The purpose of this post is two-fold. First I want to apologize (again) to the owner of the fuzzy green hoop. Second, I hope that, by sharing my mistake, I can help other hoopers to avoid the same embarrassment.

During the 4 days of the High Sierra Music Fest the majority of hoops were available for anyone to play with. Hoops got passed around amongst the hoopers, and hooper-curious, but always remained in the same general vicinity of where they were left.

However, some hoops were NOT for general play. For example, Anah had brought some beautifull hoops decorated in holographic and glitter tapes which were for sale and not for general use. Other special hoops, decorated for the occaision, were also guarded.

One hoop was wrapped in fuzzy green. I don't yet know the name of it's owner but (eventually) I did learn that this hoop was brand new. She had bought it at the festival that same weekend, I think.

On the last day of the festival (Sunday) I was at the Americana stage dancing to Ten Mile Tide. During one song I wanted to hoop and started looking around for a hoop to use (the 3 hoops that I had brought were at the Main stage). There was only one hoop in the area ........ the fuzzy green hoop. No other hoops were in sight. I approached the owner and said "can I use your hoop". In retrospect, I could see that she was hesitant to loan it. I persisted with the line "I won't drop it !!" and the gal handed over the hoop for me to play with. It was a joy to spin this hoop on my waist while Ten Mile Tide were rocking. The hoop was a very different weight to my own hoops (it had water inside) and spun differently due to it's fuzziness. This should have been a warning to me to take very good care.

I only did moves that I am very confident with BUT (yeah, you guessed it) eventually I dropped the hoop.

At every other stage at HSMF this wouldn't have been a problem. All the other stages were surrounded by soft, lush grass. But the area around the Americana stage was dry, dusty, hard and covered in dead pine needles. When I picked up the dropped hoop it was covered in dead pine needles on the "down side". I was horrified. I can't imagine how the owner felt when she saw me picking the shit out of her brand new fuzzy green hoop. We spent about 5 minutes, in silence, gently picking dead pine needles out of the green fuzz. It was really embarrasing for me and then the owner took the hoop off to a safe place.

So I'm posting this note to say that I am really, really sorry that I didn't pick up on how precious your hoop was in the first place, and that I am also very sorry that it ended up in the dusty pine-needles because I wasn't smart enough to realize that the hoop behaved differently than my own hoops and that I should have been much more carefull.

To everyone else, I hope that this story will help you to realize that not all hoops are communal (some are particularly precious) and it's important for us to recogize and respect that fact. Also, that it makes good sense to be extra carefull with hoops that behave differently than our own hoops. In this circumstance I should have only used the hoop around my waist where it would have remained safe. It was an overhead move that resulted it tragedy.

I had such a great time meeting all the hoopers from the west coast and I hope that I will be remembered as that really enthusiastic, older guy and not as the idiot that dropped the fuzzy green hoop ........ or the twit that set of the car alarm at 3am ..... but that's another story !!

Thank you all for your fabulous encouragement and for teaching me new tricks. I will write more about HSMF in another post.

For now I will say that I have surely learnt an important lesson. That is, that not all hoops are for everybody's use. Some hoops, at somes times, are too precious to be handed over to a stranger. I will endevour to be sensitive to that fact.

Love, hugs and hoopiness to you all,

Brendan in Vancouver.

p.s. my guess is that i'm more freaked-out about this incident than the owner of the hoop is, but I did want to share my lesson with y'all.