Fare Thee Well

“Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;

Other times I can barely see.

Lately it occurs to me

What a long, strange trip it's been.”

         “Truckin’,” Grateful Dead

Among the 71,000 fans enjoying the Grateful Dead’s final “Fare Thee Well” concert at Chicago’s Soldier Field, scene of the band’s last previous performance 20 years ago, were comedian Bill Murray, basketball guru Bill Walton, and nephew Bob Lane, who posted that he was “truly blessed and grateful to share this music.”  Joining Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann on the historic evening were Trey Anastasio of Phish and keyboardist Bruce Hornsby.  “Truckin’ opened the second set, and “Not Fade Away” ended it.  Billboard’s Shirley Halperin wrote:

   A staple closer of Dead shows going back decades, it’s also the most participatory, with the crowd’s in sync claps helping to keep time.  On this final show, the chorus came with a minutes-long fadeout, as the crowd chanted “You know our love won’t fade away” in an effort to cajole the band back to the stage.

Back they came.  The final encores were “Touch of Grey” and “Attics of My Life,” the latter a Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter composition with these final lines:

In the secret space of dreams, where I dreaming lay amazed.

When the secrets all are told, and the petals all unfold.

When there was no dream of mine, you dreamed of me.

“Fare Thee Well” is not only a way of saying goodbye, as in the case of celebrating 50 years of Grateful Dead, but can mean doing something almost to perfection, as he did that to a fare-thee-well.  While a Grateful Dead concert without Jerry Garcia will never come close to perfection, hats off to the band for providing a truly nostalgic farewell.

For only eight dollars (a fraction of what stepfather Howard used to pay a podiatrist) I had my toenails clipped at Aqua Spa in Chesterton; as usual I was the only male customer – everyone else was there for a “pedi.”  I was hoping for the cute Asian teen but got a middle-aged man who only smiled when he received a three-dollar tip for his five minutes of labor.

 Steven and Leah

After Anne Balay and numerous helpers (including a former English teacher at East Chicago Central who changed her last name to Heart after marrying her female soul mate) packed a moving van that will deliver her possessions to an apartment on the Haverford campus, I took the three Balays and Emma’s friend Steven to Flamingos.  At lunch I mentioned turning down Dave Serynek’s boat outing offer, thinking he meant onto Lake Michigan; he had a small inland lake in mind.  Anne almost drowned while on her ex-spouse’s sailboat on Lake Michigan when a sudden storm arose.  I’m going to miss her.  So will IUN

Historian Jerry Pierce, also treated unjustly by Balay’s nemesis, posted: “So apparently this is the building where I give my talk on heresy.”  Rich Colvin replied: “That’s so freaking cool.  I miss your classes so much.  To this day I remember the ‘Hell’ course you and Professor (Gianluca) Di Muzio taught as my favorite class at IUN.”  Jerry responded: “It was a fun class, wasn’t it?  I think you were in the first incarnation of it.  Were you in the class where someone did a layered cake as their project?”  Years ago, David Malham cooked a medieval meal in a class taught by Rhiman Rotz, Jerry’s predecessor.

Tom and Darcey Wade had us over for grilled burgers, potato salad, and watermelon.  Because Dave and Angie’s dog Maggie is ultra-sensitive to fireworks, Toni lugged his kennel in the bathroom and put on soft music. At Wades we played pinochle with crazy rules that involved passing three cards between the partners who won the bid and awarding 30 points for a double pinochle (jack of diamonds, queen of spades).  In the final hand I needed only the ace of spades for a run, which Toni could have passed me, only Tom outbid me and then put down a spade run plus a hundred aces.  We were home by dusk, to Maggie’s relief. 

Tom, retired from teaching, has become an Uber cab driver.  Everything is done with a smart phone, so no money exchanges hands.  For driving two Grateful Dead fans to Soldier Field he received a ten-dollar tip.  He enjoys the social interaction as for the money and learning how Uber works.  Tom wants me to be his duplicate bridge partner, but he uses the Stayman convention that I have never played. I recommended that we play some hands together first.

 Carli Lloyd, who scored three goals against Japan

Cubbies won two of three from the Marlins, and the U.S. women’s World Cup soccer team routed Japan, 5-2.  I completed Ray Boomhower’s excellent biography of Hoosier journalist and diplomat John Bartlow Martin.  In my review for Indiana Magazine of History I’ll concentrate on his love-hate relationship with Indianapolis, where he spent his formative years.

