Come back to earth as a woman. Not only that, she drinks whiskey, smokes a little reefer, plays guitar and fiddle and drops the F bomb every once in a while. Did I mention she also has a voice that can make the angles cry and then shout and dance with joy and is married and has four daughters? And I got to sing and play along with her!
This last weekend my band and 5 other bands went out to the desert in SE Oregon to play a little music festival to benefit the local children’s food bank. This is our second year doing this gig. It is the brain child of one of my band mates who moved out there to retire. Being an unrepentant bleeding heart liberal, he was concerned about the unemployment and poverty that left too many of the families scrapping by. Fortunately one of the mega ranchers in the area had decided to honor his father and built a new public park in the middle of the town. That was about three years ago and then he built a really great stage at the west end of the park last year. My friend saw an opportunity to get the band down to his place for a good time and to perform for a community that doesn’t get a lot of entertainment out their way.
Couldn’t have just one band for a concert in the park, so with the help of our musician friends, we all agreed to organize a music festival. We cobbled together a sound system from all of our gear, loaded it up in about 8 vehicles, drove the 270 miles to my friend’s house and set about putting it all together at the park. It worked!
After the success of that first year, the mega rancher decided (with a suggestion from my friend) that a permanent sound system should be purchased to have on hand for any future events. With a budget of $5,000 we put together a kick ass system so that this year it could all be stored in one place and could be set up in an hour and a half. Got to use it for a 4th of July concert and worked out all the kinks. All set for this year’s music festival!
All the bands gathered at my friend’s “ranch” on Friday and partied and got jazzed for the next day’s event. Set up the system, food vendors and beer garden set up, a small “Cruise in” and at 1:30 we kicked off the music. Rolling along and then its time for the local band to show up (Jesus’ band including hubby). Quick! Switch to the next band in the line up. After about 5 songs they show up and trade places and wow! They do their set and the next 3 groups play and its time for the grand all star jam to end the show. Everybody gets up and we start with “Like a rolling stone” with four different vocalists doing the verses. The crowd is signing along. The yours truly grabs the wireless mic and heads in to the crowd to doing a little “Stand by me” with a few members of the audience joining me on the mic. Next was “What’s up?’ and everybody was singing and waving glow sticks in the dark and on stage the whole crew was gathered around the mics singing at the top of their lungs “WHAT”S GOING ON?” Jesus and her husband were smiling from ear to ear and joining in with everybody on stage. We finished up with “Rockin’ in the free world” and the joint was jumping! Oh joy now we get to break down. Everyone pitched in and we were done by about 11:30 and most went back to the ranch and stayed up till about 2 in the morning have a great time that couldn’t be beat. I stayed at a motel in town ‘cause I’m old ;-)
Next day it’s back up to the ranch to recuperate and recharge for the drive back home on Monday. Early afternoon Jesus and her family show up to socialize and get to know us. I wasn’t at the group where she first started witnessing how glorious everything was and heard it second hand and thought; “How’s that going to go over with all us secular humanists”? She then joined some of us on the patio and that’s when I met Jesus. She is the real deal. No proselytizing or anything just a wonderful conversation on her works in the community, their animal refuge where they adopt horses, lamas and other abandons critters, teaches music in the local schools, and raising their children with love and affection and teaching them decent (liberal?) values. Meanwhile hubby is down with reprobate contingent of the mob of musicians and is having quite the good time getting somewhat toasted. I have the impression they don’t get to get out and do this often. After a while its time for them to get back to their place, dropped the kids off and them come back for another evening of fun and music. The oldest daughter is a very capable young lady and can keep an eye on the other girls for the evening.
Sun is just starting to go down and there she is with her guitar and fiddle. Where’s Hubby? Turns out he taking a snooze in their car and a little foggy from the afternoon fun. Tune up, plug in the guitar, mic the fiddle and let’s make some music! Holy crap can this gal sing. A bottle of Jack is passed around and she’s not shy. One of our circle always brings a little 420 stash and is quite free with sharing. One of my band mates mentioned his name (Esteban) wanting a toke and she pipes up; “Is Esteban code for reffer?” Out comes the pipe after a poke its “I haven’t done this in two years!” Now she’s really cooking with the music. Hubby finally shows up with his dobro, we all starting cookin’ together. It just doesn’t get any better folks. For some reason she’s telling a story about something (I was somewhat in my cups) and she drops not just the F bomb, but the MF bomb. After the night was over and we all were packing it in, hugs and love were passed around and we all agreed to stay in touch. And that’s how I met Jesus in the desert.
My heart soars like a hawk.