An anniversary I'd rather forget.

[gridlore]

Ten years ago, I was sitting in our tiny studio apartment in East Palo Alto, hunched over in pain from the then-undiagnosed blood clots that had developed post-surgery, and still dealing with the fact that I had cancer.

Then Kirsten called. Jerry Garcia was dead.

Most people need to think a bit to come up with the worst moment in their lives. Not me. It was that instant that my morale crashed through the floor, all hope vanished, and I just about gave up. Jerry dead? What kind of sick joke was the universe playing on me anyway?

I turned on the radio, and immediately heard Touch of Grey. That song, and its message of perseverance, brought me back. I will get by, I will survive.

So here's to you Jerry, I hope wherever you are the sound is clean, and you and Pigpen are jamming the Electric Blues all night long.

There's mosquitoes on the river
Fish are rising up like birds
It's been hot for seven weeks now,
Too hot to even speak now,
Did you hear what I just heard?

Say it might have been a fiddle
Or it could have been the wind
But there seems to be a beat now
I can feel it my feet now
Listen here it comes again!

There's a band out on the highway,
They're high steppin' into town
It's a rainbow full of sound,
It's fireworks, calliopes and clowns
Everybody dancin'

C'mon children, C'mon children, Come on clap your hands.

Sun went down in honey
And the moon came up in wine,
You know stars were spinnin' dizzy,
Lord The band kept us too busy
We forgot about the time.

They're a band beyond description,
Like Jehovah's favorite choir
People joining hand in hand
While the music played the band,
Lord they're setting us on fire.

Crazy rooster crowin' midnight,
Balls of lightin' roll along
Old men sing about their dreams,
Women laugh and children scream
And the band keeps playin' on.

Keep on dancin' thru the daylight,
Greet the mornin' air with song
No ones's noticed, but the band's all pack and gone.
Was it ever there at all?
But they keep on dancin'

C'mon children, C'mon children, Come on clap your hands

Well the cool breeze came on Tuesday,
And the corn's a bumper crop
And the fields are full of dancin'
Full of singin' and romancin'
The music never stopped.