The Central Ohio Folk Festival
We don’t usually take the whole family on Clymer & Kurtz tours, which made the Central Ohio Folk Festival last weekend a rare treat.
We took to the road Friday, our trusty van loaded not only with gear, but also with our three kids (can’t quite get over that one of them’s an adult now) tucked in the middle row. We stopped at a park in Friendsville, MD, for a picnic by a creek, complete with poison ivy and butterflies.
The refreshing energy drinks that Christopher had bought thinking they were innocent fizzies propelled us on our way to his brother’s home in Pittsburgh, where we took a perfect-weather walk to Mellon Park before spending the night at his house.
On Saturday we were greeted by a lovely field of larkspur at the Bank Run Metro Park in Lockbourne, Ohio, where the festival unfolded in the shelter of sturdy trees, cooled by lush grass and a mammoth pavilion striped with more picnic tables than we’d ever seen in one place.
Volunteers buzzed about, checking us in, cheerfully zipping around the paved path in golf carts, and restocking the kitchen full of refreshments for performers, and the all-ages vibe was relaxed and friendly.
In our workshop on “Songwriting and the Secret Power of Everyday Detail,” the participants paired given emotion words with representative objects or sensory details, and vice versa, then brainstormed song lines using them. We sang and talked about a couple of our songs, too; “Here in the Middle” evoked strong emotion in one man who showed us his shoulder tattoo in memory of his parents.
We also shared an observation about a particular pop artist’s songs that one of our daughters had made while we were planning for the workshop: “The songs are so detailed that it gives you a really specific feeling and the next time you hear the song it’s like nostalgia and it’s like you were there in the song and then you get all these memories connected to the song and it’s cemented in your heart forever.”
An early evening thunderstorm downpour sent us running to the pavilion, sheltering with many other festival folks. When the rain slackened we dashed through ankle-deep puddles to the parking lot and drove to the beautiful, artsy home of our host, a festival organizer who had trustingly handed us her house key. We went to bed exhausted.
Sunday dawned hot and humid. The festival volunteers – bless them! – brought a large fan just before we went on the Showcase Stage, solving the double dilemma of mosquitos and wilting onstage heat.
Thanks to volunteers and a golf cart, we had ample time to transport our gear and merch supplies (just apparel and stickers – How could we have left the suitcase full of CDs back at home?) across campus to set up at the Kirby Main Stage for our second set.
It was a thrill to have our daughters add harmonies to the final song of each set, while our son braved the boiling sun to snap photos (countless, it turned out, including selfies) and a bit of video, and to see friends who came to the festival to see us.
We loaded back in the van and drove off into the evening, homeward bound and grateful for all who showed us hospitality and listened to our music.
And now it’s good to be back in Virginia, where even the invasive honeysuckle is beautiful.
