An Easter Memory

Bennie had a post about Easter memories, and it reminded me of Union Grove. When I was 16, 17, 18, and 19 years old I went to Union Grove on Easter. It was a huge Fiddler's Convention that happened every year for three days on Easter weekend. It was estimated that 150,000 people attended this event. I loved going. If you can imagine a huge farm - I'm not sure how many acres - filled with tents. These were the old fashioned canvas tents that all looked alike. There were Port-A-Johns every 50 yards or so. Anyway, I didn't attend the music part - hardly anybody did. It was just a huge party. There were people from all over the country and some in Canada and that I met. All hippies. You could breathe and get high. The tents were lined up so there were wide paths like streets. We would walk around for hours. Everyone was really friendly. You could walk down these paths and half the people you walked by would invite you to come sit a while, talk, and smoke some pot - or hash - or opium, which I had never seen anywhere except this place. It was never around Elkin or Jonesville. There was no law enforcement that I saw. Kind of like a country Woodstock. My friends and I would get in free because the Starmount band director's father owned the place, and they would let us in. They had to close it down a few years after I stopped going because they had no control over it. I guess they realized just out of hand things had gotten. Anyway, I was just remembering this. Even though I'm a different person now than I was then, I still have sweet memories of that time.