What do "YOU" do at the gathering after paking all your stuff in?

One of my primary concerns about going to my first (and only, so far) National was simply the health concern. In the spring of '97 I'd gone to a local/regional gathering, and picked up an illness that took me out of commission for more than a month. I could hardly stand, doctors could find nothing wrong with me (they tested for mono, etc.), and just when I started thinking it was a lifelong chronic crisis, it went away just as mysteriously. It scared me pretty badly, I was even fired from my job over it, we had to move, and we had some difficulty even finding someone to rent to us. It's all better now though

Having heard a lot about the importance of adhering to health standards at a national, I was a bit concerned when I went to Pennsylvania in '99. Luckily, I found OM Valley kitchen early on, and the folks that ran the kitchen were exceptionally attuned to health concerns, and had an exceptionally outstanding setup. I noticed that the closer I got to "downtown," the worse the sanitary conditions at the kitchens. I don't want to name any in particular, but some were not looking very good. I also noticed that kitchens with a large number of "old folks" involved tended to be more sanitary (I hope that wasn't an early sign of age-ism!)

My point is that not all kitchens are equal in that regard, and I noticed that the fringes of the gathering seemed to have more hard workers and fewer people just blissing; the areas most densely populated had many kitchens that weren't cared for as well.

 

after my stuff is in, i usually visit a-camp and bring some beers to share.

 

rivulation...yeah, i believe most of the brainwashing tools are owned by the cia and the media. hippies would never bother to lug large brainwashing laboratories through the woods, and the paraphanalia that goes with (such as the little machine that holds your eyelids open while you watch scary images) are just waaay too expensive for your average hippy. so i wouldnt worry about it.