I think of what I know as I walk up the straightest path to Reservoir Hill, now packed with people in droves for the 2023 Folk n Bluegrass festival, an annual celebration of art and music occurring in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, the event is managed and advertised by KSUT radio of Ignacio, Colorado. I hear honking to my side and see a trickle of water drain down the hill to show that people are here. I know how vital this hill is to people who seek water and a place to heal. If you have water taken from you, hold what you still have and hold all of your pain.

The hill is a place that is home to my boy, close to my heart, who sought to be close to his Child and heal his side. Robert Stover is his name and he healed, for he is my Child. Robert is my relative, and he lived on this hill until he healed his side from a wound created by a maul made of stone. We all have our name, but you deserve to walk the hill, even this high, if you know my relative and hear his name. I am a good Man and Robert knows me.

If you think that you know me, walk up the hill owned by not a soul who wears a band around their wrist or attempting to judge me from the side of a hill. To those who know me, I love you. For all who wave me off when I reach out to you, I love you still for what I write is more than you ever left me. There is a girl who sensed the child on the full moon and a boy who seeks to heal here in this place. Both love me and neither claimed this place as theirs to keep the world off of. Before you call this place yours, call yourself mine. Tell me that you love me for I am Man. Think of what you brought to this land. Now the dream of what you take when you come for the music and claim the world is not allowed. You must know the name of the hill on which you stand and that name is Reservoir Hill.

Music is a breath from the soul. A single exhale will touch the people from within our Child. If there is a musician to play a song, there must be people to hear. Only then can people listen to the sound a musician brings. So far there was little more than noise coming from the hill, now covered in a carpet of tents and cars. If I live in this land then I must love the people. While I live here, I will not pay to love and thus I will not pay to enter the festival. I must reach the people here in a land that is not for sale and I should be seen before any of you give a single dollar without listening to the message in the lyrics. If you came to play music, if you brought the music here, you shall take more with you to know. So if you came here the way that people do, with little clue what you were doing here and even less of a clue what do now, show me what you brought me here to see. I live here. This is my Land and this is my home, If you belong here for a weekend so that you can claim that you know Me, then show me what you have to be judged by.

I hold my wandering mind for a moment and ask Bear, the head of security if he will let me interview him. After I told him about the Down and Out Press, he had a single response.

"Ryan I know you. No interviews," Bear said.

After he tells me that he is just being honest, I ask if his response is due to my character or dislike for interviews.

"A little of both," Bear replied.

I offered a place to find our newspaper on our internet domain. Bear said that he might consider future interviews if given more familiarity with our press, though his eyes were not exactly bleeding sincerity. This moment inspired me to ask what people bring Pagosa and this land before attempting to judge the people here. The People here, all of the people, are loved. All people here are close to my heart for I know how to judge. To weigh and measure is to judge, and that is what the People are here for. If this is the festival that customers pay for, then people have come to Pagosa for more than music. I call all who read this to show me who you are and give me room to see. Then, I tell you all to listen to me before you all inebriate yourselves with more music. Your festival demands security who claim the people are not allowed. That is the basic mode of security guards in a place where people must pay the Parks and Recreation of Pagosa to enter. People paid to hold the area so that more people could pay to enter and listen to music. All of this occurs on a hill that costs only your sweat and blood to walk up and see. To pay is to stand with the breath of people who claim you are not allowed and stoop below their heads. People are allowed and I am allowed with them. I am a Journalist and I am here for the people. I am Man.

I want to cry for the press until the disdain toward the media washes away. Stand tall and I will reach out to you with more to say. In my heart I yearn to be direct with you and walk right into this house you are in. I see you and I will walk right in. There I will love you and you will tell me all that you know. Then I will tell the people so with all that I have. All the people will know that you are here. That is a way of the press. This is why I am here. I must walk up the hill tonight and stand above the crowd, high above the white tent that scours us all at the eyes, these eyes we use to see, thinking of all whom I love. I am told that I am not allowed here. Then I spend hours standing above the crowd while thinking of how to restore truth to this place. Speak the truth with the way you stand. Then speak. I speak the truth with both actions and words and you must stand with me. This is a place in which there is peace. Here, tonight, people listen to the song "Mama Tried" as I walk toward a place where the hill is flat, and once more I am standing above the crowd. Now I look for people who listen to me.

