I’ve been mildly frantic (can you be MILDLY frantic?) to regain balance after a hard summer. Also I’m a moody cuss and I was having a bad week at work. I found myself spewing expletives even more than my usual unacceptable amount. Did I mention I’d sprained my ankle? It’s part of the integrated mosaic of shit that makes a bad week.
In the midst of this I heard of an “Event”. The event’s details aren’t important. The point is that I went to an event but the event itself is not a key issue. Just make something up; “17th annual outdoor gathering of trombone enthusiasts in Albuquerque”… yeah just go with that.
I thought “I’d like to go, when is it”? The answer was “right away”. Shit! Normally I plan well ahead. I’m a busy guy and it’s an efficiency thing. If a curveball like this comes along on short notice the wise call is to say “tough shit” and drop it. Life has enough drama without running around like a spaz trying to catch up with bad timing.
Lately (and for obvious reasons) I’m in a brittle mood; always sniffing for which way the wind blows, the better to ride life’s smoother waves. It “felt” good despite no intellectual reason it should be good. I dropped everything and, with absolutely zero planning, tore off for the event. All I really wanted to do was camp and it was an outdoor affair. OK fine, trombone enthusiasts don’t camp; come up with an alternate explanation. It was really the “Winnipeg Festival of Snowmobile Muffler Welders”. Those guys camp!
Anyway, I made minimal and incomplete arrangements in a rush and drove like fifty zillion miles just to look at Canadian Snowmobile Mufflers because… well because I’ve had a hard year.
I get there and the first thing I notice is that the place is total chaos… which is great! I expected tents in a field with ordered rows bordering on a totalitarian encampment. We’ve all experienced that before. “Congratulations, you have registered for the event. Here is your ID, wear it at all times. You have been issued camping area 27B/6. Quiet time is at 10pm, glass bottles do not exist, dogs are not welcome, park only in designated areas. Have fun comrade!”
Unlike my fears, this event is totally unregulated. They do ask you to pay (which I did online about 12 hours before I arrived) but there’s more or less no enforcement mechanism. After all, what kind of asshat would “crash” a friendly gathering of Muffler Welders and Snowmobile Enthusiasts? I’ve found an island of reasonableness; good old fashioned human decency. One of many hidden niches in the world that the Green Haired Harpies from HR haven’t yet infiltrated.
That said, I’ve got no idea what’s going on. People are spread out in an organic mess of self-directed chaos. I put my truck in drive and inch forward, it’ll all work out.
The lack of uniformity and Cartesian grids makes me breathe easier. I came here to relax and it’s already working. Wanna camp near the dumpsters? Fine; say “hi” to the bears. Wanna be near the bathroom? Knock yourself out geezer. Etc…
It was wooded and vehicles were parked utterly at random. Most people here had been to this event before. They all knew each other. I knew nobody. Such is life. Fully embracing the pleasures of solitude brings with it the cursed opposite side of the coin; to wander the lonely edges of the circled herd. Folks were forming up clusters. They were stacking firewood near various fire rings in anticipation of evening bonfires. I wandered aimlessly, snaking my wide truck amid the trees and cars and tents.
Finally I found a nice flat spot and hopped out of the truck for reconnaissance. The nearest cluster of three tents dispatched a friendly old guy. He wandered over. “Welcome to the muffler enthusiasts campout! We’re all early morning risers. You’re welcome to camp right with us.”
Early risers? Fuck that! I’m stressed out. I need to sleep in. Meanwhile the guy is yammering on about some presentation about Flux Capacitors on early 1980’s Ski-Doo sleds. It starts at seven. Seven AM! This is ungood!
As politely as I can, I ask “so where do the late night people camp?”
He smiles, “All the knuckleheads that make noise are over in that grove of pines.”
“So, they’re usually hungover in the morning?”
“Yep, they’ll miss the morning demonstration.” He shook his head sadly at the thought.
“Cool, thanks.” I shake his hand heartily and head for the people who will be too fucked up to annoy me in the morning. He grins all the time, glad to meet me and glad to see me go. Such a reasonable thing, letting humans organize as they see fit. I sense my aforementioned HR harpy seething at the idea of self-association by shared interest.
Not surprisingly, the “late night” area is more crowded and (if possible) even more unplanned. I can’t make heads not tails of where to park, or where the water supply might be, or if there’s a pattern to anything. Apparently you’re never too advanced in life to avoid the “where do I sit at lunch” conundrum that plagues every 14 year old. After a while, I throw the truck in park and stop right there. I step out and begin examining a flat spot that’s just big enough for my tent.
“That’s the road.” A guy explains.
“So if I put at tent there it would be a real dick move eh?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“So if that’s the road, what is my truck on?”
“Dirt and pine needles.” He shrugs.
“It looks flat. Can I setup there?”
“Makes sense to me.”
So I move my truck 20’ from “dirt and pine needles”. I squeeze it between some trees so it’s away from “the road” (which I can barely identify as a logical construct). Then I erect my tent exactly where the truck had been idling.
My tent is an odd duck. A handful of nice people come by to ask about it while I’m setting up, which means I spend damn near an hour before the thing is done. But I don’t mind. I’m there to relax… no schedules, no expectations.
Stay tuned for more…
There is an interesting dynamic at work in the rural areas. My Good Wife, the zoologist, noticed it initially (she originally of the heathen city folk). Go to an auction. In the farmer auctions, the beat-up pickup trucks are parked precisely side-by-side, equidistant, lined up perfectly, in an open field. The SUV’s and Subaru’s are parked in what can best be described as a grabastic fustercluck generally pointing towards a compass point. Human self-organization depends upon a shared value or what is organized, or perhaps what is considered proper among the group. When two groups differing on such things meet, they also self-select away from the other group. For a zoologist, once that little tidbit was realized she could immediately tell the farmers, ranchers, implement brokers and acreage owners apart simply by their dress and mannerisms. She was also able to identify brokers and auctioneer plants working together to increase bids, which I found revealing. It is exactly as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote so many years ago. We self-select, we form organizations, and we dismantle those same as soon as the need abates.
I’m not so sure how it works among those city folks.
– Max
That’s a good observation!
Nice start!
Darn. I live just outside ABQ. I was hoping for the trombone festival.