Piles of laundry, clothes to put away, get the car washed…Yep, we’re home from Strawberry.  Even four days later the phone rings, and friends ask, “How was Strawberry?”

Well, how is life?  How is going to church and feeling filled with spirit?  How is standing in pure, stunning sunlight, watching leaves dance in mountain breezes?How is music flowing, circling all around you from dawn until dawn?  How is listening to giggles and gleeful laughter from little kids having such a grand time?  How is listening to a mom soothe a crying kid who is on complete overload from just too much Strawberry Kid fun?  How is striking up deep conversations with someone you just met…A Strawberry Virgin–like Becky and Ed from LA, first timers?  How is standing in line in a filthy, dusty bathroom, laughing with other women about the showers, the hot water, sharing soap, toothpaste, passing TP with strangers…No! There are no strangers at Strawberry!  How is holding and loving almost 30 years of friendships born and nurtured in this one beautiful, natural place?  

A backwards journey goes something like this:

Pulling onto Highway 120 from Evergreen Road, I can no longer tune in Hog Ranch Radio on my car radio.  The station has a short range, just a few miles.  By now I’m more than five miles from Strawberry’s Epicenter, Music Meadow.  Just a few moments before I could catch it!

88.1 FM on the dial, Hog Ranch is the Festival’s official Radio Station, broadcasting Mainstage Music, Workshop Broadcasts, camp news, history, special announcements, the Sunday Morning Revival Show from Birch Lake. From Festival Day #1 when it roars over the airways until noon on Festival Day #5 when Bix Beeman and the whole Hog Ranch Team sign off, our camp radio station offers a unifying voice pulling 5,000 people together. The Hog’s history at Strawberry is rich, highly textured, and is a vital part of Strawberry’s Story….more about The Hog in the future.

As I pull out of my campsite, The Hog is playing “The Breakfast Club,” which is aired from the Dining Hall each morning. Sign up and sing for your breakfast…That’s the basic idea.  Anyone can give it a try.  Just rehearse, plan and prepare.  Some groups are incredibly tight and professional, the sort you’d expect to see on the Strawberry Stage; others are just coming out of the box.  In my own camp, I’ve sat around listening in, eaves-dropping, on a group or two as they rehearsed one more song before trekking off to the Dining Hall to play for their “supper.”  Back in camp we listen in on the Radio.  Every “decent” Strawberry Camp brings a radio to tune in to The Hog.  You can even go home with the semi-annual Hog Ranch Radio T-Shirt, a real collector’s item!

This morning a group from Anywhere West Coast is singing and playing “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”  Normally this song would sort of, well, bore me.  But Camp is closing down for the winter.  All of the Strawberry Revelers ARE leaving, saying goodbye, packing their bags.  This time the song touches my heart; tears trickle down my cheek.

I drive under the big wooden Camp Mather sign.  Goodbye Waves come my way from everyone along the trail. I bid adieu to my summer home, my heart of hearts…The Strawberry Music Festival.

Just minutes before I was still parked at my camp, getting ready to pull out, saying those usual “See Ya Later, Alligators” to my camp pals.  Lots of hugs, a few camera snaps, email address exchanges.  Wait!  One more story about the guy who stopped by camp the other night to play a new song he’d written, how poignant it was, bringing tears to our eyes.

And just before that: Wash the windows.  All that camp dust obscures my view of the road. I’m kind of short, so one of my Strawberry pals hops over to help me.  Helping each other all through the festival….”It’s The Strawberry Way.”

You hear that phrase a lot at The Strawberry Music Festival.  It goes back to the earliest days of the festival when a tradition, a culture formed that has stayed with us ever since.  At Strawberry no one is in a hurry, no one is pushy.  There is a lot of respect, kindness and generosity among these merry revelers. And so many people bring their kids!  This festival has a huge commitment to the Strawberry Kids…for them to have fun and to be safe. For five days we all come together to create a Utopia of Artistic Bliss right in the middle of the forest.

On Sunday night, our last night, we strolled from one camp to another, listening to music.  You see, Strawberry isn’t just a place to go to hear (and see) professional musicians play on a stage.  It is a musicians’ music festival.  Every camp is filled with guitar players, mando players, fiddle and banjo players.  Lots of these campers are professionals themselves, gigging all around their neighborhoods.

 The nighttime drift of tune upon tune upon tune fills the soul with real food.  Communion, it is.  Where two or more people gather to share the joy, the ecstasy and grace of music…That’s the Strawberry Way.  Little kids, learning to play fiddle sit and jam with virtuosos…That’s the Strawberry Way.  And Sunday night is especially Holy because it is our last night together as a family, as a community.  We all know the show is about to pack up and we will soon spill back into our daily lives.  So, let’s hold it and love it before we go…That’s the Strawberry Way, too.

Stayed tuned.  There’s more.

I’m B.Z. Smith. I tell stories.  This is one.