A couple weeks ago I ventured back to my homeland for the 36th Annual Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival in Winfield, Kansas. I call Winfield my homeland because I was born in a hospital about 90 miles away in Newton, Kansas. My first home was 20 miles away from Winfield in another little Kansas town by the name of Wellington. Nowadays my mother resides in Winfield and my sister happens to reside in Wellington. My brother and my father live a couple hours' drive away in Northeastern Kansas, and most of my massive extended family (26 first cousins) live within a half day's drive. With my entire family living so nearby, and the fact that I was also born nearby, it is seems right to consider Winfield my homeland; even though I've never actually set foot in the town.
So I've never been to the Walnut Valley Festival, but it was inevitable that someday I journey back to my homeland for the town's biggest event of the year. Quite a few of my family members are regular attendees of the festival, including my own brother who happens to be in a bluegrass band that performs every year on a couple of the side stages.
There is good reason that I have never been to the festival. Its not that I don't like bluegrass music, its just that I don't like MOST bluegrass music. And its not that I don't like visiting my homeland, its just that I don't like visiting my homeland during certain times of the year; like, say...June through April. (May is quite nice.) But aside from my taste, and distaste, for bluegrass, and my desire to stay out of my homeland for 11 months out of the year, there is one thing that always brings me back; and that is the prospect of boozing with the family. And the prospect of boozing with my family at a music festival is an extremely intriguing idea.
So in September of 2007, I sucked it up and bought a ticket for the show. And what a show it was!
I arrived on a Friday afternoon to find a sea of cars parked on several peripheral baseball fields. There was a sprawling campground with hundreds of tents and RVs scattered throughout a meandering grove of beautiful old trees, known to locals as the Pecan Grove. The main stage was situated on a portion of the central structure of the fairgrounds (racetrack) so as to utilize the metal bleachers, and there were 3 side stages with ample lawn space for chairs and blankets. Finally, a quaint open-air food court where chicken tenders, bbq brisket, turkey legs, burgers, pork tenderloin, and Indian Tacos were being served out of little trailers.
All of this was nice, but nothing spectacular when compared to any other summertime music festival. What made the scene so exciting was the fact that there were actually two distinct festivals occurring simultaneously, completing intertwined and woven together, but at the same time, completely segregated and disfunctional.
There was a main gate that separated the two festivals. Inside the gate was the music festival with the main stage, the 3 side stages, the food court, and not a single drop of booze. Outside the gate was the boozing festival with the tents, the RVs, the Pecan Grove, two makeshift side stages with no electricity...and booze. Booze as far as the eye can see. Amber waves of booze. Pilsner rain drops in a summer booze storm. Booze in each hand. Booze in a can. Booze in a cooler. Booze in a keg. Booze in the morning. Booze in the afternoon. Booze in the night!
Throughout the weekend, we would all take part in both festivals, but never both at the same time. We could enter and exit through the main gate as often as we pleased. We could booze for an hour outside, then watch an hour of bluegrass inside, then go back outside and booze for another hour, then repeat. The musicians played on the main stages inside the gate, and they played on the makeshift stages outside the gate. Sometimes they just played bluegrass in the little dirt roads along their way to the stage. They played during the day and they played throughout the night. We boozed during the day and we boozed throughout the night. Some bands were great. Some bands were terrible. Some booze was cold and some booze was hot. We drank it all, and we listened to it all, and by the end of it all, it all tasted the same.
One evening I was boozing at my brother's campground with some people that I didn't know very well. One lady saw me pull a Pabst Blue Ribbon can out of a cooler and she stared at me in wonder for several seconds before blurting out, "I ain't never seen nobody drink pbr!". "Oh, yeah?", I say as I pour some frosty pbr down my gullet without so much as a cringe or a gag reflex. "Pretty good stuff", I conclude to the lady. And she looked at me with disgust and bewilderment, but also with respect and awe. Then she forgot all about me while she began a quest to locate a cigarette and a fresh bud light can.
I turned my attention back to my own quest. A smoldering camp fire just upwind from our campground had been smoldering in our direction for two straight days and I had grown tired of inhaling camp fire smoke with my booze. I tried to locate some water to dump on the camp fire, but the only liquid I could find was my dear booze. Undeterred, I poured my booze onto the smoldering fire until the smoke relinquished and all of my booze had been poured out. I took a long, deep breath of smokeless air, but it did not quench my thirst. I zipped up my jacket and stuffed two empty coozies into my pockets and trudged off into the darkness. I did not require any light to guide my way. I simply followed the sounds of fingerpicking and freshly cracked cans of booze drifting through the night.
