Moosefest 1997 Memories on Moosetopia

Moosefest 1997

From my post to the newsgroup on 8/27/97:

Good morning, folks. Jerrilynn-in-the-morning here nursing a hangover. Well, perhpas hangover is too strong of a word. It's a shock to be back in the real world. A small cup of Seattle's Best Coffee and a BIG smile took me to work today. I feel elevated and relaxed and incredibly calm. My journey to Cicely was a giant sigh of relief from my overworked, stressed-out soul. I had a chance of a lifetime and I grabbed it with gusto. I got to escape into the real world of my TV-land prozac and made it concrete. To put many, many words into a few simple ones - it was WONDERFUL!! I feel like the first time I fell in love or like it is Christmas morning, there is a fresh blanket of snow, a huge pile of presents, a warm fire and mom has made cinnamon rolls. Cicely is a toen where the people wave to strangers and the biggest traffic jam is when all the dogs conference in the middle of the road. There's no rush and everyone smiles. It's a place where someone always has a quarter for the jukebox or an extra cigarette. And for three long, glorious days - it was *my* home. Driving my rental car down highway 903 and stopping on Pennsylvania, I knew exactly where I was and felt as welcome as if I had been there my whole life. There were beers at the Brick, a cookout with a fling (no pianos - would've hit someone's house. But we did fling coffeemakers, tennis balls, a teddy bear and, I think, a watermelon), and chances to put human faces and voices to all my cybermoose buddies. The air was crisp and clean. At night, there were so many stars, I lost myself trying to find the sparse constellations found in my Denver night sky. Folks - hear it loud and clear: MAKE THE JOURNEY. Fly solo if you must - many of us did and were far from alone. Driving back to my real-world home late last night, I though maybe this experience was slipping away from me as if it were only a dream. But I looked into Denver's midnight sky and found a few more stars had followed me back. It has never looked this beautiful. As I creep out of my karmic cloud - I'll post more details. For now - may the moose be with all of you there and all of you reading who were in our thoughts. Goodbye for now, Cicely - you're always in the corner of my being.

Aug 22-24,1997

Events:
Barry Corbin's one-man play "Charlie Goodnight's Last Night."
Bus Tour of filming sites with location manager, Dan Dusek.
Iris Dement in concert. (Thanks Jennifer for the video and Eddie for the conversion to You Tube).
Maurice's Annual Dinner (Barry dressed as Maurice).
Fling and picnic.
Auction (I bought two of Joel Fleischman's shirts!)

Here's some photos from the fest!