Around here every summer there is a one day outdoor jazz festival and a weekend long blues festival.  Quite often there are on consecutive weekends.  This year they were on the same weekend.  We hate to miss either since jazz and blues are two of our three favorite genre, the third being almost everything else.  We also hate to miss either because they are free.  Sort of.  The jazz festival is free if you bring a donation for the local food bank.  The blues festival’s first night is also free with a donation to the same food bank.

Around here a lot is “free.”  Just in the past year we’ve gotten free discount coupon books (for a blood donation), had two free glasses of wine (for a donation to the local cancer society), had a free buffet (for a donation to a local hospital), saw a free movie (another blood donation), and sat through a free evening of songs by two of the best vocalists between the Atlantic and the Pacific (another donation to fight cancer).

Here’s the funny thing about these “free” events.  Somewhere between the giving and the getting, we found a great blues band, some excellent wine, a couple dynamite appetizer recipes, an up and coming jazz trumpeter,  a new passion for Saturday matinees, and two of the best vocalists between the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

There were even some truly “free” events we stumbled across.  Summer evening movie nights in the local park, big band concerts at the county park, free skate at an outdoor ice rink to celebrate the season, access to that 400+ mile bike path that rolls through 3 states and the District of Columbia, a drive along the back roads through the dappled sunshine in an open convertible.   Oh, one way or another we paid for these – from taxes to gasoline, nothing is really free.  Is it?  No matter how you look at it, if it didn’t involve the transfer of folding money from a pocket to an outstretched hand to us it’s free and free is a pretty good price.

Another thing free is, free is an opportunity to see more of the person you’re sharing free with.  You know that sometime during the event one of you will turn to the other and say, not too shabby … considering what we paid.  And from there a whole conversation ensues about the event, the venue, the surroundings, the other participants, the planners, the doers.  You soon find yourself quite engrossed in each other’s observations and each other’s opinions, and each other’s memories, and each other.  So engrossed you don’t really care why you are there, just that you are there.  And that “you” is plural.

Whether the beneficiaries were those who rely on the food bank to make it from meal to meal or us recharging our batteries joy riding from there to here, there’s a different word that describes all this free stuff. 

It’s not free.  It’s priceless.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?