Warning:  The following may be offensive due to language, innuendo, your own reactions/thoughts, bluegrass lovers/haters, rv owners, married folks, unmarried or used to be married folks, people who hate small, confined spaces (oops I already said rv owners), travel, interstate , big trucks, run on sentences, religious people, non-religious people, etc. etc

Our Visit to Indiana

After 4 days of driving without ever unhooking and seeing the inside of this trailer and the interstate highway exclusively, I am thrilled to be in Indiana, “The Crossroads of America”.  I’m not making this up, it’s on a very official looking sign and the Indiana State Highway Map.  It seems to me that I’ve seen this somewhere else, perhaps Kansas or Nebraska.

Indiana is beautiful, who knew?!  We are in Central Indiana, a place called Bean Blossom, that is not in our gps, about 5 miles north of Nashville, the other one.  This Nashville is seriously cute—some of those hippies (you know the ones you used to see everywhere) are here selling clothes that look like they’ve been carefully stored away since 1968, patchouli, honey and tie dyed everything right here in Nashville, Indiana.  They seem to be doing quite well especially the ones who own the parking lots downtown and charge $4 a spot. We didn’t see any public parking unless they charge $4 too.  It’s worth it although I haven’t persuaded Charles to park yet.  There are zillions of shops, there’s even a winery here—the scenery is gorgeous, the weather warm but tolerable due to low humidity (25% today).  The reason we’re here is that Bean Blossom’s attraction is the Bill Monroe Memorial Park which hosts the 46^th Annual Bill Monroe Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival. 

I must digress here….way back when Charles & I were dating and trying to decide if we really liked each other and whether he/she was a keeper---you remember those days when you pretended that you care very deeply about everything that he cares about and he pretended that he was listening to every word you spoke.  Well, I asked him what sort of music he liked and he said “rock & roll but nothing past 1962”.  I thought that’s ok I know all of the lyrics to all of those songs- then he said he liked “acid country” which really means old school country and I thought that’s ok I like that stuff too….but then he glanced at me and sort of mumbled, “I also like bluegrass and I thought, WHOA!! What was that? I asked very calmly, “What did you just say?”  He replied, “Have you ever listened to bluegrass?”  I said,” not on purpose”.  My grandparents lived in east Texas and I remember going to a tent revival or 2 and hearing gospel music that was bluegrass, I know this now because I’ve heard those same songs at bluegrass festivals.

So I said to him, “You know, there are only 8 songs in bluegrass.”

C:        What?

P:         Bill Monroe only wrote 8 songs and everyone just sings those.

The conversation ended. I thought later “how much of an issue could this be?, Charles & I are both serious Catholics, you know the ones who don’t go early, don’t stay late and don’t really care for a lot of singing so we weren’t going to any revivals so what were the odds of ever hearing bluegrass?”  By now some of you readers are gasping at my naiveté or ignorance, it’s ok I’m not that sensitive (being born with blonde hair has been a huge help with sensitivity). I thought that issue was settled and I thought he was cute, he made me laugh a lot and we like to do the same things, so I married him.

One day he walks in and announces that Butch & Shirley (whom I love very much) are going to a bluegrass festival in Anacoco, La., could we go? So many questions flashed through my mind; 

Where is Anacoco? (I am a lifelong resident of La as well as, a certified travel counselor, and I’ve never heard of it).

Dear Lord, there are bluegrass festivals??

For 3 whole days??

I am a good wife, it’s a job that I’ve had for 2/3 of my life and by most criteria, I pass.  It’s too late to make a long story short, but I really liked the music, the people, the food and we’ve been attending bluegrass festivals ever since.

Now Bean Blossom is the Mecca (oops, non pc term ) of bluegrass, it lasts  8 days and Charles always likes to be on time so that means we got here a day early. Eight days of non-stop bluegrass music from 10 a.m. to almost midnight and sometimes later each day!!!

Just to clarify, there are thousands of bluegrass songs, it’s rare to hear the same tune played twice during a festival—unlike a Texas Swing Festival where you will hear “Faded Love” by Bob Wills played by practically every group.  The one bluegrass exception to the above is “Muleskinner Blues” but that’s practically an anthem. There are more than 55 bands here this week and most write music. They are very hard working folks who teach, mentor and sponsor younger musicians to carry on this very America tradition.  This festival is a seamless operation, everything runs on time down to 5 minute increments, the government should borrow their playbook.  I still don’t listen to bluegrass on the radio but I encourage you to go to a live event , it will broaden your horizons.

This is a very diverse group, very young babies to much older folks, we’ve seen a 80+ man riding a Segway up and down the hill and through the park.  There is a Mennonite Church just across the road and when we were searching for a Catholic Church last Sunday, we found 1 compared to 4 Lutheran Churches in the same geographic area, very different from home.

We’re planning to spend another week or so in Indiana and hopefully get to tour the little chocolate box’s home (EVERGREEN factory)  in Mulberry, Indiana. The box is doing well, just getting really dusty.  Hope all of you have a great summer and let us hear about your travels.

THE WIFE