It Really Happened: Jerry Garcia

My friend Willie is a total "Dead Head." In fact, he occasionally worked as a roadie for some Dead tours. I casually said to him one day, "Gee, I'd like to be a roadie for a day." Six months after that comment, the phone rang and it was Willie saying, "You're on!"

I was instructed to report to a certain Foxboro Stadium gate early one Saturday morning to help with that night's show. Well, I did absolutely nothing since there seemed to be 50 of us pretending to be roadies. A mid-afternoon buffet lunch was served back stage for the assorted crew as well as the folks supporting opening-act Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. A man behind me in line was making a series of surly, humorous comments about the length of the lunch line. I turned to engage him in sympathetic conversation. It was Jerry Garcia.