THE DEAD PLAYS BABY BOOMER BY THAT CLOSE

Longer And Stranger Dead Trip

If you’ve been to a Grateful Dead show, then you know about the long strange trip.

If it was a Dead show at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington, it’s longer and stranger.

But it was more than a Dead show. It was the Allman Brothers and the Doobie Brothers too. A Boomer-fest, but that’s not how it worked out.

My college boys had tickets to the show. The older one bought the younger one a ticket for his birthday. Then their ride dropped out.

They called and asked if they could borrow a car for the five hour drive, or buy me a ticket and I could go with them.”

A Dead show without a ticket? No problem.

The narrow road to the site and the fifty dollars for a camping spot bothered me until I had to drive through the camp ground with people wandering in front of my car and looking at us like they’d never seen anything like it. Like they’d never seen a mini-van?

Like it wasn’t cool enough?

The camp director in my area pointed to a piece of grass, my new campsite. It was close to the port-o-potties and a steel drum garbage can. It was a hot day but not enough to bring up the smell yet.

I didn’t expect the opening act for the show to start one row of campers away from us, but a band had a sound set-up in their trunk and blasted away. I knew the bathroom doors would bang all night, bottles clanking into the garbage barrel, and the camper band would turn it up.

It’s the Dead.

Our first cruise through the crowd for a ticket showed most of the crowd also looking for a ticket, except they called it looking for a miracle and walked around with one finger raised. I did too.

No ticket, part one.

Back at the camp a baby boomer aged woman walked by between two men. They carried her. One of my boys said, “She’s not going to the show.”

I called out, “Looking for a ticket, er, miracle.  Jerry?”

They sneered and walked past. On their return the woman sat down and couldn’t get up. I offered water. A chair. One of the guys bailed. The other one said he’d give me her ticket if I helped get her back to their camp.

I got her on her feet and talked her into moving. I’ve read where Jerry’s guitar could turn a bad trip good, so I focused on that. She knew the story and gave me a kiss and her ticket.

We locked our tent zipper and started toward the stage. My ticket was an expensive down front seat. My miracle. The boys had tickets for the yard up top.

One of them wondered out loud how much they could get for their sixty dollar ticket. The next dread locked fan looking for a ticket walked by and the kid said he could have his ticket for a hundred twenty. Double the price, but no buyer.

One of ticket seekers scowled and my kid said, “See you inside.”

I asked how much we’d have to get if we tried to sell our tickets. We agreed on five hundred dollars and laughed like we’d never get that. Why would we?

On the final stretch to the show one boy yelled out “Three tickets for four hundred,” and a Boomer guy looking like Peter Fonda whipped out four hundred dollar bills saying he and his friends had chartered a plane to get there and had no tickets. Now they did.

Back at the camp we looked at the row of outhouses, the garbage barrels, the crowded lanes, and the camp band. A couple from a nearby campsite walked over with tequila and lime, all set to party down.

That was the message to pack up and go home, which we all agreed to do.

I left the Gorge Amphitheater with mixed feelings, sort of a seller’s remorse. We didn’t see The Dead, but we didn’t wake up the next morning looking for a ticket out either.

Added on Facebook, Feb. 12, 2020:

I didn’t have a ticket for a Dead, Doobies, and Allman triple header, but my two college kids did. “How will you get a ticket?” they asked. “You’ll see. It’s a Dead show.” We drive up from Portland, about five hours, got a campsite near a long row of toilets, and a neighbor with rock-screamer speakers in his trunk going full blast.

A “miracle for Jerry” woman walked by and we watched someone give her a ticket. “That’s how it goes at a Dead show,” I said.

Then a drunk man and a wasted woman stumbled to a stop. I offered a chair, a glass of water, since it was a Dead show. He said he’d give me her ticket if I helped get her back to camp.

We all had tickets when the wind shifted and the trunk band guys started screaming. Standing in line, I said. “How much would we have to get for three tickets, pack up, and go back home?”

Sold the tickets to a Peter Fonda look-alike and his two pals who flew up from LA with no tickets. Didn’t see the Gorge and got back home at three in the morning.

Ten years later we all went to the last Sasquatch Festival. Got the tickets checked, walked up the hill, and BAM, the Gorge in all its glory.