It’s early August 1995 and I’m entering my second year full time as an Assistant Professor/Counselor at Montgomery College. By this time, the entire department knows of my love of music and has either seen my shrine to the Grateful Dead or has been to a show with me. Perhaps you don’t remember those shows but I’m sure you were there. Now, I must add that August in a Community College counseling/advising office is akin to the huge wedding dress sale day at Filene’s Basement. Way too many people looking for the right dress at the right price but only a few leaving happy. The only difference is that at College this scenerio is plays out EVERY day for about three weeks in August.
During August 1995 we moved our operations to a large gymnasium to give the illusion that there really weren’t 100 students waiting to be seen ahead of you. I had started my day as usual, with a smile for procrastinating students waiting for my wisdom regarding their academic futures. Around 10:30am an adult student, around 50 or so, came in for advising. She was terrified to return to college after x years and I reassured her cheerfully that she had already made the biggest step and that was to be in front of me at that moment.
After a bit of back and forth regarding her goals and such she said “it could be worse”. I agreed that yes, it could be worse and she was making good progress. She followed up with “I could be like that Jerry Garcia guy”. My interest was piqued and I said, “what about Jerry?” She said, “he’s dead”. (picture this, me turning from helpful counselor to blubbering idiot in about a split second) With all of the calm on the outside I could muster I said, “why yes that is true…have a good day”
After finding my way back to my office, I convinced myself that the news couldn’t really be true and that I should go online to reassure myself that JG was in fact alive. Hell he’d been in a coma before and rehab and the 60s and Altamont. As you all know, Jerome John Garcia was in fact dead. The leader of the Grateful Dead was he himself dead. Seemed like a cruel joke to me. One that brought tears not laughter.
I took personal leave that day to go home and and and…. tried to find solice in my music and my memories. I painted a porch that afternoon while listening to one of the many live tapes in my collection. I tried to understand why at 53 he was gone and my plan for the millenium changed forever. You see, I had a dream that on New Years Eve in 1999 I would be in California for the annual New Years Eve Dead show. I would only live to see one Millennial NYE and I was going to do it up right! What actually happened on NYE 1999 will be left for another day but suffice to say, it was not like being at a Dead show. It was more like being chained to a chair and having to listen to the singing dogs do jingle bells for a week. or, listening to the macarena sober.
Jerry would have been 69 this past August 1. Recently my daughter and her friends asked each other whose parents do they think smoked pot either now or back in the day. Resoundingly, her friends said that I did since I had all those Dead stickers on my car. Well, this is not true confession but I can tell you that you didn’t need to be on anything to enjoy the show, or the parking lot or the music or the vibe. You did need to get out of your daily grind and think of everyone in the audience as your brother or sister. You did need to realize that some people in the audience had money while others did not. Some had jobs while others lived from show to show on whatever they could scrounge. Jerry once described the Dead as licorice, “not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice, really like licorice”.
August 9th is the 16th anniversary of the death of Jerry Garcia. I’ll be the guy wearing my tie dyed shirt under my dress shirt that day, from now until the day that Jerry and I meet once again.
what a lovely view of heaven