Preparation paves way for bluegrass

Goddard family gearing up for 20th annual music festival

Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008

‘‘It doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of planning and preparation,” patriarch Joseph Goddard said. ‘‘It ends up on Saturday and we’ll start Sunday” preparing for the next year.

L’il Margaret’s Bluegrass Festival picks up tomorrow starting around 3 p.m. and will continue on Friday and Saturday featuring more than a dozen local and regional bands. It will also feature hundreds of visitors, something the Goddards and their friends and family have prepared for each of the last 20 summers.

‘‘We make all the food,” his wife Margaret Goddard said. ‘‘We cook for two days and then on Wednesday we slice everything up and get it ready for dinners.”

And there’s a lot to cook. A partial grocery list would show 19 turkeys, seven hams for stuffing, five more hams for sandwiches and cabbage dinners, about 500 hamburgers and probably as many hot dogs, and gallons upon gallons of ice cream, which is always a hot commodity on warm August days.

The family must abide by health department standards and go through checks while getting ready, something they don’t mind at all.

Just last weekend Joseph Goddard said there were at least 10 neighbors and friends out mowing acres of land and straightening up the stage area.

‘‘You can’t hire that kind of help,” he said.

Spots for 75 or so travel trailers have to be marked out and the electric and water hookups checked. Bales of hay cut from their fields have to be moved to cordon off the stage area and to provide seating in front of the stage.

The festival started 20 years ago as a way to remember the Goddards’ daughter, Margaret, who died in a car accident in 1987 at the age of 21. She enjoyed music, especially old time country music, just like her parents.

Leroy Eyler of the Carroll County Ramblers helped the Goddards get the festival started. While Eyler since passed away, the band is still a staple in the festival lineup each year.

‘‘A lot of the musicians, they come over and help out,” Joseph Goddard said.

Hesitant to name names for fear of leaving someone out, he said many of the people come back each year to help get ready for the festival, sometimes taking vacation time from their jobs.

‘‘There’s not a lot of money to made,” Joseph Goddard said. By the time the food is bought and the bands are paid, the couple is happy if they break even.

The Goddards almost hit a big roadblock this year after the county revised its outdoor festival policies. After years of operating on a nonconforming permit that carried over from year to year, this year they had to apply for a temporary permit, which they’ll have to do each year from now on.

‘‘We were told we were grandfathered in,” he said, and that there should be no problem from year to year continuing the festival. ‘‘But they didn’t give me nothing in writing.”

But they plan to continue on with the festival, which has turned into a reunion of sorts for the volunteers and many in the audience.

‘‘A lot more younger people are getting into the music nowadays,” Joseph Goddard said. He said it’s nice to see some of the younger fans of bluegrass – many of whom are terrific musicians in their own right – mingle with the older musicians.

‘‘It has grown right much over the years,” he said. They usually draw 800 or more people to the three-day festival, a manageable number but one they would still like to see grow a bit more.

He would especially like to see more local people come to the festival.

‘‘Man, I love this place. I’ve been looking forward to this all summer,” said Owen Fleming, who arrived Tuesday from Huntingtown with his trailer in tow ready for the music. He travels to two or three other bluegrass festivals each summer, but Lil Margaret’s is his favorite.

‘‘These guys know how to do it,” he said.