By SHILO ZYLBERGOLD

Nobody Asked Me But Columnist

Who says you can never go home any more?

Last weekend, my wife and I found ourselves attending the Vancouver Island MusicFest at the Comox Valley Fairgrounds in Courtenay. The three-day event celebrated a veritable smorgasbord of musical stylings, from traditional bluegrass to hip-hop to jazz (and including everything in between). Headlining were world-famous performers such as Arlo Guthrie, Jennifer Warnes, Steven Page and Los Lobos. On the bill as well were many lesser-known talents who are still among the finest musicians in this or any other country.

It was sort of a homecoming for me. You see, back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s this same fairground was the site of an annual event known as the Renaissance Faire. Locals referred to it as “the Hippy Fair,” on account of the masses of long hair, flowing dresses and suspicious fumes that gravitated annually to the region.

Of course, I was one of the aforementioned. The Renaissance Faire often coincided with the end of the spring tree-planting season. You might say it was a “gathering of the clan” as we joined the others who lived on the fringe of society: squatters from unnamed islands in Desolation Sound and freaks who lived on scavenged float-houses up Bute Inlet. We gathered up our homemade beeswax candles or hand-woven ponchos or whatever else we had been churning out during the long, wet B.C. winter and descended on the Comox Valley to flog our wares, spend our just-earned booty, or merely show off our newborn babies.

That was then. Eventually we all got older and more pressing matters pushed the Renaissance days into the background. By the mid-’80s, the energy for organizing the event dwindled and the faire petered out.

Recent years have seen a dynamic comeback for the annual festivities in the form of the MusicFest. Back in the days of the Renaissance Faire, the event was traditionally held the last weekend in June. Intended by faire organizers to herald the beginning of the summer season, more often than not, the gathering became mired in a stew of cold, rain and mud. Having obviously learned from previous mistakes, present festival directors have pushed the modern incarnation of the event back to mid-July. As a result, this year’s MusicFest was blessed with an incredible three days of non-stop sunshine and blue skies.

For the first day or so, the spectacular weather and warmth dominates all conversation. Faces everywhere are beaming with joy and a chorus of “sun, sun, sun” rises above the throng. By mid-afternoon on Saturday, the relentless sun and heat have taken their toll. Blankets lie unoccupied and naked in the fields as musicians perform to phantom audiences. The crowds are now scrambling to find “shade, shade, shade.”

The banks of the nearby Tsolum River offer welcome relief. Mothers dip their babes in the refreshing waters while children splash each other in the shady shallows and scream in glee.

Later, we wander around the fairgrounds, sampling the sweet sounds emanating from the six separate stages. We laugh over a large sign in the camping area proclaiming “No Drum Circles.” As we flitter about the grounds, the air is thick with the exotic smells of the 20 food booths lining the edge of one side of the main stage. Just like we have trouble deciding which musical act to partake, we find ourselves not being able to choose among the competing food possibilities. Shall we dine on shish kabob at the BaBa Gannouj booth or North African cuisine at Nomad’s Kitchen? We check out the lineups and find that the only booth with a huge queue is the one called Canada’s Best Mini Donuts. Hmmm, interesting.

Recycling is a big deal at the MusicFest. All over the festival site you can find large bins for garbage and recyclables. Each bin has carefully printed instructions for what category of refuse should be deposited therein: refundable cans and bottles here, non-refundable plastic containers there, and so on. Sounds good in theory, but by day 2 of the event all the good intentions have been buried under by the unstoppable flow of “just plain garbage.” It seems that the younger festival goers cannot focus long enough to digest the written instructions and the older ones like me are no longer physically capable of reading them because the printing is too small (meaning smaller than the printing on the billboards lining the side of the Pat Bay Highway).

We make new friends and run into old friends from times gone by. We reminisce about the old days but find our conversations turn to topics such as orthotics, aches and pains, digestive enzymes and anything that will help move things down along our intestinal tracts. The only drugs we all seem to be doing these days are anti-inflammatories and suppositories.

Suddenly, no more than a few feet away, stands Max the Red, an old friend I haven’t seen for what must now be almost 30 years. Back in the day, Max was a legend up and down the coast. He was the original barefoot treeplanter, a hippy’s hippy, who could highball a thousand trees into the ground before stopping for his first ginseng tea break. Amazingly, he looks just the same as when I had last seen him almost three decades ago.

“Max! I can’t believe my eyes. You haven’t aged a day. Remember me? It’s Shilo.”

“Sorry, but I’m not Max. Max is my dad.”

“Your dad? Is that you, Cedar?”

“Yeah, but I changed my name legally to Cedrick the first chance I got. Just call me ‘Rick,’ okay.”

“Sure Cedar, I mean Rick. Is Max here at the festival?”

“Well, Max was just dad’s nickname. His real name is Lester Maxwell. He quit treeplanting back when I was still a kid. Said it was all ‘bullshit.’ He became a logger up in Gold River and now runs the union office there. We don’t talk much. He doesn’t care much for tree-huggers like me.”

Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s true you can never go home again.