I Am a Burner Part 1: Just Before the World Changed

It’s that time of year. People are figuring out how to attach 250 2″ PVC pipes on the roof of their coffin-covered car with a U-Haul in tow. Faux fur is coming out of Target plastic bins and Burners are hosing out the inside of their playa-ridden Coleman tents. The town of Gerlach’s girls basketball team is readying to deliver hundreds of truck loads of ice to fund their uniforms and sports gear needs. Not to mention the newbies who will travel to Black Rock City with only sandals, silver pants, a boa and a 30-pack of bud and hot dogs.

I wish I were going this year; alas, I am not. Burning Man is SUCH a part of me in so many ways. I learned to stop worrying about being who I was. I still have many twinges of this, but I am challenged to figure out what I’d be if I hadn’t attended the Man. I spent some time a few weeks ago scanning old photos and pulling older digital ones off my external drive. Of course, I stumbled across photos from my ten years of attending. I made wonderful life friends there and learned to live without a cell phone and internet. And, to eat vegan.

I first attended in 1995 when it was only a few thousand people. The first time I went by myself, having read about the event in a magazine. I was that guy that took lots of beer and no food and planned to sleep in my 4Runner (the one before the one below). I didn’t take a camera, and photos from 1997 and 1998 still need to be scanned. So, my retrospective begins later…

In honor of The Sweet Spot, here’s a look back at a decade.

In Part 1, I’ll share 2001. It was just before 9/11 and as I look back at these, it’s strange that the whole world was going to change in two weeks and we would never have thought it.