The Barefoot Five

School's out. After a few high- stress days of testing, a surprisingly successful performance of my drama class's play, and a locker cleanup that was more like a high-stakes Jenga game (those math textbooks leave nasty bruises), I am offi- cially a junior.

Scary.

After such a busy last week (did I fail to mention a field trip to Silverwood, a frenzied attempt to fill in my student portfolio, and a bevy of personal appointments?), I was all for plopping down on my couch, petting the cat, and gulping down a glass of lemonade while watching murder mystery reruns.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

It turned out that I was in for an action-packed weekend at the Sacajawea Bluegrass Festival. I ended up getting on stage twice.

The first time had been prearranged. My band, the Barnstormers, was slated to play a set of four songs at the Open Mic session. Upon arriving, however, we were confused when the emcee couldn't find us on the list.

I double-checked the schedule and was surprised to find out that the Blue Mountain Troublemakers, not the Barnstormers, were slated to play at five-thirty.

After a brief intercession by our band's coordinator, we were allowed to per- form.

I sing two songs in our regular set. I got to sing one of them that night - a perky, happy-go-lucky number called Big Rock Candy Mountains, which is about a fantasyland that every teen- ager, in one form or another, has dreamed about at some point.

Most water sources (springs, rivers, lakes) are filled with lemonade. Candy grows on trees. Nobody works, bad weather is un- heard of, and the criminal justice system is lax, to say the least. The nights are mild enough that one can sleep under the stars three hundred and sixty-five nights a year.

Consider this particular excerpt: "In the Big Rock Candy Mountains/you nev- er change your socks/and little springs of soda pop/ come trickling down the rocks."

The next day, the band returned to Sacajawea for an event called the Band Scramble. In this, musicians are randomly assigned to bands, and these bands later have a contest to determine which one is the best.

My brother and I were too late to be placed in a band, so we found a few other people who had missed the scramble and formed our own band.

When we ascended the stage, I introduced our band as the Barefoot Five. We all waved our feet in the air. Four of us - me on my man- dolin, a lady who played the bass, a tall girl who fiddled beautifully, and her father, who played guitar - were actually barefoot. My brother, on the other hand, wore a pair of Nike tennis shoes.

"We have asked this young man not to remove his shoes for the personal safety of the audience," I announced.

There were scattered snickers.

"Apparently," I contin- ued, "he comes from the Big Rock Candy Mountains, where they never change their socks."