IU History department chair Eric Sandweiss wrote that next February’s Indiana Association of Historians (IAH) conference will be in Bloomington and he “would like to see some folks from the Region presenting.”  I’m on the editorial board of the Indiana Magazine of History (IMH), which has its annual meeting then.  I replied: “I'll be sure to attend the IAH meeting next February, will try to talk colleague Chris Young into joining me, and will think about participating.  Right now I'm working on a book review for IMH of Boomhower's biography of John Bartlow Martin and on a speech to the Portage Historical Society entitled "Edgewater: Portage's Vanished Community" (all homes, including ours, became leasebacks within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore that expired by 2010).  Maybe Eva Mendieta and John Fraire, recent IMH contributors, could participate in a session about Calumet Region Mexican Americans. I'll talk to John Hmurovic about submitting a proposal based on his IMH article on A.F. Knotts.”

The War on Drugs

“Wide awake

I rearrange the way I listen in the dark

Dreaming of starting up again.”

         “Burning,” The War On Drugs

I arranged a trip to Palm Springs, California, where Midge, my 98 year-old mother, is living, around a War on Drugs concert at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown.  Within minutes of the tickets going on sale, the concert was sold out; scalpers were asking for as much as $200 a ticket, eight times the original price.  I decided to email the owner and make a special plea for her to set two aside for nephew Bob and me.  I wrote: “I have been coming to Pappy and Harriet's every couple months, whenever I visit from Indiana to see my aging mother.  I have been to several Cracker Campouts and usually arrange my visits around whoever is performing at your fabulous place.   As a longtime customer who writes favorably about Pappy and Harriet's on my blog, I am really hoping that you might have two extra tickets reserved for regulars who missed out on the virtually nonexistent window of opportunity for purchasing tickets.”

Robyn, the owner, promised to put aside two tickets and suggested I post a review on Yelp.  This is what I wrote: “I always plan my trips to the Palm Springs area around a visit to Pappy and Harriet's, which has fantastic food at very reasonable prices, a friendly staff, a diverse clientele, and live music every night.  I attend Cracker Campout every September and have seen some of my favorite bands there, including Parquet Courts and Camper Van Beethoven.  Walking around the grounds and seeing buildings that once were used in Gene Autry and Cisco Kid westerns is also a special treat, as is the breathtaking view on the drive up from 29 Pines Highway.  Recommended for people of all ages - and children are welcome.”

Robyn proved to be as good as her word, and we received armbands when the ticket takers found my name on the guest list. I left Robyn my latest Steel Shavings with paper clips marking where I commented on my three 2014 appearances to see Parquet Courts, Cracker, and Dust Bowl Revival.  Having arrived soon after the restaurant opened at four p.m., Bob and I enjoyed a nice meal and listened to The War on Drugs warming up nearby on the outdoor stage.  They sounded awesome, and outside I was able to peak at them through an opening.  A guy directing cars approached and greeted me warmly.  When I said I had feared he would ask me to move, he replied that I’d have to do something much worse than look through an open-air window.  “I’ll try to act almost my age,” I quipped; he laughed and revealed that he was 64 years old.  He looked to be no more than 50.

We ran into band members Adam Granduciel and Robbie Bennett at the bar, casually talking to fans.  Knowing they hailed from Philadelphia, I asked which part.  Adam said they lived in the Fishtown neighborhood of north Philly, which is not far from where Toni grew up.  I was tempted to inquire about the derivation of the name War on Drugs, but Adam’s probably answered that a thousand times.  He generally says it just came to him while drinking red wine.  He told one interviewer: “It was either that or Rigatoni Danza” and “that it was the kind of name I could record all sorts of different music without any sort of predictability inherent in the name.”  I first heard of the band when Robert Blaskiewicz burned me a copy of their breakthrough CD “Lost in the Dream,” featuring “Under the Pressure.”  Alissa’s boyfriend Josh informed me that they’d been around for several years and had previously released indie albums titled “Wagonwheel Blues” and “Slave Ambient.”

The sellout crowd surrounding the stage was totally into the vibes from the very first notes of “Under the Pressure.”  One guy near us was gyrating and swinging his head about throughout the entire two hours, frenetically during upbeat numbers such as “Red Eyes.”  The air was so pungent with the smell of reefer that Bob, drug and alcohol free for more than a decade, left for a brief breather.  After I took a bathroom break, I found Bob by spotting the head-bobbing guy.  A well-dressed woman in front of us kept swaying back and forth, while a comely Asian alternated between closing her eyes like at a symphony and staring transfixed at frontman Granduciel. 

