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12 GROUNDCOVER NEWS TRAVELS WITH DREAMER Rainbows and Dreamer STEVEN Groundcover vendor No. 668 It was my friend JR who turned me on to Rainbow Gatherings. He laid it out as something like, it’s a large gathering, lots of different people go, but it’s basically a big hippie thing. Money was not allowed. If you wanted to sell something it was a barter system. Drinking at the Gathering was not allowed, though you could drink in the parking lot. The parking lot is usually a solid walk from the main Gathering. It was in this case, but I still checked it out. I wasn’t as crazy a drinker then but I liked the edgy vibe and people were generous with the booze. All that really mattered was I was going to see my brother from another mother (JR) and we were going to camp. I was sold on that alone and after I had done some digging and figured out more of what it was, I was stoked for the Gathering as well. This was pre-ubiquitous-or-useful internet. I think you may have had the dancing baby, whatever else, but for someone with my skill set it was just for email really. I didn't get into all the news groups and chats and what not so what I learned about the Rainbow Family was from word of mouth and newsprint pamphlet kind-of-things. Different people had different nuggets of information that may or may not have been accurate. There was a little bad-mouthing but nothing that seemed like I would care about, or that seemed likely to be true. I thought it was going to be pretty cool and I was not disappointed. It was awesome. I knew there would be hippies; it was definitely a hippie thing. It had been around for many years by the time I went in the nineties and it had evolved beyond the basic hippie, free-love, no-war shtick. It very much was a real time example of a way of life that was sustainable, viable and worked on a macro scale. There were tens of thousands of people there, as it was a national Gathering. I’m curious what form it takes now. Everybody pretty well knew the FBI had it in for the Rainbow Family as it was called, and since it was the 90s, the word ‘cult’ was thrown around liberally. I was blown away by my experience in Shawnee National Forest. It was a profound and formative experience made especially special with the presence of JR and the new friends, aka family members, I made, including my soon-to-be very good friend and partner in exploits, Dreamer. I had gotten a sweet ride from the truck stop just south of Chicago. It was a long ride-less hitch, as in no rides, from the southern El stop to this truck stop. I went around asking truckers for rides south and was shot down often. I didn’t know at the time and was a bit salty over the lack of cool truck drivers. I had always figured truckers were cool with giving rides and hitchhikers and I think many are, but it’s a big no-no with their insurance and with the companies that hire the employed ones. An old guy (he was probably younger than I am now at 50) said “hop in” after quickly sizing me up and guessing correctly that the tall gangly teenager in front of him wasn’t going to be a threat. It was late and he was driving through the night and figured on some company. We bullshitted and talked music. He talked about the life of a trucker in non-glowing terms. I still think I’d like to be a trucker, only I drink too much. He told me some stuff about CB talk. I knew a tiny bit; my Grandfather had had a CB in his car. This guy was laying on the real shit. Smokey was in fact a handle for cops, like the movies. The one that really sticks out to me was the chicken coops. The chicken coops were the weigh stations. If you’ve driven on very many of the big freeways you will have seen them. Lines of trucks on a pull-off and a small building. This was not explained to me in detail but I gathered the gist of it was weight allowances on different stretches of freeways and maybe some sort of potential anti-smuggling cop-type stuff? Like if your manifest says you’re hauling this weight of feathers but in fact you’re hauling a heavier load of Stretch Armstrong dolls, you get nailed. The part that mattered to us was if the people at the chicken coops would know whether or not a truck was supposed to have two people in the cab and would cause problems for a trucker with an extra person. He had warned this might be a thing and long before the coop was in sight the word over the CB was the one coming up was open. He asked me to hop in the back of the cab, not the trailer. I jumped back lickety-split. I had never seen the inside of a sleeper semi before. I thought it was awesome. Just a small bed, a few shelves, a TV, etc. Yes, please! We went through the coop no problem and bullshitted our way to the Carbondale off ramp. We parted ways as if we were maritime men of old. “I’ll probably never see you again but if I do I’ll fight you over who buys the drinks” kind-of-thing. I consulted my worn road