Dear Thirty Something,

I am feeling old.
Experience One --- Could you please be quite, I'm trying to sleep, and who the heck is that band?

I would l.o.v.e love to go to Cornerstone Music Fest this year. Some of my favorite "old time" bands will be there...Charlie Peacock, Degarmo and Key, The 77's, Lost Dogs, and Sixpence....and also my absolute favorite worship leader will be there - David Crowder. What an experience that would be.

The great speakers, the unforgettable music, the people their instant sense of community - Cornerstone is an awesome thing to be a part of. When I'm there, I experience joy at the deepest level. Passionate music and art created to glorify the Creator fuels my soul. I have always come away with a deeper love for Jesus and for the people around me.

Then reading down the list, there are those bands that I have never heard of; the ones with the really strange names. Who is Brother Red Squirrel? Or how 'bout Gasoline Heart? Or my favorite Our Corpse Destroyed. Do people really listen to these bands? Are they well known in their genre? Or am I just too stinkn' old to recognize musical genius when it's right in front of my face?

I'm remembering now....The hot July sun baking your skin to a scaly crisp, crabby people who are ready to kill for shade by the second day, camping on top of each other in the middle of a corn field, the sweet smell of mary jane coming from the next tent over (what?! Isn't this a Christian festival?), drinking ripe milk in your morning cereal because somebody forgot to get ice, cold showers that suddenly turn scalding hot, the stench of overfilled porta-potties, getting tipped over in an overfilled porta-potty, falling for snipe hunting every. single. year. (I'm half kidding), bands playing into the early morning hours while you're trying to get any amount of sound sleep, and dirt, dirt everywhere dirt...not your camping in the woods "clean" dirt, but dirty, people dirt dirty dirt....GA-ROSS (that would be a ga and a "r" with a long o sound followed by the "s"), and the worst, smelly boy armpits in the mosh pits that somehow you get stuck in even if you tried your darnest not to, and the "lake" that leaves you growing an extra toe or may cause you to glow in the dark... sounds like a little slice of heaven, huh?

With daily trips to the local Walmart to sit on a flush toilet and to pretend shop in the air conditioning, the heat is tolerable. And on the way back, a Dairy Queen flurry makes everything better. However, I do have one word of caution regarding an outside the grounds field trip. DO NOT eat at the Pizza Hut and furiously stuff your face with the world's greasiest pizza right before you return to the festival grounds. Let digestion take it's complete course while in the comforts of those automatic porcelain bowls. It really, really sucks (that's the understatement of the universe) sitting in a 105 degree jon for a half an hour. You begin to feel like you're going to faint right off the seat, and then visions of someone finding you dead with your pants down around your ankles face down in the urinal begin to fill your head. The stench begins to infiltrate every sacred space in your nostrils and lungs...you are going to die in there. However, there is one thing keeping you alive....good life-saving literature written in sharpie or etched right into the plastic wall. There's the "Jenny loves Doug" and "for a hot date call 555-555-5555" and my absolute favorite porta-potty graffiti "I was here, but now I'm gone...those who loved me loved me well..." you know the rest. God bless graffiti.

A recent conversation with a fellow Cornerstone veteran went something like this:

Hey Jami, we're going to Cornerstone this year! Did you see who is going to be there?! It's the 25th year of the fest so a lot of great bands will be there! (*ehem, I was there for that very first summer in Graylake at the Lake County Fairgrounds.)

Awww, really?! I would love to go again! The memories of C-Stone are held near and dear to my heart.
After searching the website, I asked my friend, Do you even recognize half of these bands?

Nope. But do you realize how old we actually are? We're not kids anymore.

I sat for a moment in pouty denial. Pooh. Rubbish. I am still a kid. Aren't I?

And then, with a deep knowing sigh, I gave in. I remember now why I don't go to Cornerstone anymore. I am too darn old and way too friggen crabby. I will not bake in a porta-potty, and I will NOT share MY shade with anybody. And I WILL sleep in the quite, and I will stay clean. Thank-you very much.

Cornerstone, have fun going on without me. I'll miss you....well, not really so much.

Amendment--to be fair--Some of my favorite C-stone memories in no particular order:

1. Curling my hair with a butane fueled curling iron.
2. Watching Jeff eat cold spaghetti-o's straight from the can.
3. Making the Canadian's say "Mickey Mouse" over and over again.
4. Having a life changing moment at the Violet Burning concert.
5. Listening to Rich Mullins sing his heart out.
6. Filming for Jacob's Ladder Christian Music Store.
7. Meeting the Fullman family.
8. Sitting back stage for Rez....it's all who you know. ;)
9. Loving the choir "Grace and Glory."
10. Crying on the way home.
11. Wishing life would be like that forever.
12. Learning that life isn't perfect, but very, very beautiful.

And, yes Jeff....we will bring our kids there someday. We will be the cool parents, because we are already. ;)