My father discovered the Grateful Dead in their early years. Swept into the psychedelic scene with the rest of the baby boomer rebels, he found his home among the deadheads.
After becoming a family man, my father filled our infinitely cramped Saab with the Dead’s music. During long car rides, my brother and I listened blithely to the lyrics, never understanding their meanings.
“Daddy, what’s a sunshine daydream?”
“It’s when people have, um, picnics.”
He had not quite forgotten about the no-worry days by the time I started asking questions about his feel-good music. At the age of nine, my father toted my brother and me to a Grateful Dead concert. He didn’t want us to miss out on what could have been the Dead’s last major concert; his children should witness, if not experience, grilled cheese sandwiches and “brew” in the parking lot of a major venue.
I thought that the Grateful Dead was for those who liked sugar magnolias and ripples in water, not the long-haired, tie-dyed-shirt-wearing 50 somethings who dominated this arena, reeking of burnt plant.
All of them were my father’s age. Missing the boat to the mainland of careers and families 30 years ago, these people had stayed on Hippie Island, not realizing they had missed anything at all. Their stench invaded my olfactory senses, leaving me wondering why hygiene was only important in my family.
Inside the venue, my father took an opportunity to go to the front of the concert and left my brother and me in the nosebleed seats next to thousands of strangers. Five minutes after he had left, an eerie laughter from my right broke through amongst the loud screams and unbearable speaker volume.
A young woman, hair straggly and eyes glazed, was staring at me, while a thick stream of blood slowly oozed out of her right nostril.
Fascinated, I gestured to my brother. After minutes of being silently stared at by two young children, the woman’s boyfriend had taken hold of her and shooed her out.
A younger generation had evolved into Dead lovers who weren’t ready to let their parents’ youths override their own. Dubbed “touch heads,” the cokeheads of the nineties found comfort underneath the Dead’s wing.
Other than that one concert, my father shielded me from that world of the Dead. Nine years later, shortly after taking down my N’Sync posters from my wall, I wanted to explore that side of life. Stealing my father’s CDs, I spent nights listening to Jerry’s smooth, truthful, calming voice. The music itself was enough to make me question my conservative self.
Only after he discovered me surreptitiously stealing his “Dicks Picks” albums did my dad invite me to a concert for a bit of father-daughter bonding and a few drinks. I was intent on finding my own “touch head” lifestyle at a local concert hall.
Later that night, my father and I, tipsy and vibrant, sung together while “Me & Bobby McGee” blasted the crowd. Hands gripped on a barricade, swaying emphatically and exhausting his vocal cords over all too familiar lyrics, my father’s 5’8” middle-aged body morphed into that of a young college student.
The crowd whirled. They had waited for these words all night. And here my dad was, as if he were nineteen and unconcerned, knowing in his heart that feeling good really was good enough. Dancing on my own, I looked around the crowd, trying to find a touch head to emulate. And yet, no touch head compared to the deadhead in my father.
He had long since grown out of his freer days. Yet I was getting a glimpse of the teen who didn’t have a path, who slipped his path under his tongue and hitchhiked across country. Had we been friends, he would have laid back with me and listened endlessly to Jerry among scented candles. With four children and a struggling business, however, it seemed as if careless joy could never be a permanent state of being.
The concert was nothing more than a flashback for him. Current deadheads like those I had seen nine years ago had shown up to the small hall, remnants of coke powdered on their mustaches. All were swirling, drinking, taking in the scene—but they didn’t strike me. It was my father’s youthful essence that attracted my attention.
“Dad, you wouldn’t ever take back your deadhead days, right? I mean, weren’t they great?” I asked him on the ride home .
“The thing is, Melissa, it wasn’t as great as you may think.”
“But, I haven’t had the chance to take time off and explore, and I think I need to,” I replied.
“I think it may have set me back, to tell you the truth. You’re on the right track, trust me,” he said.
I couldn’t talk to him about it. He was nineteen only when there was a full moon and a Dead cover at Mexicali Blues.
