Memories are funny things.
Ask any American who was alive at the time and they can probably tell
you just where they were when they heard that President Kennedy was shot and
killed in Dallas or exactly what they were doing when they learned about the 9/11
Tragedy.
But how many of you can
remember the exact circumstances of where you were and what you were doing when
you learned Jerry Garcia died?
That particular memory was jogged for me this morning as I
was reading in the newspaper about the Grateful Dead’s Final Farewell Tour. You know, I’ve always liked the Grateful Dead’s
music, but I am by no means a Deadhead. During
the years when they were at the height of their popularity and Jerry Garcia was
still around, I was busy with the everyday stuff of life: getting married, working, having and raising
kids and trying, often unsuccessfully, to act like an adult. In other words, I was moving along in my life
as many people do and I just didn’t have the time.
But I remember the day Jerry Garcia died better than many days
that have far more personal significance in my life. And that’s because the night of the day that he
died, Greg, Carrie, Evan and I slept in a caboose. Yes, the four of us spent a night in a
caboose at the Caboose Motel in Avoca, New York on our way home to
Massachusetts from our annual trip to Ohio AND, I must say, it was darn
cool.
We enjoyed it thoroughly.
The next morning while eating breakfast at a nearby diner, I
spied the newspaper with the headlines announcing that Garcia was dead and the
Dead’s song Casey Jones popped into
my head – “Driving that train, high on cocaine…” The night I had just spent in the train and
Garcia’s death managed to stick together in my memory and to this day, nearly
20 years later, the association lives on in my mind. Mention Jerry Garcia and if I close my eyes,
I can see the insides of that train car, the way it felt to sleep somewhere so
unusual and the way the kid looked and acted.
Carrie had just turned 11 and Evan was soon to turn 9. They were so cute. Those are the little mundane things that are
really important to me when all is said and done – those ghosts of happy
memories.
On an everyday basis, I don’t have and never have had a good
capacity to retain memories. These days,
like a lot of people my age, I walk into a room and wonder what the heck I am
doing there. If I don’t always put my
phone in the same place, there’s a pretty good chance I will spend a lot of
time searching and searching and searching.
I don’t always remember people’s names after I’ve met them – sadly, even
after I’ve met them a number of times and truly like them.
But I bet that till the day I die, I will
remember where I was on the day that Jerry Garcia died.
Here are a few pics I just remembered:
