Quarantine, Patti, and Grateful Dead Memories

It's been a long time since I've written a blog post.  Not much has inspired my creative writing muse lately I suppose. 

I mean certainly - I have had a lot of thoughts that have brought me joy, anger, sadness, and good old righteous indignation - but nothing blog-worthy.

Then last night, in our usual after-dinner pre-tv mode of chatting and having a cocktail, we started to reminisce. This is a busy time- or I mean- it used to be and memory-wise this time is filled with dates to recount.  Especially good times: fond memories of Passover tables filled with loved ones, spring tours of the Grateful Dead - indoor shows with outdoor lot festivities, the greening promise of spring, the end of the school year, and a few days ago, April 24, my friend Patti's birthday. 

A particular story comes to mind - it was 1982 - we were living together in our pretty rocking apartment in Brighton Massachusetts.  Let me set the scene.  Patti worked in a mental health facility for developmentally disabled adults. I worked in a placement center for teens who had broken the law and had to be removed from their homes for various reasons, most stemming from inconsistent parenting (putting it mildly). This was already my second job out of college, my first a disastrous stint as the assistant director of the Hillel at Northeastern University.  

Both Patti and I worked the second shift, that being a 3:00 - 11:00 pm shift at our respective jobs, and we didn't mind the hours.  We both liked to sleep late, and both enjoyed keeping those same hours on our days off.  This was Boston, and this was the early 80's so there wasn't a lot to do by the time we got home, but on rare occasions, we could go out, at that time.  Once driving home I heard that this new band "The Cars" were playing at a converted warehouse not far from where we lived and we changed our clothes and caught a very exciting show at midnight!

That April we were excited about seeing the Grateful Dead when they played Providence, Rhode Island. Imagine our delight when the Dead appeared on SNL the night before! Since the Dead weren't playing Boston on this tour, and Providence was only an hour away, this was an easy show to get to, and we had a blast. The concert was great and we wanted more. On Monday, we made a big sign on a bed sheet in groovy Grateful Dead lettering proclaiming "I Need a Miracle!" To my knowledge, no one had come up with that before, so yes, I do take credit for that, and you are welcome. 

There's a gap in my memory now, because I don't know why we didn't have work on Tuesday or Wednesday - (or did we use up sick days??) - and if Patti were still alive, obviously she'd remember a detail like this.  But Tuesday morning we got in my car with our little bags packed, our banner ready and drove to Hartford for the next two shows.  Hartford is only an hour and a half from where we lived so I suggested we stop in Sturbridge on our way.  I think I was thinking we'd explore Old Sturbridge Village - as I am a sucker for those kinds of things, but instead we did a little shopping and each got a jean jacket.  We then continued to Hartford.

Michael and Patti in 1983 at Duke - Patti in her jean jacket.

Me, today, in mine.  I added the fringe in about 1986. The haircut I gave myself two weeks ago.

Back then, I had every confidence that we would get tickets for the shows, and find an affordable motel room.  Patti never had that kind of optimism and felt my reckless ways would be our undoing. So first things first, we got a room.  Next, of course off to the Civic Center to find tickets.  

I remember parking in an indoor garage, and opening the trunk to get our banner out.  No sooner had we unfurled our masterpiece - then two guys appeared out of nowhere, laden with gear.  Patti backed away, but I assured her they were okay.  Tapers.  Our miracle happened right then - they provided us with two tickets for that night's show, if we would help them smuggle in their taping equipment.  Apparently they never search girls, and if I'd just hide this deck up my skirt, and Patti put these cables in her jeans, we could have the tickets.  Before Patti could say no, I was agreeing, saying it was Karma!  And did they have tickets for tomorrow?  (They didn't but rumor was that they were available at the box office.)

So we spent the next little while doing what Deadheads may do, hanging by the car, sharing stories and of course these guys promised us copies of the tapes. (Which, by the way, I am still waiting for...)

When it was time to go in, Patti was a wreck, and I was pretty confident, despite the discomfort of the tape deck tied to my waist.   Once we got through the gates, we gave the guys their stuff and went our separate ways, they went to the taper's section, we went to the box office where, sure enough, we snagged tickets for the next night.

