Maybe someday, when he’s older and has the time to think on such things, Henry Fish will get proud-stalgic about having once seen such-and-such a band live, back when there was room to dance barefoot without getting your toes stomped. (Easier when you’re in diapers and a baby sling, but still.)

For now, the soundtrack of summer for 12-year-old Fish, and a generation of kids who grew up attending MeadowGrass Music Festival, starts on a glorious note that has everything, and nothing, to do with music.

“That’s the part I really never pay attention to,” said Fish early last week, flanked by his parents on the couch in their Colorado Springs living room, a space now partially devoted to pre-camping triage rituals: storage bins filled with plastic dinnerware, rain gear, boots.

Three days camping at a music fest in Black Forest is still three days camping in Colorado, so the weather could turn, in any direction.

“It’s not MeadowGrass if you don’t get hailed on at least once,” said Henry’s mother, Ann Griner. “And everybody remembers MuddyGrass….”

Fish isn’t the only offspring of fest diehards gearing up for a major milestone, one that comes every year, but — when you’re a kid — can never arrive soon enough.

Memorial Day. Summer. Freedom.

MeadowGrass: A long, melodic weekend camping in the ponderosas, in a throw-back-style community where “family-friendly” isn’t just a marketing promise but a driving ethos.

“You don’t really think ‘family friendly’ when you think ‘music festival,’ but we are so honored to always have been that, a safe and entertaining space for all ages,” said Jessica Barney, executive director of Rocky Mountain Highway, the nonprofit that puts on the festival.

“How cool to be able to experience a music festival as a young person!?” she said.

How cool, indeed.

MeadowGrass rules

If MeadowGrass were a person, it would be old enough to drive.

Just like many of its youngest, longtime fans.

Founded in 2009 at the sprawling La Foret Conference & Retreat Center in Black Forest, the annual event kicks off the Friday before Memorial Day, and runs through Sunday, with dozens of genre-spanning live music acts — rock, folk, Americana, country, blues and jazz — vendors, food trucks, a beer tent and all-ages activities at and beyond the designated “kid zone,” traditional site of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Mobile, Millibo Art Theatre’s bubble play, and arts and crafts workshops.

MeadowGrass attendees don’t have to camp overnight at La Foret, but many chose to do so for the entire run of the fest, in tents, vans, RVs, and even a limited number of cabins for the lucky few.

Cell phone service is better these days, but still spotty and a dead zone for some. A number of families still take the weekend to forgo or limit devices, with many relying on communication by lower-tech means.

“As long as I can remember, my parents always kind of just let us roam free. We would always have walkie talkies and just kind of check in at camp every couple of hours,” said 18-year-old Avery Jacobsen, on the eve of her 13th MeadowGrass. “Everyone is safe there. You can trust everybody. The biggest issue is, maybe, are you gonna run into a tree or something walking in the woods.”

Or, as Henry Fish put it:

“MeadowGrass rules are much lighter.”

A world apart, close to home

When the music’s not going, the drone of distant traffic from the city’s infilling fringe can still be heard — a forgettable reminder that while it feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere, civilization is a quick commute away.

That sense of isolation helps fuel the feelings of community, and a situational freedom that goes both ways.

“We’ve been there all the years, and it’s always been fun, but it was extra fun when Henry was old enough to wander around a little bit by himself. It’s such a safe environment,” Griner said.

There was that one time she did get worried. It was pouring rain, Henry wasn’t in any of his usual spots, and no one had seen him. Griner recalled dashing from site to site in the deluge, eventually finding her son at the zoo mobile, “propped up, talking to the guy about the blue-tongued skink,” she said.

Learning how to let your kids navigate the world solo is a crooked line and forever process, but MeadowGrass provides a safe testing ground for growing trust.

“And every year, it seems like he makes at least one new friend. He just runs around with a pack of kids there, semi-feral, and it’s great,” said Griner, as her son nodded “yes” from beneath a curtain of curls.

Henry perks up at mention of the festival’s famous “hay wagon,” aka “hang-out central” for the younger set.

“It can range from people sitting around creating things and art and making new friends, to war,” Henry said, leaning forward in his seat. Kid war, of course.

“Yeah, we’re pulling straw out of your hair for weeks,” said his father, Larry Fish.

A time to reflect, and unplug

Fest parents might not see their kids for long stretches, said Brandon and Jen Bernard, but they know the festival grounds are fenced, and the MeadowGrass “village” has their backs.

“Kids these days didn’t grow up like we did. They weren’t out until the street lights came on, so this is a small taste of what it’s like to have some freedom away from your parents for a little bit,” said Brandon Bernard. Plus, he added, “you know they’re coming back, because they’re going to get hungry.”

The couple’s younger son, Lou, now 11, has been a fest regular since he was 1.

“MeadowGrass just kind of sets the mood for the start of the summer,” Lou said. “Not just going back home and watching TV, I start it at a three-day festival.”

Lou’s older brother, Wil, has 13 fests under his belt and, at 19, the perspective to reflect on what MeadowGrass liberties have meant over the years.

Sure, the music is nice, and means more today than it did, but it’s still mostly “background.”

“MeadowGrass is just something where I’ve been able to just be myself, and just be in the woods as a kid, and just connect with my friends,” said Wil, who plays in two local punk bands. “Just being there, and realizing the space that I’m in….

“Something about the air there is a lot different than anywhere else.”

There’s a pay-it-forward aspect to MeadowGrass, as well, said his parents: creating a bookmark and touchstone for their sons to reflect on when they’re grown. Like the ones they had as kids, attending sleep away camps. Experimenting with adulthood and responsibility, while making, and banking, sensory childhood memories they can tap for a lifetime.

“Just the smell of the pine needles, the hot sun in the morning, it kind of just brings that all back for me, those memories of being a child,” Brandon said. “I hope this can be that for them, too.”

Growing up, together

MeadowGrass relationships on hold for 12 months quickly stitch back together as soon as everyone’s back on site at La Foret.

“I spend a lot of time with my sister, but there’s definitely a couple of people that I do see every year, that I only ever see them at MeadowGrass, and it’s just, ‘Oh, hey, how are you?’ It’s like a reunion,” said Avery Jacobsen.

For her and other kids who’ve grown up spending Memorial Day weekend at the fest, the life lessons go beyond social and recreational.

Jacobsen said she couldn’t wait to turn 18, so she could follow in her parents footsteps, and lend a behind-the-scenes hand at the nonprofit festival.

Volunteers help clean up the site, direct cars in the parking areas, and collect tickets at the front gate, among other duties.

Children 12 and under get in free with a paid adult.

Volunteer, and your ticket is on the house.

“I have been planning to volunteer since I was 14, me and my best friend,” Jacobsen said. “As soon we turned 18, I was, like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s time.’”

It moves sweeter to the beat of good tunes, but time marches on nonetheless.

The kids of La Foret are growing up.

In just a few months, Jacobsen will head off to begin her freshman year at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction.

“But I’ll be back from college in early May, most likely. So, yeah, I will totally come out and camp with everyone,” she said. “Every year.”

Once a child of MeadowGrass, always a child of MeadowGrass.