10/15/98
I have just recovered from a visit to the 1998 Common Ground
Fair which occurred two organic weekends ago.
My doctor said his waiting room had been full of fairgoers with
turned ankles, dust cough, extreme food indigestion, bladder
stress and other organic fair maladies. He sent me home with a
pack of aspirin and a prescription for two week's bed rest to
purge my body of Common Ground conditions.
He requested I write a brief report of the fair and send it to
him so that next year he could be better prepared for his
overflowing waiting room. He agreed that my report could be made
public in the interest of recovering body parts.
Route 220 in Maine's Waldo County, the fair's lifeline, resembled
a refugee road backed up for miles with old Volvo's full of
home-schooled bratty kids and shedding, snarling Siberian
Huskies.
A couple creepy hours later arriving at the organic parking lot
ravine and dodging lamb-bone munching Husky Volvo sitters, the
signs said this way to the enchanted forest path. The tall timber
wood was impressive with its surface of big time organic rocks
turning ankles of senior citizens who were unaware that they had
only a mile to go before the aid station.
Gate keepers in official MOFGA organic Mississippi bottom cotton
t-shirts stamped hands of fairgoers with
6-months-before-disappearing organic New Jersey ink after buying
a ticket. Immediately one was amazed at the number of vertical
gray coffin relief stations mindful of an often-played game of
youth - kick the can. The can queues were long and should have
been painted beet red.
The fair was in the shape of a wagon wheel laid on a plain
pasture field or as some suggested, a Stonehenge monolith with a
large granite sundial set for all-year organic Common Ground
Time. Or as others in nostalgia wistfully hissed - Woodstock
Re-Visited.
Environmental concerns, greenings and political action tents took
up half the wheel relegating conservatives and non-political
animals to the sheep herding rim. One could pat the peaceniks but
not the Festus mules who, as the demeaning caution signs read,
mules think fingers are carrots.
Sometimes, however, it was hard to distinguish between the mules
and the peaceniks because of the dust clouds that swirled around
the wheel. One intrepid fairgoer, in a dust storm, had his finger
bitten in the Breastfeeding Task Force tent.
There were spokes and spokes of food concessions, all organic of
course. Let's see there were organic fried seafood from the
organic oceans, organic Bombay rice, Tokyo egg rolls, New York
cheesecake, Mary had a little grilled lamb on a stick, Stupid
Turkey on a bulkie and Ban the Bomb Bagels halved right before
your eyes with a Stihl chain saw.
Drink booths were busy because of the dust. Organic cider from
acid rain-sprayed apple orchards was big but not the paper cup
serving. Strange fruit drink alchemy caused some reactions among
the yuppie vegetarians who ran out of packed-in Poland Spring
water. Fresh squeezed lemonade stands are always popular with
happy hippies and sour flies.
Maine crafts are the big tent organic feature of Common Ground.
Spin a yarn, throw a clay, pound some iron, hand knot linen, skin
a drum, water a color, tile a tex, silk a screen, snap an image,
soap a bar - it's all there and more.
But alas, there comes a time for egress. There was a 30-minute
wait for a shuttle to the parking lot, if one could call a
clippy-clop horse and a bailed hay wagon a shuttle. Many braved
another hike through Little Red Riding Hood's forest trail
passing the brave, the organic wolf weakened, the dust eaters and
the swollen anklers littered beside and on the trail.
If you've seen one Common Ground parking field you've seen them
all. Finding the pickup took another half hour meandering among
the Volvo's, psychological moment hued VW busses and snapping
Husky bumper guard dogs on braided hemp leases.
One empty space had a cardboard sign saying, "kids, if you
find this, call home, mom." Another had a box of free
organic barn kittens. And another giving Common Ground the bird.
It will probably take MOFGA about ten years to get their uncommon
ground in shape. And another decade to convince the Maine
Legislators to first find and then widen Route 220's country lane
into organic fair passable.
That's about it, doc.