THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 12, 1995 TAG: 9508130103
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
THE CLOSEST I EVER got to a Grateful Dead concert was a lot farther than you could toss a marijuana bong but seemed a lot closer because of Zach.
My nephew Zachary has been a Dead Head since he was a gangling sophomore attending a high school outside Chicago.
When I visited my brother and his family, Zachary would wrap himself in a blue funk that was heavier than an Eskimo blanket and think cosmic thoughts while blasting CDs or tapes of the band through twin loudspeakers.
``Jesum Priest, Zachary! . . . Turn that down!'' my brother shouted.
By the time he was a junior in high school, Zachary traveled across Illinois and Indiana to hear his musical icons. He tooled to the concerts in his Volkswagen van. The van had a large painting of Dr. Seuss' Cat In A Hat on the side and lots of Dead Head stickers - ``Thank you, Jerry'' being the most poignant.
Zach astonished the family by doing so well in school he was named an Illinois state scholar. For a year, he studied at Reed College in Portland, Ore., - but dropped out to explore what the late Alexander King once described as ``the land of the shadowy fern and the mystical beetle track.'' It was Zach's belief that the road to that enchanted place was reached through the Grateful Dead.
He has been a certified Dead Head ever since. He followed the band wherever it went, living the life of a sandal-wearing gypsy.
So when I learned that Jerry Garcia, the main man of the Grateful Dead, had cashed in his chips, I phoned my brother.
``I don't know where he is,'' my brother said. ``If he checks in, I'll have him phone you. But there is always the possibility that he has has jumped off a bridge. Garcia's death is to Zachary what FDR's was to our generation.''
I got a call from Zachary on Thursday morning. He was on a downer, his voice a monotone.
``I was shocked to learn about Jerry,'' he said. ``But I'm not really depressed. I don't really think it is something to be depressed over. He got so much out of his life. And he gave so much to others.''
He couldn't define what made the band so popular with so many. ``It was something you felt rather than thought much about. When you heard it, you always felt that it was written especially for you. . . . They didn't just play rock 'n' roll, or country, or blues. They played all of it. It was eclectic, and it touched all facets of life.''
``Jerry was the heart and soul of the band,'' he continued. ``He was the best guitar player around. He wrote a lot of the lyrics. And they were so heartfelt. He touched on all of life, the sweetness and the sorrow, usually from the point of view of a down and outer, a struggling man.''
Zach has memorized the words to many of their numbers. He mentioned a popular number the band did called ``Stella Blue'':
I've stayed in every blue light cheap hotel and can't win for trying.
And he mentioned ``Wharf Rat'': Old man down by the docks of the city . . . and ask me for a dime for a cup of coffee.
Zach said the Dead had left him with plenty of memories if not money. He and his friends followed the band all across the country in a van. Detroit. .
``Deadheads camped out in the parking lots where the band was going to perform. It was a traveling marketplace,'' he said. ``The smell of different foods, tables with crafts, colorful tie-dyes and batiks, people strumming guitars. There's never been anything like it.''
Sometimes it got really good. He recalled driving through Kentucky at night, moving high up into the mountains where the lights of towns in valleys below looked like diamonds tossed on black velvet.
``A lot us in the van,'' he remembered. ``Listening to Bill Monroe bluegrass music. . . he was Jerry's idol. And we were right there in Kentucky where Monroe was from.''
And the guys and girls in the back of the band maybe smoking marijuana? ``Well, whatever,'' Zach replied.
All of it was over. Zach said he had seen Jerry at a concert in California only last month.
``He looked real good then,'' he said. ``I don't excuse his drugs, I just can't find it in me to condemn him for having human temptations and falling into them. A lot of young people thought he was God. That must have been a heavy load to carry.''
Of all the things said about Jerry he thought someone on television - a man on the street - had said it best. ``He said, `Jerry was with us for a little while and then he flew away.' ''
Zachary said the line had been borrowed from a song the Grateful Dead did called ``Birdsong,'' about Janis Joplin, whose life was also shortened by drugs.
``I knew this might happen someday,'' Zach said, ``that he might die. . . . I just wanted to enjoy it while I could.''
``You may even have to get a job now, Zachary'' I said.
His voice had the vague, hollow sound of a young man peering into a vast abyss.
``I know. . . . I know,'' he said. by CNB