“I want to cry for the press until the disdain toward the media washes away. Stand tall and I will reach out to you with more to say.”-Ryan Versaw

Alexina Garcia Chavez of Pagosa is the only participant of the festival who spoke of a day up high on Reservoir Hill while painting the faces of children in a tent. Pagosa is home to Alexina so there is no surprise that she was willing to speak for herself and spoke to me to show that will. She was there and told me about what she did. Now I am telling the people. For a day she was painting faces of children with either the image of a frog or a mushroom. Alexina said that seemed to be the image of choice presented by every child who came to see her.

"For some reason, the kids wanted mushrooms or frogs," said Alexina.

I asked if the kids were offered anything else. She replied that nothing more was offered to paint their faces with.

Alexina was given a pass to eat with staff and listen to music with food provided by Cater for her hand in the booth at the Folk and Bluegrass Festival. Music was less than satisfactory to Alexina, who listened from the tent in which she painted faces. Folk is music that carries a message from the people. The message from my breath to the people was not present at the festival. The music paid for with sweat and wealth should at least reach the people. A festival demanding security and payment should at least reach the heart of the people. Music in our home that is worth money and security should reach the heart of the people at least. I saw joy in neither the face and eyes of Alexina nor her words, and she was here. She was there to listen and she was here to tell me her story.

"I did not love folk as much as I thought I did," said Alexina.

Despite discontent with the music, Alexina was happy to play music on her guitar with performers playing later that night.

"I got to jam with some really good folk musicians," Said Alexina with far more satisfaction.

I asked how the food was at the tent for staff. Alexina told me that the catering company was paid a thousand dollars for the weekend. The catering was to serve a couple hundred people. There were over five hundred people at the festival and the company spent all of their pay on more food. At least the crowd kept swelling and the people kept eating and playing.

On the eve of the festival, the eighth day of June, I was able to reach Becky Buller, a musician playing at the folk festival. Becky is also on the board of directors for the International Bluegrass Music Association. Becky played on the night of Friday the ninth of June and Sunday the eleventh.

While practicing with a musician standing in for her guitarist every waking hour between performances, I was able to get in touch with Nancy Cardwell of Nashville, Tennessee to speak of the association in depth. The International Bluegrass Music Association is a philanthropic body of people who sponsor the survival of music for education. This association offers grants and scholarships for students seeking a music career. Called the IBMA, the association is a parent organization of the College Band Showcase, with World of Bluegrass of Raleigh, North Carolina.

I excitedly held on for contact with Becky Buller and her manager, Katie Kerchner, who plays with the Stillhouse Junkies. For a day I dreamed of questions and wrote a pallet for an interview in advance. My excitement grew even more potent when I received a call from Jill Davis, coordinator of the Pagosa Folk and Bluegrass Festival. I walked downtown and a crash from a distance was felt within me as I received a call from Jill while standing in front of Tequila's, a local restaurant where I was set to meet Jill to get past security. Jill Davis, coordinator of the festival with a thousand people to manage, informed me that there was a scheduling conflict and that no one would meet me. So I bring to you, My people, the only other word she said.

"I simply did not want you to walk up the hill thinking you were getting an interview," Jill said.

For hours I stood on top of the hill looking over a camp that sprawled across the field by the only road up the hill. Security drove down a path toward camps full of People below me on a motorized cart. I longed for all to join me up here where I stand without paying a dime, for I could not bleed more to tell the people the truth, even if I spent a single dollar. I think about the girls bled here when the moon is full and I think of the child born here on Reservoir Hill, where the blood of our family flows. Like a reservoir of blood to show that there are more children to come, the name of Reservoir Hill comes from her to me.

The Reservoir is the place of the child born here on this hill, and none of these people speak of this. I want the people to know the truth, so I will. Here is the name of the hill that is home and here is the word the People must hear. That word is mine for I am Man. For now, all that lingers is music.