ComFest: Columbus, Ohio

Day: Nineteen
Location: Judy’s House, Beavercreek, Ohio
Mileage: 2496.8

I have traveled 2500 miles on this trip, and I have yet to cross the Mississippi River. I like that a lot. It means that I have taken my time, stopped and visited friends and family, and enjoyed the ebb and flow of the road. In fact I actually worked yesterday and this morning and got quite a lot done. I owed someone an essay for a book and needed to do some work for an online class this summer. I finished both just as Judy got home from work herself, and I felt like I deserved to play at ComFest in Columbus, Ohio.

I went outside and woke up Penelope to tell her we were going to Columbus, and she was ready. I was invited to Columbus by Louis XVI back in Elon, North Carolina, and I called her yesterday to confirm that I was coming and ask her what I needed to do. I had the 4pm to 8pm clean-up shift, but that’s about all I knew. I was to meet Louis XVI at the clean-up booth and take it from there. The drive to Columbus was easy, and Penelope was brilliant, as usual. All I knew was that the festival was in Goodell Park, so I headed toward Columbus, and used Penelope’s sat/nav cursor to click on the park. When she said that wasn’t an address, I simply moved the cursor down to a street, and clicked, and she took me right there. I parked at the Arena downtown and walked about fifteen minutes to the festival.

I asked the parking attendants how to get to ComFest, and they looked confused. The NHL draft was taking place in the arena next door, and I guess the parking here was mainly for that. Someone finally told me to go back down Neal then turn left at the Giant Eagle. “A giant eagle?” I said. “Yeah,” she said, with no further explanation. So I walked down Neal, the way I had driven in, looking for a giant eagle. It was a beautiful day, and I didn’t mind walking in a city I had never visited not knowing where I was going. How hard can it be to find a music festival with eight stages? Up ahead of me a guy with a gray pony-tail cut into the sidewalk, and I knew I wasn’t lost anymore. I followed him up the street and eventually caught up to him as we waited for the walk signal at the traffic light. We did the nod-how’s-it-going routine, then I passed him as we headed up the sidewalk. I heard a loud bang, and the guy yelled “Whoa, did you see that?” “No,” I said, “What happened?” “Dude, that car just hit that other car in the intersection.” I looked, and an old, red Ford hobbled off to the side of the road wounded. We decided everything was okay, and kept walking. Actually, we never stopped walking; we just slowed down. “Are you going to ComFest?” I said. “Hell, yeah, man. Are you?” “Yep. Can I follow you?” “Sure thing, dude.” His name was Russ, and he looked and sounded like he had just stepped out of a Cheech and Chong movie. Russ was working at the NHL draft in the arena but was coming to ComFest to “use the bathroom.” I decided not to ask why he would walk for fifteen minutes to use a port-a-john when he was working in one of the nicest buildings in town. He had lived in California for a while and spoke of it like it was the best time in his life. Columbus was okay for him, but it wasn’t California. He found the toilet, and I saw the sign for the clean-up booth, so he shook my hand, and we parted ways. “Have a good time,” he said. “You know it,” I replied.

It was a little after 3:00 pm, and when I went up to the booth, Louis XVI wasn’t there, but a grizzled man in a tattered baseball cap was. He ignored me while I stood there. “Is Louis XVI around?” I asked. “No,” he said flatly. “Well, I’m supposed to do a shift at 4:00,” I said. He just stared at me like I had said something completely nonsensical. “Is there anything I need to do?” “Just show up at 4:00,” he said with no emotion. Fine. I remembered Louis XVI had said that most of her staff were homeless people, so I guess I had just met one of her staff. I wandered off to see what was going on.

There were booths and stages set up all around this gorgeous downtown park, and I found myself smiling at people as I passed them. Two young guys immediately gave me one of those wrist bands that are typically yellow and say “Live Strong,” but this one was green and read “Legalize it.” I put it on and continued, appropriately enough, to High Street, where I looked for an ATM. I put in my card and got my money, and waited for my card to come out. It didn’t. I waited some more. Nothing. I pressed “Cancel” and “Clear.” Nothing. A normal person would probably stop there, but I like to push my luck, so something made me put in my credit card, which it promptly took without any acknowledgment. These were the two cards that I use on the trip to get money, gas, food, and hotel rooms. Without them, I was lost, and I wasn’t coming back to Columbus ever again in my life. Then I remembered that it was still about 3:30; the bank was open. I walked in, and no less than three tellers and a manager smiled at me. Things were looking better. I explained my situation to the manager who informed me that even if there was a machine malfunction, I couldn’t get my cards back until the issuing companies cleared them. “Look,” I said, “I’m traveling across the country, and I’m living on these cards. I have to get them back.” “Let me see your ID, and I’ll take a look,” he said without any sense of hope. By now the other tellers had disappeared, so I sat in the empty lobby alone. Then, a woman from a desk on the other end of the bank said “Hello.” “Hi,” I replied. She was extremely friendly and attractive, and asked me if I was going to ComFest. “Yes,” I replied and thought about asking if she wanted to go with me, but then I remembered I had just lost all access to my cash and credit and told myself to focus. The manager went back and forth to the ATM several times, then asked to see my ID again. “The damn thing wouldn’t even take my card, and there are several other cards in there,” he said, frustrated. “Here are your cards.” “Thank you so much,” I said and left. The woman smiled at me again and told me to have a great evening.

I sauntered back to the clean-up booth and saw Louis XVI sitting there. We spoke briefly, but it was shift change, and she was deluged with volunteers who had to sign in and out respectively. I got into the sign-in line and got my free T-shirt which read on the back “No planet. No party.” I thought it was a unique environmental message. Louis XVI decided that I would drive the golf cart while she and Jesse would load the trailer it was pulling with garbage bags. “Cool,” I said. So we drove all around the park, and I looked important, even though I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. One of the first people I saw was Russ, the Cheech and Chong guy. “Dude!” I yelled. “I just got here, and they gave me a cart. You need a ride?” “Hey man. No, I’m cool,” and he laughed. After a circuit around the park, we pulled back in, and Louis XVI had another round of people to deal with, so I tried to stay out the way. Eventually, I went over and listened to a great band called Big Back 40. They were outstanding. When I went back to the booth, Louis XVI told me we were going to do another trash run, this time on foot. So we carried trash bags around the park and talked.

She was at the end of a break-up with her husband, still wounded and confused, and as we sorted through trash bins separating the recyclables from the other trash, I thought what an appropriate metaphor this was. “Watch out for the diapers,” she warned. “I don’t even go in there if there are diapers in the bin.” Sound wisdom, Louis, and I followed it.