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Bonnaroo neighbors take it all in stride Some enterprising locals will sell amenities, food to 80,000 festival-goers
By LEON ALLIGOOD Staff Writer
MANCHESTER, Tenn. — It's June, "about that time," says Irma Guess, who lives on Bushy Branch Road.
"They'll be here soon,'' added her down-the-road neighbor, Ollie Cornelison, who at 92 still walks everywhere he goes.
For 361 days out of the year, chances of a traffic jam on Bushy Branch are slim to none, but on Bonnaroo weekend — June 15 to 18 — this two-lane thoroughfare is often bumper to bumper with music fans headed for a big jam of another kind at what arguably may be one of the most famous cow pastures in America.
Seven hundred verdant acres with nary a heifer in sight.
Just 80,000 excited Roonies, mostly 18- to 29-year-olds sowing oats — wild, that is.
Bonnaroo V arrives as a known quantity to Guess, Cornelison and the other residents of the county roads that, from the air, form the irregular-shaped border of most of the farm-cum-music venue.
After five summers, Bonnaroo's neighbors may still roll their eyes when row after row of Port-a-Johns suddenly appear in the field across the way, but at least they know what to expect: staying put in their homes while the throng arrives and departs.
"It's an inconvenience, but you learn to adapt. You know it's coming, so you plan for it,'' said Joyce Thompson of Bushy Branch Road.
Beginning Wednesday the masses will again begin descending on Coffee County from all points of the compass for their annual fix of 24/7 music, bacchanalian consumption of beer, spirits and — shhhh — marijuana, and a weekend of communal living reminiscent of their parents' Woodstock.
Ah, yes, the heat, the mud, the glory of it all. A fifth of Bonnaroo is just the elixir needed to jump-start summer, according to the Roo faithful.
While many local residents, whose lives are upended by what is likely the biggest block party in the world, would not care if Bonnaroo let the cows come home, they have resigned themselves to the notion of an annual invasion.
"It's like anything else. There's nothing you can do about it. It's going to be here, so make the best of it," said Guess, figuratively waving an olive branch from the yard of her Bushy Branch Road.
In her family's case, that means setting up shower tents and charging a buck a head.
"We thought they might want to rinse off, you know, and cool down. It's well water so it's cold,'' she said. The assumption was people would keep on their clothes, but that changed.
"We actually had some that wanted to get down to the nitty-gritty, so we started putting a curtain up,'' Guess laughed.
"Basically, the ones we've met have been college-type kids. I've seen a few dressed a little weird, but everybody that I've met has been OK. I haven't got a problem with any of them."
How different from that Thursday morning in June 2002, opening day for Bonnaroo I, when locals were ready to skewer the top Roonies … if they could have gotten to them.
That day, all of Coffee County awoke to find traffic on Interstate 24 crawling at such a slow pace that walking was faster. At times, cars were backed up 15 to 30 miles in each direction, from near Murfreesboro to the descending slope of Monteagle Mountain.
The Bonnaroo-bound threw Frisbees and grilled burgers on the shoulder of the road. Those not headed to the three-day concert felt as though they were trapped in a hell on wheels.
"The first (Bonnaroo), the second one and the third one, we woke up on Thursday and there was a line of cars,'' said Evelyn Floyd, another denizen of Bushy Branch. She points to the road from her front yard.
"The next morning there was still a line of cars. Last year it didn't seem as bad. I mean, you still noticed it, but they seem to have a better handle on things. I hope so, because I've got same-day surgery on the 15th. The sheriff's department told me they would get me out,'' Floyd said.
A few miles away on Shed Road, Minnie Thomas sat on the porch swing of her home looking at a pasture that will soon be Bonnaroo-land. Last week workers installed the temporary fence that will keep the festival attendees contained on their side of the road.
Thomas is conflicted. She will be absent from Sunday morning services at her church again this year because of the hassle of checkpoints along the county roads.
But she is also angry with Bonnaroo, not for the mass invasion, but for the fence. You see, this granny's got an entrepreneurial itch. She and her family plan to grill burgers, hot dogs and barbecue pork and sell the food to the captive audience across the fence.
The fence is an impediment to their commerce.
"Last year it came down and people came on over. I don't know what will happen this year. I just wish (the fence) would go away, let everybody have a piece of the pie. We're stuck here, might as well." •
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE NYC and love living near it, But I do credit my impatience and stubborness to the fact that I live in a place that's so densely populated and fast-paced.
Today at 16:27, melikecheese wrote: Today at 15:34, demuzica wrote:That's awesome that they take it all in stride. I know here in NJ/NY people would not be that welcoming. Gotta love that southern hospitality!
I say there 2 places in the US that aren't very hospitable, LA and NYC.
I agree. I mean I live out on Long Island, but my town turned away not one, but two festivals in one summer(Bonnaroo NE and Fieldday) and Creamfields the years before. And in everycase they had started to sell tickets for the events. I think the south works to because they don't have time restraints for a festival to play.
I read that article in the paper today while I was at work. I had to say I was a bit amused at the fact that everyone they interviewed was in their late 80s. I kept hearing an old person's voice in my head saying "all those darn kids with all that noise...and their shenanigans"
