No, I’m not crazy enough to try to do my own version of Nancy’s column from yesterday, Rantings of a Grumpy Old Woman, though Lord knows I’d have ample frustration in which to wallow in misery. I’ll just mention one of the things in life that really, really bugs me. And I’ll do it by giving you a timely example. It’s mid-day, Wednesday of festival week, I walk over to the old showers, find that, Eureka, tepid water awaits, and am mid-way into the sudsing cycle when I overhear a conversation between two stall mates, one on either side of me.
“Have you seen the posters they got up about the JD cookbook thingy?” asks the showerer on my right.
“No, what?”, replies showerer right.
“I guess the CBA’s doing some kind of fund-raiser deal to do up a book of recipes that JD Rhynes has had in the Breakdown. You’ve seen ‘em in the Breakdown…”
“Sure I have, Elaine’s actually done a few. The tamale pie recipe was mucho bueno.”
I am liking this, really, really liking this. The posters have started a buzz, just like Ted Kuster, the brains behind the cookbook Kickstater idea, said they would.
“Yeah,” comes right showerer, “I guess the guy really does cook. So they’re asking for donations. You gonna give anything?”
“Hell no,” left showerer snaps, “I think it’s stupid. I mean like, not the book part, that’s pretty cool I guess.”
“Then what?”
“Well, with the cost of tickets to Grass Valley up to, what, a hundred and fifty or so, you’d think if they were going to do some kind of fund-raising thing they’d use the money to try to keep the admission price down. Wouldn’t you?
“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THIS IS FOR,” I scream silently in my brain. Frustration’s got me tightly in its grip in the blink of an eye.
“Yeah,” agrees right showerer, “I guess you’re right. They’re always doing these money making things and who knows where the money goes.”
“I DO, DAMMIT. I KNOW WHERE THE MONEY GOES: IT GOES TO KEEP TICKET PRICES DOWN YOU DOLTS.” Now steam is coming out of my ears, but I say not a word.
“So, they’re goal is $10 grand,” righty continues, “think if they’d apply that money to cover the cost of the Fathers Day Festival and pass the savings along to us poor consumers.”
“Yup,” lefty concurs, “it’s the same everywhere. Corporate America has one bottom line only, and that bottom line is itself.”
Now, in all fairness, if I’d overheard this conversation fifteen years ago I’d probably have joined in and offered my own cynical take on corporate greed. But I didn’t hear it fifteen years ago, I heard it this year, 2014, after nearly a decade and a half of spending eleven Saturdays per year sitting with ten others around a table for six or eight hours a pop obsessively debating the hands-down number one CBA board meeting agenda item…which is, of course, keeping FDF ticket prices as low as possible. Yes right showerer, yes, left showerer, the Kickstarter campaign does have as its goal to raise $10,000 to produce a cookbook and CD featuring JD Rhynes’ recipes and stories. But lefty and righty, don’t you understand, the project isn’t an end in itself; producing a cookbook that can be sold at a modest price at CBA events forever and ever is EXACTLY aimed at keeping ticket prices down. The money will be used to defray the costs of the Fathers Day Festival and other CBA events so that ticket prices won’t go up…and maybe even go down. For close to fifteen years I’ve heard members carp and complain about the money-grubbing CBA board of directors and all of their get rich schemes. Well, hey, guess what—nobody’s getting rich. And guess what else—part of the reason the admission price of the four-day festival at Grass Valley each June is well below the national average for comparable events IS EXACTLY BECAUSE the people you’ve elected keep dreaming up ways to pay for the Association’s events and help folks who can barely affort to attend attend.
So there, I’ve said it, and I actually feel a little better than when I started. Good to get things off your chest every now and then. Have a terrific week and play and/or listen to some bluegrass or old-time music. Oh, one last thing, click here to give a few bucks to help with the old mountain man’s cookbook. Who knows, it just might help to keep ticket prices down.