Little scraps of paper with setlists, ticket stubs, and that same jean jacket are the tangible remnants of that time.  My memories, (dotted with holes) now written for you in this blog, are of an April holding promise, and positivity. The shows, now available on archive, are below.   

A few days later we came home and celebrated Patti's birthday.  I'm guessing we both went back to work, energized by our road trip and three awesome shows. 

Right now as I sit in the sixth week of quarantine and the 12th week of rotten weather I remember a line that rings more true every time I hear it.  "One way or another, this darkness got to give."

And just like that, the sun has come out, and it's time to get outside for a few minutes and collect some rays on my face before I go back to work.  Maybe April holds a little promise for me today after all.

Click Here for Providence Civic Center 4/15/82

Click here to listen to Hartford Civic Center 4/17-82

Click here for Hartford 4/18/82

About a Blog

A blog about a blog.  It's been about a year since I started writing, and to celebrate I went back and read a few of my earlier pieces.  I resisted the urge to edit.

I recently hit 5,300 hits on my blog.

Blog.

Silly word isn't it?  It's from the combined word "web-log."

I'm frequently asked what I write about.


That's a tricky one.  (I'd like to just say... "Go read the blog!")

If  I say I write about myself I sound narcissistic.

I was told (by my kids) not to have one of those lame blogs that blathers on about my kids all the time.  So I just write about them some of the time.

Jewish Education is a big part of my life, and while I do love to write about that, I also frequently refrain, as we learn in Pirkei Avot 5:9 "wise people do not speak in the presence of those who are wiser than they are." There is always  someone out there who can more deftly interpret the Torah portion or the political climate in Israel much better than I can.

I feel compelled to write sometimes, and the words begin to jump from my fingers, the sentences start forming in my head before I can even get to the computer.  Scraps of paper or the iPhone "notes" app become a sorting station for ideas, some that never come to fruition, and some that practically write themselves.

Lately the blog posts are self-contained stories.  It feels good to get those out.  Like I can stop trying to hold on to those details now.  Some stories can never be written, not unless I start a new blog under a pseudonym.  (Those are some good stories too.)

What has surprised me about this randomly-spaced-in-time, usually cathartic blog even more than the writing, is the readers. The fact that people are reading this in the Ukraine, Russia, Venezuela, and just today, Greece, India, China, Brazil, Israel and Serbia.  Wow.  That's just mind-blowing.  Thanks to Google translator, someone a world away has just read my extremely personal and emotional cancer survival story.  I hope it gave that person some comfort.

I sometimes wonder if someone somewhere who was just really looking for a good picture of New Jersey tomatoes, or maybe just some porn, happened along this blog and I challenged their thinking, or at least gave them a smile before they moved on with their images search and found what they were really looking for.

The funny thing is that these strangers out there know the story of how I made cocktail hour for my dad, and how a tree fell on my house.  They read about my passion for Furthur and my love of my kids, and many more tidbits as well.  But my own family won't read the blog!

Dad:  "Jewel, I have no need to read how many times you walked your dogs and what you are wearing every day."
Me: "Dad, that's not what I write about in my blog."
Dad: "Jewel, that's what a blog is. It's all about fashion and shoes."
Me: "Dad, that's not what MY blog is."
Dad: "I'm not reading your blog or anyone's blog."

So, where were we?

I try very hard after I "birth" each one not to say this sentence:

"So did you read my blog yet?" 

That even sounds annoying to me. But I really love the feedback when I finally do get it, even when its anonymous.  One friend sent me a book on writing the personal narrative.   I hope he will notice my style improving!

Just yesterday, when I was at the doctor, one of his partners showed me a huge framed photo of Jerry Garcia on the wall and said, "I read your blog, it was great."  We bonded over tales of shared concerts before his next patient and my own appointment. 

