April 19, 2002 (Friday) Day 1

	My trip to Okefenokee started today at 9am taking University toward I-75. I 
had chosen my music carefully: Force Majeure. It starts out with those 
off-chord feelings of uncertainty and a tiny bit of dread. What was I 
getting into? I don't do things like this. I don't drive long distances away 
from home to another state to meet strangers.	Then Force Majeure's mood 
switched to a brighter cheerful sound and I saw clear blue skies above me 
and courage within. By the time I hit the traffic on the Interstate, Force 
Majeure was fully up to speed as well.
	I met Robert Grabowsky (Highlander) outside of Tampa and we proceeded more 
or less (mostly less) together the rest of the way. With his faster Jeep 
there would be long distances when, if I saw him at all, it was only as a 
dot on the horizon. However, he always kept in touch by cell phone so I 
still knew where to turn and finally the poor fellow stopped altogether so I 
could catch up.
	We arrived at Okefenokee, Stephen Foster State Park at 2:30pm, the first 
ones there. The office entrusted us with the keys to all four cabins and we 
made sure to immediately get the air conditioning up and running and the 
beer chilling in the refridgerator. Temperatures were in the high 80's.
	The next person to arrive was Jerry Wutzke who had come here from Michigan 
by way of San Diego, California. He's a retired chiropractor and had been 
gone from home about a month now. His tales were sad. Not only has he been 
battling a rare cncer for three years, but his sister had died of a heart 
attack just a week ago while he was visiting her. In spite of that he has a 
genuine open smile and warm eyes behind large lens glasses.
	We saw a blonde guy with two blonde kids go by on their bikes. Sure enough 
that was Lars Jones. Rather than stay in one of the cabins he had brought a 
tent and was down the road a short distance. He brought out the toy trucks 
and airplanes for the kids to keep them occupied. Jerry brought out a CD 
player to amuse the adults with electronic music artists I hadn't heard 
before but enjoyed very well.
	Roger Smith was the last of the early arrivals. We unpacked him right away 
because he brought a lot of frozen meat like antelope and venison. He is an 
underwater treasure hunter and travels to Europe a lot. His last trip was 
with Vic Rek and he was full of enthusiasm about a grotto spa built in 
Germany which featured thirty six hours straight show of electronic music by 
many artists.
	The rest of the gang arrived en masse traveling from Atlanta all together 
with Vic. I did my best to help out by mostly stying out of the way or 
helping Roger cook antelope spaghetti for everyone's dinner. It was 
absolutely delicious as was everything cooked that weekend. I believe Marion 
Harrod came up with the idea of gathering all the recipes together in a cook 
book and I think that is an excellent idea.
	I guess it was a good thing there was so much activity going on so that by 
the time I met Steve Schroyder I was too busy to faint and managed to treat 
him like a human instead with a quick hello and introduction while I hauled 
my cot into cabin one. Turned out that is his assigned cabin as well so I 
would have plenty of opportunity to get autographs later.
	The musicians began to set up their instruments in cabin three. I'd never 
seen such awesome equipment or such a confusion of wires before. It took them 
hours to set it all up and, of course, the inevitable happened when the box one of 
the instruments was sitting on collapsed with a crash. Fortunately, no harm 
done.
	Small sounds began to emanate from the living room--a chord here, a trill 
there--and almost magically they all began to blend together, especially 
when the rhythm man of Star Sounds Orchestra, Jens Zygar, became the focus 
it seemed of where the music was going. He has an instrument that creates 
drum sounds at the slap of his fingers or the weird wailing sounds of the 
theremin by passing his hand over a sensor.
	Morgan M. was trying to unobtrusively crawl around to take pictures and 
did a good job in spite of his six foot eight inch frame. I believe there was 
a recorder going as well so we hope to get another CD out of this year's 
Gathering.
	Vic got his store of stuff out and did a brisk business in CDs, videos, 
and T-shirts. I bought quite a few items including the new release by SSO 
entitled "Ooz" for two reasons: I could already tell I was going to like 
their music by the evening's sounds and I wanted to support them for coming 
to our meeting this year.
	We listened to them play music until 1am at which time I went to bed and 
never heard the rest of the guys whenever they turned in at 3am.
	Only one thing has marred the specialty of this day. The Park had a water 
problem which means no toilets will flush, no showers, and just barely 
enough trickle to wash dishes or teeth.