Loose Leaf Notes

1. Ruckus or Rumpus?

2. “Let the rumpus start” kept going through my head when the family arrived to FloydfestWILD on Saturday… Some sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks. And some swung from vines … I mean swing sets … -More from Where the Wild Things are @ FloydfestWILD HERE.

3. One of the attractions at Floydfest this year was artist Darcy Meeker’s color installation.  There were lollipop-like sculptures all around what looked like a gingerbread candy house of color. Check out a short video clip HERE.

4. At Floydfest I tickled the foot of a strange man on a massage table because I thought it was my son.  The man didn’t object.

5. Also, I went to pay a food vendor who I didn’t know for my lunch and she gave me my money back. “Don’t you want this?” I asked her.  “Not from you,” she answered.  I’m still trying to figure it out.

6. Last week two of my poems were featured with two other poets on Poems of the Day at Poets United. Check them out HERE. 

7. Hammock was our go-to Floydfest fashion.

8. I’m a big Tom Petty fan and regret that I never saw him in concert before he died.  So, I headed straight for the Hill  Holler Stage Sunday, where Keller Williams and the Hill Benders where doing Pettygrass, all Tom Petty in their Blue Grass style as a celebration of Petty’s life and music. I can tell you from this experience that Petty’s music sounds great in any style. I hung on every song.  They made me happy as I sang along and gave me a sense of closure.  Listen HERE.

 9. Another art installation was a pink Oasis in the main field.  The theme for this year’s Floydfest was WILD and artist Eric Davis told me he designed it to be “an oasis in the middle of the wild” where people can go to relax.

10. Along with hearing Grammy winning Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show do Wagon Wheel, Lukas Nelson (Willie’s son), Greta Van Fleet (who had just come from a standing ovation on the Late Show), and Keller Williams do Tom Petty, there was a children’s parade (watch HERE) and silent disco (watch HERE), a sudsy water spray cage attraction and six young men from Virginia Beach walking the main drag in nothing but tie dye thongs.

11. I’ve been to every Floydfest, even the year there was a hurricane, even before they were themed named, even before I was blogging, even when we wore jackets and called it “Fogfest, even when I read poetry at the Poetree, on stage in the Global Village and from my friend Mara’s poet’s soapbox.

12. … Before I knew that a grown woman named Mary Martin was playing Peter’s part … I already didn’t want to wear a tie … I was girl determined … not to be tied to a 9 to 5 … wearing panty hose and stilettos … in the middle of July … As I concluded my poem and jumped off the soap box to make room for the next poet, I imagined I was jumping off Captain Hook’s plank. – From Say it Loud Proud and Outloud/Floydfest 2007 HERE.

13. Our Thirteen Thursday Poet friend Ron at Scrambled Not Fried has a new chapbook by Finishing Line Press on the way.  You can pre-order and read the short review I wrote for the book HERE. 

_______Thirteen Thursday