Who knows what I'll write about next?  My two most hit upon entries were The Letter to Chris Christie (regarding Same Sex Marriage) and Let There Be Songs To Fill The Air (a love letter to the Grateful Dead).  I don't know why, but these keep getting hits, and search engines keep finding them.   By the way, Chris Christie wrote back to me, and the Wheel keep turning for us Deadheads, so there will be a lot more to write on both topics.  Another that gets a lot of hits was a heartfelt letter to my college roommate who died too young.  I guess a lot of people can relate to losing a friend before their time.

So, I will keep writing when I have something to say, and I thank you for reading.

It continues to be a long strange trip, I see no reason why I'd run out of adventures and ideas now.

Let There be Songs to Fill the Air

This is not a posting about Jewish education or parenting or the weather or New Jersey.  It's about the music that gets me through all of the above.


The good old Grateful Dead are coming back to town in less than a week.  I mean, not exactly, the Grateful Dead, it's Furthur, as they are called in this incarnation.*  This concert will be at Madison Square Garden and I'm both anticipating and a little nervous about it.

On the one hand, we've been waiting for this concert for months.  Since July, the last time we saw them.  Though I have not exactly  written about this passion of mine, I've alluded to it and these concerts are among the highlights of my year.  Of course, MSG is known as an historical place to see a concert.  The buzz outside is very exciting and they get the biggest names.  But since Jerry Garcia (of blessed memory) died in 1995, the band in its many forms has taken the stage in much smaller venues and we fans have had the good fortune to see our boys up close and with great sound.  It's not a trade-off anyone would have chosen, but it's the one we got.  So the cavernous Garden is not my first choice.  But it's where they are playing, so it's where we'll go.

Jerry Garcia z''l
Storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice.

How did it get to this?  How did I, an established Jewish educator, a mother of three with a responsible job, actually several jobs... get to a place where I'll drop everything when the Dead come to town?  Is it enough to say "they're a band beyond description?"  (We do that, you know.  We quote the Dead lyrics and unless you know we're doing it, we get away with it all the time!  I've snuck lyrics into my bulletin articles, my divrei Torah, and they've already been the titles of a few of my blog posts.  Yup.  That's what we do.)  Is it enough to tell you and other non-heads that this is what keeps us going?  It's the giant dose of adrenaline that we get two or three times a year that charges us up, and fills us with peaceful energy.

How they looked in the early 80's

Of course, it's about the music.  I guess the best I can tell someone who asks me what I find so compelling about it is that it takes me to another place.  Maybe the way jazz does for some, or classical music does for others.  Or prayer for others.  I have heard people describe praying in a Carlebach-style service with similar adjectives to the way I feel at a concert.  Uplifting and awakening. It helps that there are thousands of hours of CDs and tapes (and yes, records) available to play in between the long breaks between concerts.  But I guess the greatest thing is that each concert will be a completely new experience with unexpected gifts and surprises.  This new formation of the band, now two years old, has really started to gel, and each time they play they are stronger, more cohesive and their jams are more exciting.  I know that they plan their set lists in advance, but they are full of surprises that keep a smile on my face from start to finish.

Empire State building, decked out in tie-dye colors, the
last time Furthur played the Garden.  Cool.

As the concert date gets closer I'm getting those calls, emails and Facebook messages from friends and family.  This is part of the fun.  
"Are you going?" "What section?" "Want to meet for a drink before  the show?" "Have you heard if they're bringing out any new tunes this tour?" "Got any extras?"
In case any of you are reading this and haven't asked me yet, my answers to those questions are:

• Yes
• 104
• Of course
• They played "Golden Slumbers" by the Beatles in Amherst last night.
• Maybe

How they look now.
That's Phil Lesh and Bob Weir in the front.

I'm not sure what else I can tell you about this experience that has kept me coming back for more since 1978.  I only know that Bill Graham captured it when he said "They're not the best at what they do, they're the only ones who do what they do!" 

And if you're going too, let me know.  We can meet for a drink before the show!

*Why Furthur?  I'll tell you sometime, but if you want to know now, and you have the time, go ahead and read "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe, written about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.  I think this might shed some light on a lot of things, actually, including a few songs, historical characters and artwork in my house. 

Me, at a show, last summer.
Waiting for the music to start.