Everybody was there. As you meandered along, the tendency was to look where you had been instead of where you were going, because you were forever passing someone you knew.

But then when you got to where you were going, your full attention was on why you were there – to have fun.

And have fun we did, tens of thousands of us who attended last year’s National Folk Festival along the waterfront in Bangor.

Here was Mayor John Rohman, passing the bucket for donations for the festival. There was Tom Sawyer, volunteering at one of the gateways to the festival grounds. Hundreds of people gave their time to make it all work.

And there was me, dancin’ for all I was worth to Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet.

I’m French by marriage, unless you go back to William the Conqueror, but that Cajun music sure does get my toes to tapping.

For those who stuck around when Beausoleil finished up Saturday afternoon – and I did – Doucet’s Louisiana neighbors, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas, continued with music in the same vein. I was so hot and tired and elated when I finished dancing that I didn’t come back until the next day.

Maybe you were mesmerized by the Papantla Flyers with their Indian pole dance using a pole that was way. Up. There.

Or you swooned upon hearing the Holmes Brothers with their rhythm and blues.

It wasn’t so much what we heard, or saw or tasted – even the burgers were great. It was how we felt – that indescribable something in the pit of the stomach that comes being part of a special community and identifying with people from faraway places and different ways of life.

If you were at the National Folk Festival, you remember, and probably you’ll go back for more this weekend on the waterfront and downtown.

If you didn’t go last year, the new acts are saving that special feeling – just for you.

While you’re there, I hope you’ll drop by the Bangor Daily News booth on the festival grounds. John Browning, advertising manager for The Weekly, and I will be there, 6-8 p.m. Friday and 2-4 p.m. Saturday, along with the Bangor Daily News folks. Ardeana Hamlin and Lynn Tukey will join us Friday. Lynn will be back Saturday, and Ardeana will return Sunday afternoon.

See you there.

Roxanne Moore Saucier is editor of The Weekly. Her e-mail is weekly@bangordailynews.net.