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Common Ground Fair was something we grew up with, a tradition in our family when we were young. Our Mom worked with Fedco (the Federation of Cooperatives, who shipped food to a lot of coops around Maine) which was the parent of what is now Fedco Seeds and she would be working the Fair every year and we would often go and hang around, and I think we each had a chance to work night security. So I started in security work when I was 12. ;) If I remember correctly Fedco didn't just have a booth there, most of the members of Fedco were also members of MOFGA, which still is the organizing force of the Fair, so Fedco people were running around doing everything that needed doing.
Hawk didn't go along last year with Eor and myself, I don't recall why, and in fact he hadn't been since they left the old fairgrounds in Windsor, which was a LONG time ago, so he was ready and overdue for going.
We left home at 7am and stopped in Gardiner for breakfast at the A1. I didn't bring my camera, so here's an old pic of Hawk and Eightball at the A1 in late winter/early 2011 to give you an idea of what the place looks like. They try to play music of a period with the decor, so it was crooners and smoky jazz at 7:30am. For anyone who missed my post from when the pic was taken, all that decor is original; this place is the real deal, in constant operation for generations, literally. Lately their corned beef hash has gotten a little too gourmet, but I won't hold that against them.
Even an hour's travel away there were people talking about Common Ground Fair, in the diner.
I'm going to skip our scenic trip, let's get to the good stuff: There's a cool outdoor amphitheater with a huge earth berm around it so as to keep the sound down for the rest of the fairground, and we got to listen to a couple of bands at different points during the day. The gypsy jazz band that couldn't decide on a name (they were listed on the program as Imperial Hot Club and mutated that to Club Hot Du Monde during the show) were pretty good, though it was the fiddler and stand up bass player who really shone. Then they had two standard egotistical guitarists. Jerks of Grass are rather amazing - they all swap the instruments around (aside from the fiddler) and sound good no matter which instrument they're playing. The fiddler is top notch.
We rode a bizarre pedal car, a low-slung thing with side-by-side seats and pedals and NO SEAT BELTS for free, I'm not sure what their purpose was, actually - maybe to make you realize that if you wanted to make one, don't make it from huge metal bars? Hawk got it going really fast and it was terrifying! But as we got out, starting to sweat, some guy said, "It would suck trying to pedal that up the hill to Freedom, wouldn't it?" (Freedom is a town not far away.)
We located Robert Skoglund (who, I'm sure you recall, was a lifelong friend of our Dad's) early on, chatted with him a while, and later went back to listen to him spin yarns. They put him in the political speakers tent, so he got some mileage out of that. "Why would they put me here? I am not known as a political speaker. I make a political statement only perhaps once a year or so. A few years back when a couple of planes piloted by Saudis ran into a couple of buildings and George Bush decided to bomb Iraq I may have said that doubtless there were thousands of Peruvians thanking their stars that it was not Ecuadorians who perpetrated that terrorism. But does that merit putting me in a political speakers tent? No, I don't think so."
And at the very end of the day, when we were supposed to be leaving (they close down at 6:30pm) we found Tom of Liberty Graphics, who used to be a friend of our Mom's, and was in that whole crowd who worked at Fedco and etc. He's 67 and remains ridiculously boisterous and loud, with the vitality of a much younger man. He's also a very warm person, and seemed delighted to see us and chat, even though he remembers us as little children. Both he and Skoglund commented on how much I looked like my Mom, and Tom asked to be remembered to her and to say he 'always thought well of her' - I think that was his wording. One likes to get these things correct.
So we had a very full day, and got to see ridiculous amounts of stuff. I mean, there are a lot of 'arts and crafts' type stuff, but it's mostly very good work, top end and interesting. I liked these hobbit holes. And there's also an amazing amount of true craft work like iron workers and people who are doing ecologically sound building and alternative energy things and such. Very few of these companies are from outside the state, most of this is homegrown industry, really. There's a lot going on in Maine, but as Hawk says we don't have the population density for people to notice.
We got to see a woman doing massage on a donkey, and Hawk tried one of her techniques on a goat which was in the next pen over. It had been eating, but stopped as soon as he started to press his fingertips in and slide them down it's hips, instantly mesmerized; I think it really liked it. :) As soon as he stopped it walked off and considered eating a woman's hair.
I also ate things I shouldn't - a 'cornish pasty hand pie' with shrimp and cheddar cheese, and a doughnut, as well as a cookie made by Skoglund's wife, Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman. :)
On the way out we could hear some dance music thing going on, sounded totally electronica... nope. This guy had a didjerido, the end of which was resting on top of an old enamaled metal wash basin, and he had between his legs a set of small metal bells and things, and then his stool was a wooden box with a hole in the back for resonance, and he was creating this whole crazy-ass sound by himself! I need to get Hawk to post the video he took on his phone, although I'm afraid it might have been too dark to see anything at all, and the sound on his phone is probably horrible.
