Sober Fest 2008

This entry is a bit of a flashback, given that it happened on June 30th. I know, it took me way too long to write this, I have no excuse and should be castrated. That being said, I want to tell you all a bit about Sober Fest 2008.

This was an event held by Freedom Steppers, a chapter of the International Organization of Good Templars. (No association with the Knights Templar—the closest thing to bloodshed that occurred at the Fest was the juices coming out of hot dogs. Mmmm, hot dogs…) It took place at Serenity Shore, the location formerly known as Good Templar Park. Why they couldn’t change the name to IOGT Park, I haven’t the slightest idea. At least they had the good taste not to name it Serenity Shores, which sounds like the title for a retirement home community. Admittedly, senior citizens aren’t renowned for their vicarious lifestyles, partying like rockstars with lots of booze and drugs floating around, but we want to attract a younger crowd as well. If you don’t believe that… you must not have attended Sober Fest.

Anyway, I asked them to reserve me a ticket so I could attend that afternoon. My parents wanted to go to a few graduation parties that day instead, so they gave me a donation to bring along: a check that would have paid for both of them to get in. They couldn’t be there in person, but they were there in spirit. And in ticket price.

When I pulled up to the driveway of the park, I handed the guys there the money and the check. They were having prize drawings during the course of the day, so even though it was just me, I paid for three people, so they gave me three raffle tickets. Boy, am I glad they did.

IOGT Camp at Good Tem… Serenity Shore is coming up this weekend and running through all of next week and most of the campers are the members’ children. One of those children was helping to pull the tickets out of a bucket for the drawing and lo and behold! The third ticket I got at the entryway—one that I got because of my parents’ donation—won me a t-shirt! And the t-shirt wasn’t the best part. The best part was walking up to the front to collect my prize and watching the young ‘un stomping around, yelling “NOOOOOO!!!” I just hope she doesn’t plan on getting payback during camp this year… little girls can kick you in the shins really hard.

Later in the afternoon, I was approached by a random stranger who recognized me. Unheard of, right? But seriously, I always find it interesting how people try to figure out where they know me from. He and some of the women there saw me and I guess he got tapped as the group ambassador. After they’d talked about it initially, they decided maybe I lived somewhere close to them. And “close to them” meant Sioux Center, Iowa, which was about 300 miles away from where we were standing. You can imagine why they were confused.

“You might recognize me from TV…” His next thought was that perhaps I was a newscaster from down in Iowa, which didn’t solve the conundrum of why I would have traveled so far solely to attend a 12-hour Sober Fest.

“…a reality show called Beauty and the Geek.” I will never get tired of the expressions that pop up on people’s faces at the moment of realization. That’s when he introduced himself as Karlowe and told me he was the drummer for the headliner band, Grindstone. He was in the tour bus with some of the band members’ wives when they looked out the window and recognized me.

After chatting for a while longer, he retreated to the bus and two wives immediately emerged to say hi. And have our picture taken together. And get an autograph. She handed me a pen and a slip of paper, but unfortunately, I didn’t have a solid surface to write on. Fortunately, my uncle Jon was standing next to me, so I borrowed his back to write “Party hearty!” along with my signature.

At this point, some of you might be thinking that it would have been an opportune time to start flirting with them. You would be wrong. I didn’t know they were wives initially, but upon that discovery, they were definitely “hands off.” Why? Because their band was a Christian rock band. Flirting with devout Christian wives may not be worthy of damnation, but I imagine God frowns on that kind of behavior.

As we reached the end of the evening, it was time for Grindstone to set up onstage. Well, under tent—the fest organizers had to save money to buy more hot dogs, you know? Mmmm, hot dogs… While we were all waiting, the MC brought someone up to the front of the group. Apparently, this woman had a pair of dogs that are used as stand-ins or stunt dogs for Hollywood movies. Seriously. She brought the pooches up next to the MC so he could introduce them, at which point he blurted out, “These dogs might be the most famous people here aside from Grindstone!” I managed to limit myself to a snort. (When he said it, one of the wives immediately looked over at me to see what my reaction would be, too.)

Now I should probably clarify something here. Yes, Grindstone is a Christian rock band. However, they’re a hard Christian rock band. If you’re not sure what that means… one of their musical influences is Metallica. As you would imagine, they have a rather limited target audience. I was not among that audience. I listen to Metallica on occasion, but Christian rock? Heee… heck, no! But I stayed to listen anyway because, hey, it was Sober Fest 2008.

As I listened to them play, I didn’t stand up and wave my hands around. The music didn’t fill my heart or touch my soul. I didn’t achieve Enlightenment or experience the Rapture. However, I did enjoy the music, so I’m gonna include a link to their Myspace page here. (The site has a couple songs on it, but they don’t do justice to the band’s live performance.)

Freedom Steppers was selling t-shirts during the course of the evening to raise some additional funds, so when Grindstone was finished playing, some people were getting all the band members to sign their shirts. Mind you, only about half of them were actually wearing those shirts. The rest… there weren’t too many solid surfaces available, so at one point, I repaid my uncle’s favor and let Karlowe borrow my back to sign an autograph.

Once all their equipment was packed up, the wives invited me to check out the tour bus. Turned out to be pretty nice. There were easy chairs and comforters in the main area, they had nine beds stacked up like bunk beds in the back that used a couple layers of foam padding for mattresses… it was pretty sweet. Oh yeah, and they had a small TV hooked up to an X-Box so the guys could play Halo while they were on the road, too. (Karlowe insisted that he never yells at the screen while he’s playing and other people are asleep.)

Before they started up the bus and drove off into the moonlight, a couple of the Freedom Steppers came in to check out the bus and then led a short prayer. I bowed my head and said “Amen” with everyone else, but as I was getting off the bus and some of them told me “God bless”… I replied, “Thanks. Take care.” Like I said, I didn’t achieve Enlightenment that night.

I only have one regret: I may have left too early. After Grindstone had finished playing, there was a group of teenage girls there who had found out who I was. They figured I’d been single since being on TV back in 2005—when I told them that my girlfriend had moved away just recently, they decided they were going to find me a new one. Alas, I jumped in my car and left before finding out whether they were successful or not. If I’d stayed, who knows? Maybe I would have experienced the Rapture after all.