It
was July of 1995 and I was living in Madison, WI. My friends and I did not realize that we had
just seen our last Grateful Dead shows ever, on July 8th and 9th
in Chicago. It was a great weekend at
Soldier Field with a lot of our friends traveling in from all over to see the
Dead. One fond memory I have from that
weekend was summiting ‘Mount Daddy’ out in the bleachers during the middle of
the Dead’s opening set. ‘Daddy’ was my
buddy Mitch Marshall’s extremely large roommate. He was at least 6 feet tall and easily 350
pounds. It was still light out and the
acid was just starting to kick in, so in a fit of joy I leaped on Daddy’s back
and began the long journey upwards. When
I got to the top I pumped my fists, hollered for a bit, and looked triumphantly
down on my friends before making the dangerous descent.
So
we had a blast as usual, but the weekend was tainted with a noticeable decline
in Jerry Garcia’s health and performance.
He was overweight and disheveled which was nothing new, but he had
started using a teleprompter and was still skipping words and verses. He seemed confused and not really there. He was back on black tar heroin and it was
sad to see him in that state, the worst I had ever seen in my 100 Dead
shows. Jerry would be dead a month
later. That was an incredibly sad and
life-changing event, but not a total surprise.
Summer-tour
with the Dead was over, but as music junkies we needed our next fix. So the very next weekend Mitch, Daddy and I
looked to the 2nd annual ‘Rock Fest’ in Cadott, WI for the
answer. On Saturday morning, July 15th,
the three of us piled into Daddy’s tan, wood-paneled station wagon that we had
nicknamed ‘The Getter’ (which was short for ‘the grocery-getter’). We’d had a lot of good times in that silly
beat-up car and were looking forward to seeing Bruce Hornsby opening up for The
Allman Brothers at Rock Fest. About 30
minutes into the 3-hour ride to Cadott we decided to stop at McDonalds for
lunch. I was not hungry so I just bought
a large Coke with ice, dumped out most of the cola and re-filled it with
whiskey. I was excited for the weekend
and ready to party.
About
an hour later we were half-way there and feeling fine as Mitch and Daddy shared
bowls up front and I sipped on my whiskey in the back seat. We had the music cranked in the Getter and
life was good. Suddenly we heard a
thump-thump-thump-thump…what the hell was that?
It sounded like a helicopter. We
looked up through the windows but could not see anything. The thumping would not stop. It was loud and persistent, but where was the
helicopter? Was it right above us?! We turned down the music and strained our necks
looking up into the sky but we still could not see the helicopter.
We
were in the left lane of the freeway and while searching the sky for the
goddamn helicopter I happened to look over at the car that we were slowly
passing. The back seat was full of kids
and they were all pointing at us and laughing.
What’s their problem? F*ck you kids I thought, we don’t have time
for your nonsense, we’re being chased by a helicopter. But they kept on laughing their asses off and
pointing at us. I mentioned the kids to
the Mitch and Daddy, and after a bit Mitch said that maybe they are not
pointing at us…maybe they are pointing at our car?
What? Huh?
Maybe something is wrong with the Getter?? Daddy pulled over to the right side of the
road and we all jumped out. The thumping
had stopped and after scanning the sky we still could not see any
helicopter. Bewildered we walked around
the car and when we got to the back we saw that the right half of the back
chrome bumper had come loose. It was
hanging off the car on a 45 degree angle and resting on the ground. Ohhhh, duh…not a helicopter, just a loose
bumper smacking the freeway. We all felt
pretty stupid, but that feeling of stupidness was nothing compared to the pain
that Daddy felt seconds later when he bent over to pick up the side of the
bumper that had been dragging on the pavement for the last 5 miles.
Daddy
screamed in agony and immediately dropped the bumper back to the road. Holy sh*t, Daddy had burned the hell out of
his hands. We all stared at the angry
red marks that were slowly starting to rise up and blister. Daddy had branded himself. Unfortunately all of the ice in my
whiskey-coke had melted by now. We were
standing there on the side of Interstate I-94 in the middle of nowhere on a
Saturday afternoon with a scalding-hot broken bumper, buzzed, and our driver
had burnt hands. What should we do? I thought that maybe we had passed an exit
not too far back, so dodging traffic I ran across the freeway to the other side
and stuck out my thumb.
Almost
immediately a red convertible pulled over with an insanely hot blonde chick
riding shotgun, and (unfortunately) a dude driving. I jumped in back and they gave me a ride to a
gas station back at the last exit which turned out to be not that far, maybe a
half mile. They were totally cool and
offered to give me a ride back to the Getter after I got whatever I
needed. I thanked them but declined and
told them I could just walk back. So I
went in to the station and bought a box of bungee cords to fix the bumper and
got a big cup of ice for Daddy’s hands.
