counselors still aren't seeing this too.  

And how wonderful that I found out.  That somewhere at Eisner Camp, a counselor put two and two together, with this exotic last name of BARR and mentioned it to my son, who actually remembered to tell me.  So I can know that that meeting when I stood up for this child and explained that punishment and make-up assignments would do absolutely NOTHING to help him, but having him help in the first grade class would, actually did.

May all of you teachers have a moment when you hear that you are a student's role model, hero, or favorite teacher.  I feel like SuperWoman today.  Where's my cape?


Of course the name of the student and the synagogue have been changed.  The name of the camp really is Eisner Camp and magic happens there.  And my name is actually Juliet Barr.