A Long Ago Day in Argentina Or Where Were You When Jerry Died?

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donbosco

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#OnThisDay in 1995 I was tramping around Argentina in The Río de la Plata region. It is another story completely from this one as to why. Hopping a fancy Argentine bus I rode it to a place called San Ignacio Mini in the Misiones Province. It was a dusty wide place in the road but I had read (in a book!) that there I could take in some interesting ruins of a Jesuit Monastery.



I climbed down from the bus that Kate morning into the temperate South American winter and followed the sparse but helpful signage right to the historic site. I spent all day wandering the grounds engaged in historical imaginings and at the park’s closing I walked back up to the highway in search of information on when the bus to the city of Posadas would pass by.



There by the main road I found a little store and an old lady sitting on the porch. We had waved that morning as I walked by. I was the only gringo in town. Indeed, I had been the only visitor to the ruins that day. Thats her and her granddaughter in the photo. I had heard that there was a hotel in this "town.” I asked her about it. She said, unfortunately, it had gone out of business. So I asked when the next bus to Posadas was coming through and it was not really that far.



Ah but the catch was, according to the storekeeper there were no more buses until very early in the morning. I remember that I looked out at the highway and then back up the dirt road towards the ruins, genuinely thinking about just setting out on a long evening hike into the dark Misiones night.



But the lady said, "You can stay here if you want." She quoted something like $3 for the night and said that she would fix me a dinner and breakfast to boot. So I took her up on it. We sat on the front porch there for some more hours and watched the world go very slowly by. I drank a Coca-Cola and she fixed me a plate of eggs for dinner. She put me up in the actual front part of her store on a cot, showed me where the light switch was, locked me in, and turned in. It was an interesting evening but I slept well and she awoke me at 5AM with a Bomba and Bombilla of Maté to share as well as another plate of scrambled eggs and some bread.



We sat there and watched the sun rise, drank enough Maté to make my head spin, and talked about UFOs and the Pope. Sure enough around 6:30 the bus showed up, I gave her $10 for her kindness, snapped a photo, and headed off to Posadas. Lucky me, there was a newspaper on the bus, ‘La Nación,’ if I recall correctly. After staring out at the flatness of the countryside for a bit I lifted up the paper and was greeted with the headline..."La Mayor Estrella Hispana de Rock Ha Muerto.” I thought, Oh No! Carlos Santana has died. Then I read on. It was the first time I had ever thought of Jerry Garcia as Hispanic.
 
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"Hopping a fancy Argentine bus I rode it to a place called San Ignacio Mini in the Misiones Province."

The bus come by and you got on...
 
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul
 
I don't really think of Jerry as Hispanic but I think he did trace his family back to Spain.

I was working on the options floor of the stock exchange in San Francisco when Jerry died. Was living on Belvedere St. in the Haight, two blocks from 710 Ashbury. I had moved to SF in '93, so I had seen pretty much every Oakland, Shoreline and Cal Expo show during that time, and a couple of runs in Vegas to boot. Certainly not the greatest era for the Dead, but it was always a fun time and of course they played a lot in the Bay Area. First show was Hampton '85.

Anyway, we had to be at work at 5:30 to get ready for the market opening (9AM EST, 6AM PST). This was pre-internet and cell phone so the floor was kind of a clearing house for all kinds of info. It was almost like a telephone internet hub, everybody always had two phones to their ears and whatever was happening in the world of any consequence usually found its way to the floor in short order to then be disseminated across the wires.

Of course the fact that Jerry died in Marin less than 30 miles from the city in the wee hours of the morning and the fact that not a whole lot of people are up at 5:30 in the morning meant that the floor was probably one of the first places outside of friends and family that learned of Jerry's death. I suspect that it was also probably the main source of the news hitting the "outside" world as well, certainly on a non-media "officical" level, which was very much in the spirit of the Dead ethos. It was a big deal to me as a Deadhead, of course, but it was obvious that it was a big deal to the locals who maybe weren't Deadheads but certainly appreciated the cultural (and local) importance of the Dead and esp. Jerry's role and presence and being.

I don't recall much specifically about the rest of the day, was kinda just in a daze. Of course when I got home (the good thing about having to be at work at 5:30 is that we got off at 1:00) there was already a large gathering and makeshift shrine at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. The grief there was certainly of a less subdued nature than it had been on the floor. People were really heartbroken. Haight Street remained very busy with mourners and gawkers for several days and there was a very well-attended gathering at the Polo Grounds in GG Park that weekend.

