Reports from previous Avalon Folk Festivals.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

• Speaking of Better Views of the Moon . . .
• Just call us Cottontails
• Speaking of Better Views of the Moon . . .
• The Second Annual Avalon Folk Festival
• The First Annual Avalon Folk Festival

The clothing-optional Avalon Folk Festival was big fun, as always. Great crowd all weekend, despite the fact that it seemed to be raining everywhere else (but not in Paw Paw -- except our first set).

Vance Gilbert, as expected, was a total hoot ("Do white people get grass stains?").

Other favorite quotes: "I'm focusing on the place between their eyebrows and their hairline" (Bryan Bowers).

Sue wrote a new Avalon song. The chorus goes:

Don't cover your sparkling eyes
It's a sparkle meant to be seen
Don't hide your skip-kickin' feet
Or anything in between

She also wrote an anthem for clothing optional resorts:

It's neither here nor there,
   if you are dressed or bare
No one will ever stare,
   'cause we don't really care.
It's immaterial, it's immaterial,
   it's immaterial whatcha
   wear 'round here

We had another wonderful weekend at the Third Annual Folk Festival at Avalon, a clothing optional resort in Paw Paw, West Virginia. Anne Hills and Bill Staines were the headliners this year, and Hot Soup continues to be a favorite among festival goers. Sound was great as always, thanks to Scott "The Bear" Twiford, and we understand that the resort was full (as were the bed and breakfast facilties in town). The music was excellent, the weather was perfect (OK, it got a little chilly on Friday night and folks had to put on sweatshirts), and the companionship was the best (how many can we fit in the hot tub?). This festival also includes a small crafts area. Many of us had fun shopping through the ladies clothes (!!) (but don't ask about a place to try things on . . .).

Anne Hills' husband, Mark Moss, was there -- he's the editor of Sing Out magazine, and he spent most of the weekend looking rather . . . well . . . I suspect the next issue of Sing Out will tell a "tale" or two.

Many thanks to our hosts, Patrick and Phyllis Gaffney, for using their resources in support of folk and other music (they also run a blues festival), and for inviting us back this year. Check their website or call 304-947-5600 for more information.

We did it again!

"It" was another great Paw Paw adventure -- the Second Annual Folk Festival at Avalon. Avalon is a lovely wooded site in the West Virginia mountains with lodge, condo, and chalet facilities as well as trailer hookups and camp sites. The resort is open all year and offers great food, a big hot tub, nice pool, hiking trails . . . and it's an ideal site for a small folk festival. The stage is set at the bottom of a slight hill near the dining hall and the recreational facilities, so the sight lines and sound are excellent, and amenities (including flush toilets, among other things) are immediately available. (Here's a reversal on a bad joke: Seems like you have to go to West Virginia for the luxury of flush toilets at a folk festival!)

This year, Christina Muir and I shared the bill with David Buskin & the Testostertones, Grace Griffith, Bill Danoff, Bernice Lewis, The Critton Hollow String Band, Lisa Moscatiello, Madeline MacNeil, Hickory Grove, Side by Side, and Bill Davis. A treat for the ears (oh, OK, and the eyes!). Avalon is a clothing-optional resort -- and, this being our second year, we knew what to expect.

You know what they say about curing stage fright -- that you should imagine your audience naked? Don't do it. Having faced the reality several times now, my observation is this: There's a good probability that the song you're about to sing is much less interesting than what you're looking at, and you'll forget what you got up to do. So, I'd rephrase the adage: imagine everyone in your audience is a nudist, because you'll never perform for a nicer, more welcoming, more enthusiastic crowd.

But "clothing optional" means exactly that -- clothing is optional. Folks wear what they want (or not), and nobody cares. As a "Newbie," you may find you've made more eye contact with strangers in an hour than you have in the last ten years, but that's OK. It doesn't take long to recognize that naturism isn't sexual, and nobody cares what you're looking at as long as you're polite about it.

Attendance was up this year, and we met several people who discovered the festival through our internet postings. That was fun!

     Clothed by the Sun
Copyright ©1997, Sue Trainor

Chorus:
Clothed by the sun, caressed by the breeze
Held in love by this family
I see you, you see me open my heart
     and set my spirit free

1.
I know that I am naked underneath my clothes
Til now I've put my sunscreen only on my nose
But, here I come, a Cottontail
Hopping down the Newbie trail
With nothing but my name left to disclose

2.
I was raised on beaches by textile happy folk
I've been more inclined to wear my towel as a cloak
My towel is over my shoulder
And I'm feeling a little bolder
And I might just trade my pockets for a poke*

3.
I feel like I am blushing in all four of my cheeks
We girls are highly trained in all the rules of hide and seek
But all my hide is showing
And your seek isn't growing
So maybe I'll hang out here for a week

*A "poke" is a bag, for all you city-folk. Clean up that mind!

