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In 1995, I was riding along through the American West with my first boyfriend. We were on our way to the Rainbow Gathering in Carson National Forest in New Mexico. We saw a hitchhiker, vaguely military looking, and pulled over. Our rider was a man named Cody. He was a homeless Vietnam Veteran.

He had a Willie Nelson tape and we let him play it, as we were well sick of our Cranberries album and whatever else we had by then. We had been driving from California, in a roundabout sort of way. Don’t ask. Anyway, Cody put on his tape and I was educated for the first time about real country music. I didn’t like it at first. It took a few dozen miles, but by the time we got to the end of side one, my heart was full ta burstin’ and I couldn’t see through my weepin’ eyes.

We arrived in Taos, New Mexico, after a wee detour through Los Alamos, where we bought a War album, (it is the lowrider capitol of the world- we had to!) and found a few other hippies hanging out at a rural gas station. There were a few folk who said to follow them, so we did. We were led deep into the Carson National Forest and found a camp to align ourselves with.

We had only our pickup truck to sleep in, no tent, but we were still part of a mass of souls numbering in the thousands who flocked to camp these wood on this July of 1995. It was made clear in a very low-key way that alcohol was only to be consumed…