The main feeling I had besides being (of course) bummed in general was that it was the end of an era. I was a month shy of my 30th birthday, which is kind of a random bullshit milestone in itself (I was born in 1965, the same year the Dead got together), but it really did feel like life was going to be different or at least that something very important and meaningful (outside of family and close friends) was gone. It's hard to think of something comparable for people who aren't Deadheads, but for Carolina fans it would kinda be like if Dean had never planned on retiring when he did and everybody thought he'd be leading the 1998 team to an almost certain national championship and then he died right before the season began or shortly after. That might not be an exact comparison, but it's the closest thing I can think of. They were both the lodestars of a very earnest, enthusiastic and loving scene of disparate folks who were connected by a common interest. I'm very blessed and grateful to have been part of both of those scenes, both of which have been amongst the foremost joys of my life...
 
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I wasn’t born yet…but the Dead and Co. Sphere show I went to was pretty good.
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donbosco said:
IMG_4128.jpeg

#OnThisDay in 1995 I was tramping around Argentina in The Río de la Plata region. It is another story completely from this one as to why. Hopping a fancy Argentine bus I rode it to a place called San Ignacio Mini in the Misiones Province. It was a dusty wide place in the road but I had read (in a book!) that there I could take in some interesting ruins of a Jesuit Monastery.



I climbed down from the bus that Kate morning into the temperate South American winter and followed the sparse but helpful signage right to the historic site. I spent all day wandering the grounds engaged in historical imaginings and at the park’s closing I walked back up to the highway in search of information on when the bus to the city of Posadas would pass by.



There by the main road I found a little store and an old lady sitting on the porch. We had waved that morning as I walked by. I was the only gringo in town. Indeed, I had been the only visitor to the ruins that day. Thats her and her granddaughter in the photo. I had heard that there was a hotel in this "town.” I asked her about it. She said, unfortunately, it had gone out of business. So I asked when the next bus to Posadas was coming through and it was not really that far.



Ah but the catch was, according to the storekeeper there were no more buses until very early in the morning. I remember that I looked out at the highway and then back up the dirt road towards the ruins, genuinely thinking about just setting out on a long evening hike into the dark Misiones night.



But the lady said, "You can stay here if you want." She quoted something like $3 for the night and said that she would fix me a dinner and breakfast to boot. So I took her up on it. We sat on the front porch there for some more hours and watched the world go very slowly by. I drank a Coca-Cola and she fixed me a plate of eggs for dinner. She put me up in the actual front part of her store on a cot, showed me where the light switch was, locked me in, and turned in. It was an interesting evening but I slept well and she awoke me at 5AM with a Bomba and Bombilla of Maté to share as well as another plate of scrambled eggs and some bread.



We sat there and watched the sun rise, drank enough Maté to make my head spin, and talked about UFOs and the Pope. Sure enough around 6:30 the bus showed up, I gave her $10 for her kindness, snapped a photo, and headed off to Posadas. Lucky me, there was a newspaper on the bus, ‘La Nación,’ if I recall correctly. After staring out at the flatness of the countryside for a bit I lifted up the paper and was greeted with the headline..."La Mayor Estrella Hispana de Rock Ha Muerto.” I thought, Oh No! Carlos Santana has died. Then I read on. It was the first time I had ever thought of Jerry Garcia as Hispanic.
Click to expand...
In Zürich Switzerland. we had just traveled down to Lecce, Italy for a wedding - a true Italian wedding, and we just taken the long train ride back to Zürich for the flight home.
 
I was a summer camp jr. camp-counselor (national wildlife camp, run by the NWF, out of Kanuga, near Hendersonville). We were listening to the radio when we found out. Most of the other JCs didn’t know who he was, but a couple of us were music buffs (or as much as non musician music buffs can be at 15), and we were absolutely gutted. Most of the rest gave us weird looks.
 
Centerpiece said:
In Zürich Switzerland. we had just traveled down to Lecce, Italy for a wedding - a true Italian wedding, and we just taken the long train ride back to Zürich for the flight home.
Click to expand...
Drivin' that train, high on cocaine...
 
I don't remember where I was, but I do remember I saw the Dave Matthews Band at the Greek Theater in Berkeley the following week. The Dead had just helped DMB get their start, and Dave was super busted up about it...they played a great heartfelt set.
 
My mom died 3 weeks earlier, blunting the impact Jerry’s death would have otherwise had. I don’t remember where I heard the news, but do remember seeing tv news reports of the vigils taking place.
 
I was a freshly-graduated young person at work when I heard the news, and I spent the rest of the day recalling the trip we'd made to see them at Carter-Finley in July(?), 1990, just 5 years prior.

Below is my favorite track by them, for many reasons. But mostly for sentimental ones. RIP Jerry.

 
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