Getting in touch with my Rasta side

I’ve been slacking on postin entries lately, mostly because I still don’t have the Internet at home. It’s 9:45 p.m. and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my car outside of a local café that has a free Internet connection. I keep getting strange looks from passersby.

The town I live in frequently has little festivals and street fairs, and Friday night was an event called Magic of the Night. All the stores were open and bands were playing in different pockets of the main street through town. The locals find it a great excuse to start drinking early. After a little shopping, the group I was with made one of our first stops in a bar called the Sportsman. Only in the foothills can one find a bar where you can buy beer and guns in the same place. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think saying this seems like a dangerous combination is a little bit of an understatement. This is California; I’m surprised it’s not illegal. After a drink, we wove through the crowd down to a spot where the fire jugglers were performing. I actually wrote a story on this group about six months ago. They are pretty impressive to watch.

Then there was a reggae band up the street we went to see. I’m not usually a huge reggae fan, but these guys were good enough to get me to go watch them again last night, this time at an event about an hour north of here called Summerfest. This festival was on private property in a remote location that I probably could never find again. There was a little pond with a zip line, barbecuing, mountain biking and camping — and hours of reggae music. I have never seen so many dred locks in one place. One guy gave me a sticker after asking if I have any “Rasta” in me. They had about six different trashcans for recycling and a sign above them that said “no profanity.”

In the background was the constant switching back and forth between two syncopated chords in what sounded like one song that lasted for about three hours. In fact, that’s how we found our way back to the site after going on a mountain bike ride on some of the back roads. But the band we came to see was worth waiting for. Their lead singer is a woman, and she is amazing. It’s fun to dance to, and they had their own showing of fire dancers as well during one intermission.

Lesson learned: I don’t know if I really have any Rasta in me.