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The Grateful Dead are, in their genre, the greatest of all-time. And I say that as a Phish fan. The Dead deserve their flowers for pioneering the musical fusion style that’s come to be classified under the ‘jam band’ umbrella. But The Dead were truly the first, the greatest, and the only jam band to ever see huge commercial success until Phish came along and even those two are incomparable.
But before they were the Grateful Dead and packing 107K+ fans into New Jersey’s Raceway Park or 500K+ into festivals at Watkins Glen, they were apparently popping into stranger’s homes for dinner. That’s the story below.
Now I have to say, my mom was one of those whimsical hippie mothers who would just start saying things and telling stories and most of the time they were totally believable but every now and then something would get slipped into conversation and you’d think “there’s no way that’s true” but there was never any way to verify the over-the-top stories so I’d just believe them.
That’s what we’re seeing here, a Gen X or millennial daughter whose mother would tell stories of having the Grateful Dead over for dinner and the daughter would nod along ‘okay, sure, mom’ never believing her. But the 95-year-old grandma here finally confirms mom’s story and tells it like it was yesterday.
The granddaughter films her ‘Meme,’ which is a hilarious way to spell Mimi in the modern era because everyone knows ‘meme’ refers to memes, not grandmas. And grandma lays it all out. How her daughter brought ‘The Grateful Dead’ by the house for dinner and grandma was offended that she would call her that and mom was like ‘no no no no, that’s the band’s name. They’re going to play us some music.’
@pnw.bethany My mom was a hippie and would tell me stories about bringing Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead home for dinner. I use to think she was pulling my leg but my Meme remembers it like it was yesterday! Posting to share because some day I know she will be gone and these stories are so sweet 🩵 #stories #grandmastories #thegratefuldead #backintheday #mygrandma
This is exactly how I imagine most grandparents, completely unaware of the Grateful Dead in the 1960s, would react to their music hearing it for the first time.
She said “I went down there and they started playing this music. I went ‘oh my lordy’ … It sounded like noise. And that’s all it was. And Jack (grandpa) said “how long do we listen to this?”
Grandma says she fixed “sandwiches and stuff” and “they had some pop.” It is at that point I clearly realized she is from the Midwest and this is not a story from San Francisco.
Anyway, I thought this story was great. Sort of reminds me the time I played Ouija Board with the Mars Volta after eating some cacti extract at Terminal 5 in NYC. The night was insane and most people don’t believe me when I tell them how it all went down but this Granny’s story about the Grateful Dead is a pleasant reminder that cool things happen every day if you get out and live life a little.