Despite it being quite chilly outdoors in the desert, Bob and I agreed Pappy and Harriet’s was the perfect venue, intimate, with probably no more than 500 people in a friendly crowd that appeared to be mainly from Los Angeles and Palm Springs to judge by the applause their mention elicited.  Adam also asked cryptically if anyone was from Birmingham, Alabama, or Lawrence, Kansas and announced that the band had been looking forward to this gig since the tour began.  Indeed it showed.  In two days The War on Drugs was scheduled to play at Coachella Fest before thousands, one of whom, a friend of Bob’s in the music business, told my nephew that he was envious that he’d be seeing them at Pappy and Harriet’s.  This summer they’re touring Europe and have a gig in Paris (must tell Frederic and Blandine)

I stood the entire time without my knee ever aching.  Endorphins must have kicked in - or maybe it was the contact high.  When hearing songs from the group’s previous albums, I was reminded of two of my favorite bands, Alda Reserve and the Jayhawks.  During “Eyes to the Wind” and at he end of “Burning” Bob hugged me.  During the final number I hugged him back.    He said it was one of the best concerts he’d been to – high praise from a Grateful Dead and Phish fan.  Before he left at 5 a.m. the next morning for a conference in L.A., Bob wrote this note on Best Western stationery: “Thanks Jimbo!  Had the time of my life!  We did our part in the War on Drugs.”  On Facebook he posted: “Lost in the Dream” is my choice for album of the year.”

 Nephew Bob Lane

Midge was in relatively good spirits despite missing her deceased hundred year-old friend Shirley.  Resigned to letting others dress her and wheel her to meals, she is no longer falling every few days like before.  My brother has her mail forwarded to his house, so she is no longer deluged with letters solicitations.  He takes her to the doctor’s every week or two and keeps her hearing aids in good operating order.  We all went to dinner at Shame on the Moon (whose owner is a Bob Seeger fan).  My brother has libertarian leanings, and we agreed that in the unlikely event Rand Paul wins the 2016 Republican nomination, the Presidential debates might be quite interesting, given Paul’s serious misgivings about our foreign misadventures of the past 15 years and the failed 30-year War on Drugs.  

Like most visits, I got out Midge’s old photo albums.  While she has trouble remembering daily events, her memory of childhood and college days is remarkable. I learned that her paternal grandfather was a Pennsylvania Railroad executive who lived in Philipsburg, New Jersey.  Her grandmother Frace had a chicken coop in her backyard.  Midge witnessed one being beheaded and refused to eat it.

At Applebee’s my final evening in Rancho Mirage, I had a chance to talk with bartender Natasha, smiling broadly now that her braces are off.  She filled me in on her two year-old daughter and her friend Andrea Aguirre, who got a promotion and is managing an Applebee’s in Indio, where thee Coachella is taking place.  While my room at Holiday Inn was a little higher than normal at $169, those who didn’t make reservations well in advance are paying twice that, manager Adrian told me.

During the trip I reread Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”  The small town newspaper editor, Braxton Bragg Underwood, was named for a Confederate Civil War general.  Atticus Finch’s sage advice to Jem and Scout was to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, uncomfortable as that may be.  Like another American classic, “Huckleberry Finn,” there is frequent use of the “n” word, but the overriding theme is tolerance.  My favorite characters were the black housekeeper Calpurnia and Dolphus Raymond, who married a black woman and let on that he was an alcoholic though his drink of choice was coke. Reading the final chapters on the American Airlines flight home, tears were streaming down my face.  Despite my arriving an hour late due to engine problems, I caught the final Coach USA bus to Highland and arrived home about 1 a.m.  Toni was in Grand Rapids for Becca’s dance recital so I popped a beer and listened “Lost in the Dream.” To my surprise on Wednesday seven musicians comprised The War on Drugs, and listening closely, I could pick up their sounds. 

First day back, I ran into Steve and a researcher at the Archives despite it being Saturday.  Declining invitations to attend parties at Marianne and Missy’s and at the Hobart VFW for Kevin Horn’s niece Taylor’s sixteenth birthday, I opted to chill in front of the tube and watched Cubs and Bulls victories.