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MOUNT TABOR, Vt. (AP) — Thousands of people with dreadlocks, scruffy beards, torn clothing and counterculture philosophies are crossing the country to attend this year's Rainbow Family of Living Light on a Vermont mountainside and connect with others who share their goals of peace, love and illumination.
Clothing is optional at the primitive campsites where "Rainbows," as they call themselves, gather dead wood for fires, pitch tents among the trees and erect teepees in the forest. Signs and handouts remind people to use the latrines and to make sure everyone buries their dog's waste.
"This is the last bit of the American culture," said Jai Love, 28, of Eugene, Oregon, who crossed the continent to attend the Vermont gathering. "We can get lost in the smoke screen of pop culture like Lady Gaga and whatever they feed us on television with the media. This is, like, the last bit of the American culture."
Love said many people who thought they were lost in life, find friendship and family at the gatherings where time centers around communal kitchens with names like "Wanna Burn," ''Stock Pot Posties" and "Dirty Kids Village" (as opposed to the "Kid Village"). The dishes are heavy on beans and rice and meat is a rarity.
"I just keep on chasing the family and seeing people that are traveling to raise awareness of peace, love and life," Love said.
By midweek about 2,000 Rainbows had arrived for the gathering in the town of Mount Tabor in the Green Mountain National Forest. Up to 10,000 could arrive by July 4, when the event peaks during a prayer ceremony for peace held in an open meadow on the mountainside.
The decades-old, get-together is held each year on national forestland. The tradition goes back to the very anti-traditional 1960s. The first national Rainbow gathering was held in 1972, partly an outgrowth of community many young people felt at the 1969 Woodstock music festival. The last gathering in Vermont was in 1991.
"Well, basically, it hasn't changed all that much," said Feather Sherman, of western Montana. The 68-year-old Sherman is among those who fueled its start. She has attended every gathering since its beginning.
Then she notes the larger gatherings of recent years have evolved into smaller, regional gatherings that are keeping some from the Vermont event.
Over the years, the Rainbows and the U.S. Forest Service have come to an uneasy truce. Federal agents patrol the periphery of the gathering, usually giving out scores of warnings or tickets for traffic and other minor violations. On Tuesday night, an assault sent one Rainbow to a regional hospital with minor injuries.
The Forest Service this year has brought in a special incident command team, modeled after those used to manage wildfires, and federal officers are regularly patrolling the road leading to the Rainbow campsite.
Among the locals, some have bemoaned the invasion of painted buses and visitors in tattered clothes and body paint. And there've been complaints of Rainbows going through garbage bins and keeping residents out of the stores.
The locals are holding their breath.
"We are just trying to be prepared," said Cindy Kapusta, who owns the Mount Tabor Country Store near the road to the Rainbow campsite.
She said her employees have caught a number of Rainbows shoplifting, and there were complaints of people relieving themselves behind the store. But that's no longer an issue, she said, since the Rainbows set up portable toilets at the end of the road.
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