Preddy Fest 2018
For the past decade or so my family and I have gathered together for a week of reunion and recreation on the banks of the Tar River near Franklinton. We do this under the guise of attending Preddy Fest, a bluegrass festival which enjoyed its twenty-first anniversary this year. The creator of Preddy Fest, Rodney Preddy, allows weekend ticket holders to come onto the farm and camp out the week prior to the concerts. We join the 200 or so campers who gleefully go a whole week without hookups (there is a shower house on the grounds). Some have fancy rigs with generators to power air conditions, others sweat it out in tents. Almost everyone has a golf cart for transportation – Rodney makes rental possible for those who don’t own their own. This year my daughters, granddaughters, and two great-grands along with significant others set up camp: tents and campers, a canopy which served as a communal sitting, picking, eating area – and then it started to rain! Now, let me admit righ