This year I asked festival attendees to make up nudist parodies. My favorite: "Happy birthday suit to you . . . ." ; )

Sunday morning, Christina and I did a main stage set for families and kids, which produced the most spectacular moment of the weekend for me. We sang a song called "Alligator Jump" by Tom Knight, which essentially is a line dance for kids. We got the audience (mostly adults) on their feet, and they Alligator-Jumped with unprecedented enthusiasm! The chorus goes:

Alligator jump, alligator slide
All the alligators like to move from side to side
Alligator grunt (grrrr), alligator giggle (tee-hee)
All the alligators like to turn around and wiggle

[Dancers hold their hands up, wiggle their fingers, and turn around in circles.]

It was a beautiful sight! And it so perfectly reflects the spirit of the place and the people. It was so joyful. It was so free of self-consciousness. What a wonderful way to feel!

Did I mention that there's rarely a line for the ladies' room?

We did it!

The great Paw Paw adventure -- the First Annual Folk Festival at Avalon -- is history.

Avalon is a clothing-optional resort -- and we had no idea what to expect. The event was well-publicized in the general media as well as in the nudist community, so we wondered whether the notion of clothed folkies descending on the resort would keep the regulars away.

Not so.

Sue T and Christina were on the bill (Sue Ribaudo was in Plymouth, Massachusetts, running Campers' Week at Pinewoods), along with Christine Lavin, The Hard Travelers, Madeline McNeil, Bill Danoff, Hickory Grove, and The Unfortunate Rakes. The sound was great, we were well cared for, and the audience was happy, enthusiastic and . . . mostly unclothed.

The resort itself is near Paw Paw, West Virginia -- just south of that place where Western Maryland narrows to almost nothing. It's a lovely wooded site in the mountains with lodging and chalet facilities as well as trailer hookups and camp sites (we were told that it was once a church retreat). Great food, a big hot tub, nice pool, hiking trails . . . and an ideal site for a small folk festival. They had the stage set at the bottom of a slight hill near the dining room and hot tub, so the sight lines were excellent and amenities were immediately available.

Clothing optional means exactly that -- clothing is optional. The nudists displayed (if you'll pardon the pun) no discomfort at all with folks in any stage of dress or undress. And as nervousness breeds nervousness, so did their carefree aura bred comfort in those of us who were, as they say, "Nubies." It was a little disarming to arrive and find the folks at registration working in the buff -- but it didn't take long for nudity to feel like "normal" in that context. Three things particularly impressed us:

1. People's posture. Folks walk tall and relaxed out there. Seems like the decision that there's nothing to hide is very much reflected in body language.
2. When you're not used to nudism, it's much harder to recognize individuals that you've been introduced to when you meet them again later. We base an awful lot of stuff on superficial cues.
3. It was absolutely the most open and enthusiastic group of people that we have ever encountered. Anybody and everybody will greet you, speak with you, invite you in.

Attendance was light -- about 500, we're told -- but enough so there should be a Second Annual. The folkies who got brave and came out (most of whom stayed fully and comfortably attired) were rewarded with two days of top quality performances, wonderful company, and (again, you'll pardon the pun) an eye-opening experience.

One of the highlights for Sue was a successful, self-imposed exercise in songwriting. She sat around chatting with folks on Saturday afternoon, collected nudist lingo and anecdotes, wrote a song, and sang it Saturday night (perhaps the bravest thing she did all weekend). In part:

I know that I am naked
     underneath my clothes
But up 'til now I've only
     put my sunscreen on my nose
Here I come, a Cottontail
Hopping down the Nubie trail
With nothing but my name
     left to disclose

I feel like I am blushing
     in all four of my cheeks
We girls are highly trained in
     all the rules of hide and seek
But all my hide is showing
And your seek isn't growing
So maybe I'll hang out here
     for a week (-- or two)

(And the crowd goes wild!!)

And then there was a line that she wanted to use but couldn't fit in, which found it's way into a round overnight (the tune is borrowed from "You haven't been eating scalloped potatoes for three days * * like I have"):

You better remember to put on your apron when frying * * your bacon.

So . . . Did we do it? Well, the whole point is, it doesn't really matter.

The hit of the weekend, however, came from folk songwriter and performer Sue Trainor, who was performing with one of her partners, Christina Muir. These two, and a third singer, [Sue Ribaudo], make up the group known as Hot Soup. Sue endeared herself to everyone present with her rendition of the old Ian McIntosh ballad "Waltzing in the Nude", which she altered slightly to reference her husband, Jimmy, who accompanied her to Avalon, and who kept urging her to participate in the spirit of the club. The song tells the story of an elderly couple who keep their love alive by daily waltzing in the nude; however, they sometimes pep things up by doing the polka in the nude!