Now, some of you know what bluegrass music is and some might shy away from such a rural sounding word such as bluegrass. After all, isn't bluegrass something a horse grazes on in Kentucky or that we mow in Minnesota? It's just a kind of grass that turns a blue-green color in the spring and then, if you have a drought going like we do in this part of Minnesota, it turns brown in August. That's bluegrass in the scientific sense.

Bluegrass music is just a little different. Born of Celtic and Scottish roots, it is a form of music played mostly by acoustic instruments and it has a certain "twang" to it. One could close their eyes and listen to Scottish music and pick up a hint of American bluegrass among the notes. It's there. History has it that immigrants to the eastern part of the country brought their music with them and like everything else American, they made it their own. It can be a haunting, tear-jerking form of music, but it can also be delightfully happy music that makes you get off the seat of your pants and do a jig. I've seen that happen.

Even though I didn't grow up in the heart of bluegrass music country, I gained an enjoyment from it early on. Somehow, some of it drifted up from Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri to the western part of Iowa that I knew as a kid. It fit right in with my raccoon-hunting uncles' forays along the river bottoms of the Big Sioux and the Missouri. I spent many a dark night, sitting in the car with my uncles, smelling cigarette smoke and listening for the coonhounds to start baying. And while I sat in that car, an AM band radio crackled with lightning static and bluegrass music coming from somewhere down south. It was mystical music and caught you by the throat and gave you a shake.

Many have tried to come up with a reason that bluegrass music has been and is still popular. It does seem rather rural in character, but if you watch any bluegrass festival crowd, I bet you'd find a number of urbanites among them. They might not want to admit it to their suburbanite friends when they get home from a weekend of foot-stomping, hand-clapping, yee-hawing, but they come back for more every year a festival is held.

We've got bands coming from Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky and even Minnesota! Gosh, I wonder if the members of the bands have ever tasted our fall delicacy, lutefisk? Maybe we could cook up a pot or two and offer it to them between performances? It would give them something to remember on their trip back home.

Bluegrass festivals don't tend to attract the rowdy crowd. A bluegrass festival crowd is rather laid back, I'd say. When they're not sitting in their lawn chairs enjoying a performance, some of them sit beside their campers and strum guitars, mandolins and fiddles with their neighbors. Once in awhile a stray professional band may stroll through the grounds and jam with the attendants. No electrical plug-ins are needed. No earplugs need be purchased and you won't find many dragging an amplifier around with them. The big bass fiddles are the most cumbersome thing you'll see being toted around, but usually a guy or gal that can handle the bulk totes them.

So, if you're in our Pine River area this Thursday through Sunday, roll down your car or pick-up windows and give a listen. If the wind is right, you'll probably hear a guitar strummer, banjo picker, fiddle player or a singer getting down to earth with bluegrass music.

I'll especially enjoy the night performances when it brings me back to sitting in that '49 Ford at midnight with the windows rolled down, listening for the hounds and to Bill Monroe and his boys.

See you at the festival! Okay?