BRAVO TO BONNAROO

The Music Festival Provided a Good Time - and Good Sales - in Manchester

Peace, love and music - Woodstock, N.Y., 1969. Peace, love, music and
lots of expensive ice - Manchester, Tenn., 2002.

Like the legendary first Woodstock festival, last week's Bonnaroo is
history. And, by all accounts, it's a history that festival promoters,
attendees and the 8,000 residents of the Manchester community can be
proud of.

Some 80,000 people got together and - if you turned your head and held
your nose to avoid certain herbal smells - behaved like civilized
party animals for three days. What are the chances of no major crimes
occurring in a city of that size during a weekend?

Local merchants were smiling all the way to the bank after what must
have been the biggest commercial weekend in the county's history. If
you were selling peanut butter and jelly, combi nation locks or
tow-truck service, you were sitting pretty. If you had had tons of ice
for sale to the sun-stroked masses, you could have retired to Key West
after the concerts.

Sure there were traffic congestion problems to and from the event, but
they were expected and handled as well as they could have been.
Scalpers and counterfeit tickets inevitably surfaced. There were a
handful of drug arrests.

Yet, viewed overall, you can't help but praise everyone involved for
properly organizing and conducting a musical event that will remain
one of the highlights of the lives of many of those who attended.

"This place might have been dead at one time, but it sure came alive
this time," said Mary Cornelison, 81.

Rock on, cool lady, and everybody who felt the same.