When Jimi Hendrix asked the generation of the late '60's and early '70's, "Are You Experienced," he could not have visualized a music weekend at Hippie Jack's, but some of Hendrix's lyrics are apropos:

"If you can just get your mind together
Then come on across to me
We'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sunrise..."  (Jimi Hendrix, "Are You Experienced")

We left Cookeville around 3:00ish in the afternoon with the idea of spending an hour or two out at Hippie Jacks to get a few photos, relax a little, and then head back to town.  We made our way down the slow, windy hollow (holler) that leads to the entrance. Arriving we discovered that Saturday's sunshine that bathed Tennessee, and added glorious overtones to Hippie's Hollow.

Impressions immediately started flowing in.  Tie-die shirts were everywhere, feathers in the hair, incredibly tight, superb music done by Americana artists at the very top of their game.  But the sunshine and warmth went beyond the weather--it permeated the attitudes and the very ridges rising up on the east and west sides of the hollow.

Scott McKenzie sang a song about San Francisco with these lyrics that seemed to also fit the Jammin' at Hippie Jacks festival.

If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there

It was, in fact, a little like stepping back in Mr. Peabody's Wayback machine.

We ran into some friends at the tent where the group was playing and hung out there for awhile,  the music took second fiddle ('scuse the pun) to nobody, and then we went over to the "family area" campsite to hang out with some other friends. They had several tents set up in their little area, as did many of the Jammin at Hippie Jacks visitors.  And there were lots of campers, trailers, fire engines, (fire engines??), tarps, hammocks, and whatever else people felt comfortable in.

They insisted that we stay for supper, bratwurst, hot dogs, hamburgers, beans, lots of different potato chips, and the beverages of choice.  The beans were cooked on the campfire (of which there were several, sending thin tendrils of smoke into the cool fall air between the darkening ridges. The dogs and burgers were cooked on a grill.  The evening passed and the stars came out, and we kept warm by staying by the campfire.

The music could be heard drifting down through the holler as they played into the night.  By and by we left, and wended our way home.  John Denver sang about a "...Colorado Rocky Mountain High..."  no Rockies here, just Appalachian, Smoky Mountain Foothills, but the pure Tennessee air and good music was uplifting, relaxing, and refreshing.

Amongst the people of the Hippie Jack Experience, there was a unity, a one-ness and willingness to help--to sacrifice personal comforts to assist another.... a sensibility of safety, and there were no busses under which to be thrown.  Proverbially speaking, everyone had everyone's back.

A long, long time ago a rock and roll band called The Youngbloods did a song...  with these lyrics that about seem to come very close to summing things up at Hippie Jacks:

Love is but a song we sing
fears' the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
or make the angels cry

Though the dove is on the wing
and you may not know why

Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
and try to love one another right now

Some may come and some may go
He will surely pass
When the one that left us here
returns for us at last
We are but a moment's sunlight
fading in the grass

If you hear the song I sing
you will understand...listen
You hold the key to love and fear
all in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
Its there at your command

Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
and try to love one another right now

Next Jammin at Hippie Jacks Fesitival will be in the springtime.  For more info, click here.