Sally Pollak

Free Press Staff Writer

MOUNT TABOR – The word "road" is tattooed on the fretting hand of Jai Love, a traveling musician. It is inked one finger at a time: R-O-A-D. On Love’s strumming fingers, the tattoo says G-Y-P-S-Y.

Love, who is based in New Orleans, has been living on the road for about five years. He drives around in a big bus that has stickers plastered by the front door.

"Because Cannabis." "Don’t Fence Me In." "Keep This Bus Sexxy!"

The bus is parked in a prime spot today, a space Love backed into June 25. He is settled for a week or so at Bus Village, a clearing in the Green Mountain National Forest off Forest Road 10 in Mount Tabor.

Love has “come home" to the Rainbow Family National Gathering.

“This is one of my yearly rituals,” he said. “It’s comfort. Some people go home for Christmas. I go to the woods for the Fourth of July.”

He finds the unsullied heart and soul of American culture. Free of corporate influence and distant from pop culture.

“This is made by mom-and-pop people,” Love said. “It’s what gives me an appreciation of being an American.”

The Rainbow Family is a loose affiliation of thousands of people who hold a gathering every summer in the national forest. The tradition dates to 1972 and the inaugural gathering in Colorado. A longtime Rainbow go-er, Gary Stubbs of Marysville, California, said the gathering was founded when "two clean-up crews got together and had Rainbows as their baby."

Anyone can go.

You’re most likely to enjoy yourself if you like cooking for a crowd and digging holes for toilets. It’s a plus if you know what to do with a jar of sesame seeds and a mortar and pestle. If you can walk and roll cigarettes at the same time, you should fit in — at least with certain cliques.

'Welcome home, Family'

This year’s gathering marks a return to Vermont after 25 years, and the 1991 gathering in Granville. That Rainbow festival was recalled by Addison County Sheriff Don Keeler as "two weeks of free love and dope smoking."

Keeler drove to Mount Tabor Thursday for a personal 25-year reunion. "I think it was a whole different culture 25 years ago than it is today," he said en route. "A lot more peace."



The 2016 national gathering is on the small side — about 4,100 people as of Saturday, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Mount Tabor, north of Manchester in Rutland County, is home to about 250 people.

Regional gatherings in Oregon and Colorado likely explain the smaller crowd on the East Coast, said John Sinclar, the Rutland-based forest supervisor of the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests. A number of people prefer not to go east of the Mississippi, he said.

A nine-page "operating plan," drawn up by the U.S. Forest Service, was signed June 18 by Sinclair. It is unsigned by the Rainbow Family. But its guidelines — concerning safety, protecting the land, cleaning up — are typically followed, he said.

"I'm told that they do a very good job of cleaning up," Sinclair said. "It's a good faith effort that we hope they come through with."

The Rainbowers in Mount Tabor are spread out over roughly 400 acres of national forest. On this land people are splitting wood, cooking over camp fires, reading the bible, handing out business cards, and “just following the path to see where it goes.”

A colorful banner announces: "Welcome home, Family."

“I love that sign,” said Nadine Pollock of the U.S. Forest Service. Pollock is typically stationed in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania. She is on assignment in Vermont to work her third gathering, part of the incident management team.

The cost of the event to the U.S. Forest Service is $450,000 to $500,000, according to the agency. Expenses include salaries, overtime, food, housing, and equipment. Incidents to manage include confiscating food made with marijuana, recovering a stolen dog named Fred, keeping the road clear.

Earlier this week, as people made their way to the gathering, the forest road was lined for about two miles with parked cars, vehicles from California, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and beyond.

With parking scarce, some people used big tree branches to save spaces. Other people trudged up the hill carrying gear. One man had a dog slung over his shoulders like a shawl, and a backpack on his back.

People set up tents in the woods, and made kitchen sites in clearings. Signs implored people to bury their feces and to keep filtered drinking water separate from washing water.

“Don’t touch your thing to the thing,” read one set of instructions.

'Human beans'

Up a path through the woods, hidden in the trees, is a camp site where dogs and people live in equal number.

“Natural Rice/Human Beans/DIY Organic Camp,” said a sign by the edge of the woods.

A pack of barking dogs made the first move toward greeting a reporter and photographer passing through. Next came two men, then a third and a fourth.

“You’ve found the laziest, most opinionated hippies in the world,” said Edgar Plett, 21, with a nod to his older compatriots.

They might also be called resident High Holies, Plett said, for their leadership in what some people say is a leaderless assemblage.

One of those is Gabriel Thomas, 40, who traveled from Colorado for the gathering.

“The premise is to pray for peace,” Thomas said. “To come together peacefully is what it’s basically about. On the Fourth of July, we pray for peace.”

Thomas was joined by a man who introduced himself as “Thankful.”

“That’s what the kids call me,” Thankful said. His given name is David Danforth; he’s from Buffalo, N.Y.

Danforth explained that a momentum of activity — cooking, music, talent shows, workshops — builds until July 4, when the tenor changes at the Rainbow Family Gathering. Independence Day is meant to dawn in silence. Silence is to hold sway at the gathering in the woods until noon.

“We prepare for silence by being wild,” Danforth said.

While people were still talking, Plett said his job was to hand out cigarettes. A man called Bleaker said his plan was to toast sesame seeds and grind them into gomasio, a seasoning. Danforth and Thomas made themselves available to answer questions.

“We know the answers,” Danforth said. “You don’t even have to ask.”

Contact Sally Pollak at spollak@burlingtonfreepress.com or 660-1859.

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Illicit drugs to public defecation

The U.S. Forest Service/Green Mountain National Forest issues a daily report about the Rainbow Family National Gathering in southern Vermont. The Saturday report includes the following:

"To date, 170 warning notices and 151 violation notices have been issued. 95 incident reports or unsolved crimes are being investigated. Varying amounts of illegal drugs and narcotics have been confiscated from the gathering site. Although marijuana is prevalent in the gathering, law enforcement is also encountering opiates, methamphetamines and hallucinogenic drugs."

Law enforcement agencies working the gathering include: Rutland County Sheriff, Vermont State Police, Manchester Police Department, Bennington Police Department, and U.S. Forest Service. .

In addition to law enforcement officers, the U.S. Forest Service is providing employees who are "working to reduce the impacts to (the) Green Mountain National Forest." These include engineers, hydrologists, biologists, and foresters.

The Saturday briefing is the thirteenth update provided by the Forest Service related to the Rainbow Family National Gathering. The report enumerates "increases in negative issues" associated with the gathering. These include: "Confrontations over food orders with the intent of getting free food, confrontations over being asked to provide proof of age to purchase alcohol, urinating and defecating in business parking lots and yards, and shoplifting from local general stores."

The report says officers on the Rainbow detail helped capture a "fugitive wanted for a sex crime against a minor. The perpetrator was an Appalachian Trail through hiker."

Source: Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests, public information officer