Okay, I think that's almost everything. I'm almost as exhausted by telling the tale of the day as I was by living it. ;)
Hawk didn't go along last year with Eor and myself, I don't recall why, and in fact he hadn't been since they left the old fairgrounds in Windsor, which was a LONG time ago, so he was ready and overdue for going.
We left home at 7am and stopped in Gardiner for breakfast at the A1. I didn't bring my camera, so here's an old pic of Hawk and Eightball at the A1 in late winter/early 2011 to give you an idea of what the place looks like. They try to play music of a period with the decor, so it was crooners and smoky jazz at 7:30am. For anyone who missed my post from when the pic was taken, all that decor is original; this place is the real deal, in constant operation for generations, literally. Lately their corned beef hash has gotten a little too gourmet, but I won't hold that against them.
Even an hour's travel away there were people talking about Common Ground Fair, in the diner.
I'm going to skip our scenic trip, let's get to the good stuff: There's a cool outdoor amphitheater with a huge earth berm around it so as to keep the sound down for the rest of the fairground, and we got to listen to a couple of bands at different points during the day. The gypsy jazz band that couldn't decide on a name (they were listed on the program as Imperial Hot Club and mutated that to Club Hot Du Monde during the show) were pretty good, though it was the fiddler and stand up bass player who really shone. Then they had two standard egotistical guitarists. Jerks of Grass are rather amazing - they all swap the instruments around (aside from the fiddler) and sound good no matter which instrument they're playing. The fiddler is top notch.
We rode a bizarre pedal car, a low-slung thing with side-by-side seats and pedals and NO SEAT BELTS for free, I'm not sure what their purpose was, actually - maybe to make you realize that if you wanted to make one, don't make it from huge metal bars? Hawk got it going really fast and it was terrifying! But as we got out, starting to sweat, some guy said, "It would suck trying to pedal that up the hill to Freedom, wouldn't it?" (Freedom is a town not far away.)
We located Robert Skoglund (who, I'm sure you recall, was a lifelong friend of our Dad's) early on, chatted with him a while, and later went back to listen to him spin yarns. They put him in the political speakers tent, so he got some mileage out of that. "Why would they put me here? I am not known as a political speaker. I make a political statement only perhaps once a year or so. A few years back when a couple of planes piloted by Saudis ran into a couple of buildings and George Bush decided to bomb Iraq I may have said that doubtless there were thousands of Peruvians thanking their stars that it was not Ecuadorians who perpetrated that terrorism. But does that merit putting me in a political speakers tent? No, I don't think so."
And at the very end of the day, when we were supposed to be leaving (they close down at 6:30pm) we found Tom of Liberty Graphics, who used to be a friend of our Mom's, and was in that whole crowd who worked at Fedco and etc. He's 67 and remains ridiculously boisterous and loud, with the vitality of a much younger man. He's also a very warm person, and seemed delighted to see us and chat, even though he remembers us as little children. Both he and Skoglund commented on how much I looked like my Mom, and Tom asked to be remembered to her and to say he 'always thought well of her' - I think that was his wording. One likes to get these things correct.
So we had a very full day, and got to see ridiculous amounts of stuff. I mean, there are a lot of 'arts and crafts' type stuff, but it's mostly very good work, top end and interesting. I liked these hobbit holes. And there's also an amazing amount of true craft work like iron workers and people who are doing ecologically sound building and alternative energy things and such. Very few of these companies are from outside the state, most of this is homegrown industry, really. There's a lot going on in Maine, but as Hawk says we don't have the population density for people to notice.
We got to see a woman doing massage on a donkey, and Hawk tried one of her techniques on a goat which was in the next pen over. It had been eating, but stopped as soon as he started to press his fingertips in and slide them down it's hips, instantly mesmerized; I think it really liked it. :) As soon as he stopped it walked off and considered eating a woman's hair.
I also ate things I shouldn't - a 'cornish pasty hand pie' with shrimp and cheddar cheese, and a doughnut, as well as a cookie made by Skoglund's wife, Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman. :)
On the way out we could hear some dance music thing going on, sounded totally electronica... nope. This guy had a didjerido, the end of which was resting on top of an old enamaled metal wash basin, and he had between his legs a set of small metal bells and things, and then his stool was a wooden box with a hole in the back for resonance, and he was creating this whole crazy-ass sound by himself! I need to get Hawk to post the video he took on his phone, although I'm afraid it might have been too dark to see anything at all, and the sound on his phone is probably horrible.
Okay, I think that's almost everything. I'm almost as exhausted by telling the tale of the day as I was by living it. ;)
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