Squatters

Last night I was at the American Folk Festival in Bangor. Friday is the first day of this 3-day 5-stage music and food and craft fair event and the music starts at 6:00. Today, Saturday, is a cold wet day so I think we'll be skipping it till tomorrow, staying home to make blueberry jam instead.
I had an absolutely wonderful evening, though, listening to music and milling around in the huge crowd. I've never seen that many people on a Friday night at that festival. But it was 1:00 in the morning before I got into bed back home. We were even stopped on the edge of our own town in an apres-midnight police roadblock. This morning I was reading a Bangor Daily News blog about everybody bitching and moaning about the finances of the festival. Hey I think the bucket brigade is a wild idea. I enjoy the guilt trip! The one bitch I've had, well there are two truth be known, but the big one is that nobody has been allowed to stand in front of the stage at the Railroad Stage, the biggest stage and viewing area of the festival. Instead, people sit in these folding camping chairs that they all bring with them. It's a first-come-first-served sort of thing where rules of etiquette would forbid any polite person from standing in front of one of these camp-chair space hogs. It's like the seated people have precedence. Well it burns my ass that these people set up camp close to the stage so nobody can go stand down there. It was even worse last year when the festival organizers had set up a VIP seating section and through most of the shows nobody sat anywhere close to the stage, empty seats! What a drag that must be on the musicians!
Well anyway, I've come up with a name for these camp-chair real estate hogs. From now on I'm calling them squatters. Go to hell if you don't like my attitude.