I walked back to the car and by then the bumper had cooled off enough to
touch. So Mitch and I reattached the
hanging bumper while Daddy soaked his hands in ice. We stopped at the next exit for some burn
lotion, put it all over Daddy’s hands, wrapped them in some rags that we found
in the car and then we were back on the road with Daddy still driving.
After
a bit we got to Rock Fest and met up with a bunch of friends from Minneapolis
including Ernie Hagen, Baba ‘Red’ O’Riley, Joe Monsoon, Tommy the Freak, Steve
& Renee, Ted Booker, and Polly Birch (the future Mrs. Polly Booker) from
Stevens Point, WI, and Nancy Osbourne from Wausau, WI. I am not sure what band was playing in the
afternoon, but we were looking forward to Bruce Hornsby in the early evening
and then the Allman Brothers closing out the night. Before long we all dosed and settled in for a
day of music and laughter. It is a bit
hazy but I remember talking with Polly for hours, and being introduced to her
beautiful friend Nancy who had gotten a ride there with Polly. It was two weeks before Nancy’s wedding so
this was in effect her bachelorette party…her last hurrah. So in addition to tripping she was
two-fisting beers the entire day and just living it up.
After
the Allman Brothers played the 4th song of their show, ‘Blue Sky’,
the clouds burst open and began dumping their cargo on us. It rained hard for the rest of the
night. We were all drenched but it did
not dampen our spirits in the least as we all laughed and danced and had a
great time being young, dumb, 20-something year-olds. Rock Fest is a great venue and always a great
time. At the end of the show as we were
walking out of the place there were crazy lights and lasers rising up from the
stage and bouncing off the clouds and the rain…it was beautiful and scary all
at the same time for our acid-soaked heads.
ELO was scheduled to play that weekend and Mitch said that it was the
ELO spaceship landing. Until just a week
ago when I talked to Mitch about that night, I did not know that he was
joking. I always thought that it was ELO arriving for a late-night set of
music, when in reality they were playing the next night.
When we got back to our cars we all looked around and realized that we had to
figure out who was going to drive what, and where. The ‘where’ turned out to be some wooded
property only a few miles from the concert that belonged to Renee’s
grandparents. Steve & Renee had left
the concert earlier, along with Joe and the Freak, but they had given
directions to Mitch. Ernie had gotten a
ride down from Minneapolis with Red, but Red had to go back to the cities so
Ernie was our responsibility now and he would get a ride home the next day with
Joe. We finally began our wet, trippy
3-car caravan ride to the property. So
Mitch was in the lead driving Ted’s car, Polly was next driving her car with
Nancy, and Daddy brought up the rear driving his car with me in the front seat
and Ernie in the back.
In
addition to his hands being all burned and bandaged, Daddy said he was too high
to drive. But Ernie and I were in even
worse shape so Daddy had to do
it. It was one of the scariest rides we
have ever taken. Mitch and Ted in the
lead got completely lost in those dark, lonely Wisconsin country roads and
drove around in circles for what seemed like forever. Daddy was not doing well and the Getter was
not doing much better. The headlights
were barely on, the suspension was shot, the steering was loose, and the bumper
was bouncing up and down on the bungee cords.
Daddy was all over the road from ditch to ditch, but he never fully lost it. I remember a wide-eyed Ernie in the back seat
freaking out as he was bouncing around and sliding back and forth from one side
of the car to the other. I kept
wondering where were the cops? When were
we going to get pulled over and beaten mercilessly like we deserved?
Finally after close to an hour of driving
around aimlessly, Mitch and Ted in the lead pulled over. Nancy was in Polly’s car behind them and got
out mad as hell and yelled: “Why the
f*ck are we following you
acidheads?! Get your sh*t together and quit driving around in
circles!!” Mitch did get his sh*t together and after a bit we finally found the dirt
road leading to Renee’s land in the woods.
We found the campfire and there was Steve, Renee, Joe and the Freak
waiting for us.
Such a relief, but once we finally got there
we had nothing to do. It was still drizzly
raining, everything and everyone was soaked, and we were all coming down from
the acid. It was too wet for tents, so
after hanging out for a bit by the campfire drinking a few beers we all retired
to our cars. Daddy slept in the front
seat of the Getter, with Mitch and Ernie in the back seat and me curled up in
about a 2-foot by 2-foot space in the way-back surrounded by boxes and other
miscellaneous stuff. We did not sleep
very well and a few hours later at daybreak we crawled out of the Getter, stretched
our aching limbs and decided to get the hell out of there.
We all drove to a diner in Cadott for
breakfast. I was not very hungry though
and when the waitress came for our order I just asked for a bucket of
water. I was incredibly hung over and my
tongue felt like a huge sponge. There
did not seem to be a limit on how much water I could drink that morning. After breakfast we waved goodbye to all of
our friends, and Mitch, Daddy and I drove back to Madison in the Getter. It was a hell of a 24 hours that none of us
will ever forget…or completely remember.