map with a smoke. I had to get from Carbondale, Ill., over to the Shawnee National Forest. This ended up being easy enough. There was a lot of traffic headed out that way. Lots of cars and lots of hitchers. I was quickly picked up to fill the last seat of a car on its way there. We were close enough that the driver didn’t sweat any kind of gas money or whatever, plus he was an old hat at the Family vibe and was in a no-money frame of mind. Only two of the five people in the car were original. One guy had been picked up hundreds of miles previous, then me just at the final stretch. As we drove past dozens of other hitchers and hikers on the bumperto-bumper side streets, the driver, a veteran of the Gatherings, was laying it out for us new guys. A lot of what he said confirmed what like a restaurant. The guy who nominally ran the kitchen I ended up going to most was named Tree, he swore it was his given name and he had been traveling with and working in this kitchen for years. I think he hauled a lot of the supplies and certainly was key to the kitchen working. He ran it by example and gentle suggestions. Shawnee National Forest is, well, a I’d already gleaned in my research. Lots of hippies chillin’, playing drums, getting high. The no-money thing was very serious as was the no-drinking-pastthe-parking-lot. Of course violence was right out; even in the parking lot it was like ”bro whats your problem?” As he's talking, he is falling into old remembered types of speech. Everyone is his Brother or Sister, he’s hoping certain kitchens will be represented at this Gathering. Self-govern yourself, he says. That tracked with what I’d read but the way he put it hit harder. Everyone is responsible for their own behavior and like any family helps each other to avoid problems. There is no central leadership, there are old-school people who have lived this traveling the country for years and are skilled at conflict resolution and deescalation. If someone tries to help you, they probably aren’t trying to scam you. He even mentioned consent, more for the one guy I think who was very dialed into the idea of a bunch of hippie chicks walking around naked and what that might mean for him. There were a lot of cute hippie chicks in all degrees of dress and undress and I, of course, failed to pick up on the ones who were flirting with me. Food was provided at one of the many kitchens which were bush kitchens and, I would realize years later, all run with food safety at the forefront. They had cool names and different specialties. I think all of them were vegetarian? I can’t remember, certainly almost all of them. I think if you wanted meat you cooked it at your camp. Nobody went hungry, nobody was asked to do anything to get food. Help was always accepted and appreciated. I washed a lot of dishes in a triple-bucket (triple-sink) set up. Wash, rinse and sanitize, just national forest. It’s vast; everyone and anyone has the run of it. I had kind of meekly asked around,where should I camp? Or is it true I can just camp anywhere? The old-timers just kind of smirked behind their beards and assured me anywhere was fine unless I was being weird and camping right up next to someone who hadn’t invited me to do so. I was intrigued. Anywhere huh? I had a hammock and thought I had figured out the ultimate camping hack. I hadn’t. Sure, I could put it wherever and easily move it around but I didn’t know at the time that hammocks aren't warm. All that open October air between me and the ground was no kind of insulation. After my first cold night I knew I needed a change of plans. I didn’t have a sleeping bag, those things are big and bulky and it was warm when I had set out to my friend's place in Chicago. I had put a lot of stock in the hammock idea. I spent the next day scouting around for some sort of shelter or a good place to set up a lean-to. I thought I had hit the jackpot when I found a dry waterfall cave I could post up in. I learned ancient stone and modern concrete have heat leaching in common. It was still as cold as the hammock but I could make a fire. I would stoke up my fire, fall asleep on the pointless brush I had piled up until the fire went down and the chill woke me then re-stoke the fire, repeat. Could I have found a warmer spot not on life-sucking cold stone? Well yeah, but this was a cave, I was sleeping in a cave so, that part. I found Dreamer at what he called a camp that day and dragged him back to my cave. The cave wasn’t really much better than what either of us had already but, and I can’t stress this enough, it was a cave! I was 19 and already had my own cave. Dreamer and I became fast friends fast — we clicked, we smoked so much weed, we played in the drum circles. I often would hand off my drum and dance ecstatically. We hatched schemes and plans and before we knew it we were set to go to New Orleans any way we could. DECEMBER 26, 2025

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