Your 1st remembrance of seeing a Stealie?

Mine's a trip - Nevada City, CA, out near San Juan Ridge, at my annual "summer camp," fiddle-farting around in the great outdoors, spending as MUCH of my summer break time from school as possible at my Grandparents' property, in the middle of BFE...I reckon I was about 9 when I first registered that iconic skull and bolt. The year would've been about 1980.

Extremely rural, living off the land kinda folk, my grandparents were. Gardeners, builders, homesteaders, chicken and worm ranchers, shade tree mechanic (Grandpa), campers, rusticos, all the way! Grandpa Jim was a WWII Vet, was a Pearl Harbor, at Hickam Field, when it was attacked. Flew in the 11th Bomb Group, 42 Bomb Squad: 52 missions flown in the South Pacific. Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo, Solomon Islands, Wake, Guam. He was a true war hero, and he was this boy's hero, growing up. Still is (me growing up, that is, and him, long-deceased, still my hero).

And, along with their incredible garden tomatoes, green beans, cukes, carrots, zukes, and other array of homegrown goodness they plied from the land, every summer without fail, they also grew the kindest killer green bud, south of Humboldt Co, you ever saw or smoked! Republican Grandpa. War Hero Grandpa. Weed Farmer Grandpa. Yes, they can all go together. You see, the intelligent human is always trying, experimenting, looking for kinder, gentler ways to care for themselves, for the Earth. And that's what my grandparents did - grew weed to treat medical issues: mainly my Grandma's osteoarthritis (they made extracts and salves).

Now...if you're still with me (Heaven Help the Fool!), here's where the Grateful Dead's iconic SYF crossed my path, for the very 1st time. A hippie neighbor, Judy, who had a tee pee, hand-constructed home/greenhouse, outdoor clawfoot, cast iron "soaking tub," fed by copper tubing and a solar-heated, black-painted, 50 gallon water drum, perched on a tree platform, for gravity-fed hot water, and an assortment of other shit on her land that would make your head spin, loved to smoke weed. And go skinny dipping with her boyfriends, down at the South Yuba River. She also drove an old, rusted red VW Bug (prolly a '68 or so, iirc), with a BIG OLD SYF sticker, on the back end. According to my Grandpa, she was a "Cal Berkeley dropout hippie, who was studing some kind of astrophysics or such..", meaning big-brained, with a fierce independent streak.

And so it was, that Judy and her guy pals would call ahead (land lines only!), roll over to "our" place to get some of the homegrown (extremely, EXTREMELY risky business, then, "'3 Strikes, You're Out" days, with many poor souls doing hard time for soft offenses, like growing ol' Gramma some med weed for her poor, sore joints!). Ha! Joints!

I'll wind this here yarn down by saying that those hot summer daze, hopping into Judy's SYF-emblazoned VW Bug and hanging out, down at the Yuba River, ogling all the 80s tanned bods and marvelling at the ease with which people got naked, got outside, lived a full and fruitful life, while getting back to Mother Nature, really exposed me to Deadhead culture and our Tribe, long before I ever even had an inkling idea of what it was all about.

That would have to wait another 9 years, when I had just turned 18 and saw the Grateful Dead play for the very 1st time. 8/6/89.

Long strange trip, alright! ✌️❤️💀🥀