The Winnipeg Folk Festival starts today. I am again a volunteer on the Site Security crew. I have gone to the orientation meeting and to the T-Shirt evening. I have my pass and my schedule.
The Festival has become a personal event, perhaps a ritual of summer for me and for the majority of fans. It is a multi-layered event, bringing people into contact for a few days. I have come to believe that the music has become subordinate to the event - there is certainly none of the silence and reverent focus on the performer and the music that is found in concert settings.
The weather appears to be very good, generally sunny and hot, although the forecast for today includes possible thundershowers.
The site is soggy. Southern Manitoba has been pounded by rain and heavy rain last Wednesday basically led to huge surface flooding in many areas, as the saturated ground refused to take and more, and drainages were overwhelmed. The Festival site in Bird's Hill Park is high and dry, on a sandy esker but the silty clay topsoil that holds down the grass on the festival site has been saturated. In other years, I have seen it turn to gumbo after a half hour of rain, but dry in a day.
I haven't paid a lot of attention to the line-up; I trust that I will be entertained, and I look forward to some moments of joy and insight.
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