One Saturday in the summer of "68 I dropped a 14-year-old girl hitchhiker at the Fillmore Auditorium and drove on over to Panhandle Park.
I parked my rich man's car in an empty spot and watched a party going on in the park filled with flower children all milling about and dancing to a rock band that was playing free for anyone who would listen. I sat there in my car with the power windows down just to listen and observe. I was wearing my usual button-down yellow short-sleeved business shirt and Levi cords of tan, not ever blue. I didn't fit into the mix.
I resonated with those free spirits and Deadhead ladies, wanting to go out there and dance with them like I sometimes did. But this day, this straight, hard-working engineer could only dig the scene from a distance, unwilling to be so free as to indulge in the drugs and music completely.
So I drove away eventually missing probably my only chance to view the Grateful Dead up close and personal. Opting instead to turn up my radio and listen to the latest from the Beatles, Santana, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, or the Rolling Stones in my air-conditioned time travel machine.
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Drugs weren't necessary.....
I parked my rich man's car in an empty spot and watched a party going on in the park filled with flower children all milling about and dancing to a rock band that was playing free for anyone who would listen. I sat there in my car with the power windows down just to listen and observe. I was wearing my usual button-down yellow short-sleeved business shirt and Levi cords of tan, not ever blue. I didn't fit into the mix.
I resonated with those free spirits and Deadhead ladies, wanting to go out there and dance with them like I sometimes did. But this day, this straight, hard-working engineer could only dig the scene from a distance, unwilling to be so free as to indulge in the drugs and music completely.
So I drove away eventually missing probably my only chance to view the Grateful Dead up close and personal. Opting instead to turn up my radio and listen to the latest from the Beatles, Santana, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, or the Rolling Stones in my air-conditioned time travel machine.
Ron