Anyone alive can attest to how time flies and how the older we get the faster it appears to fly by.  It was the summer of 1990 in Tinley Park, Illinois that I went to my first Grateful Dead concert (show) and I actually remember most of it.  

This is my call out to all my fellow Dead Heads and friends.  If your out there and I know that you are what was your first show, how did it go, and how has it linked your life to find this website and permaculture in general?

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As I already mentioned, Tinley Park, IL was my first show.  I was drug along as a last minute decision with as many people as we could fit into the car.  No plan, very little money, no expectations, and blammo when we got to the stadium there were VW micro-buses and psychedelia everywhere.  Cars were backuped for miles like I have never seen before.  They were on the expressways, highways, byways and everywhere.  People were hanging out of cars walking the highway selling food and whatever else.  There was music blaring and flags a flying.

I grew up on a small ten acre homestead in western Illinois. In 1991 I endeavored to study horticulture.  I found many people similar, like minded folks that lived a simple life and believed in organic foods, homesteading, community living and good music with Bobby and Jerry.  Many years later I found living and growing practices that make good logical sense in permaculture.  So therefore just recently I found this site.  

Listening to the Tinley Park show as I write.  

haha...my  older sister always insisted that I went to a Dead concert and I just didn't remember it...doubtful  I couldn't afford concerts back then (late sixties and early seventies) so if I was there I would have slipped in, sure would like to remember that  
I too grew up in Illinois and left for the woods down here early seventies.  We were way off grid then and no cash flow for concerts... a good friend played most of their songs on his guitar though and we did the campfire sing a long thing......many I heard from him before I heard the Dead version
I love the 'Playing for Change' version of Ripple......wonderful world music.

I never went to a Dead show, but I am fairly sure I own every album they have ever done (don't listen to most of them often these days, I have to admit)...
Ripple is one of my all time favorite songs by ANY band, and I was rereading Mollison's big Permaculture book after buying land, looking at what kind of patterning would work well on the odd curves of the land, and ripples caught my eye. I put on the song, thought on it. May be naming this property something about Ripples in my Mind, or Ripples in the Earth, not sure exactly yet...
And I was sheet mulching the other day with dumpster kill cardboard, it started to rain (yay! Hold that cardboard down!!) and I realized I was singing the last song I had heard on the CD player that morning "Box of Rain"   Yup. Lots of boxes. In the rain... And it's just a box of rain, I don't know who put it there... Wait!! *I* put it there!!

I tripped back over this thread this morning, not sure why I never looked up the 'Playing for Change' version of Ripple that Judith Browning mentioned. I just did. Lovely! I'm keeping that one! Thank you Judith!!

I love the Grateful Dead, have listened to hundreds of shows and all their albums. They have been the soundtrack to many transcendent experiences. Unfortunately I missed the boat, graduating high school in 2001 and never seeing them with Jerry. Having his "replacement," (John Mayer's) unlistenable caterwauling beaten into my brain by every woman I worked with in high school and college for hundreds of hours has made paying to see their current iteration unfathomable. I think they let him in to bring in younger women, as he is a decent guitarist (a shameful replacement for  the greatest guitarist of all time in my opinion), but should have a sock surgically installed in his mouth. That said, Thank You Jerry!

Folsom field Colorado 1980.
Was a fan for a few years prior but the live experience completely change my views and taste in music.

I am sure they contributed to my crunchy factor that made me enjoy this site so much. How ever it was my DIY and think out side the box attitude that led me here. I was doing a web search on earth tubes while in the planing stage for my tiny house. About 10 years ago.

Thanks for posting that version of Ripple Pearl!   I haven't listened to that for a while. Really a great video.

Marty Mac wrote:
Thanks for posting that version of Ripple Pearl!   I haven't listened to that for a while. Really a great video.

Thank Judith for that one, I had missed it before.
Welcome to Permies! Glad you found your way here :) It's a fun place!

Pearl Sutton wrote:And I was sheet mulching the other day with dumpster kill cardboard, it started to rain (yay! Hold that cardboard down!!) and I realized I was singing the last song I had heard on the CD player that morning "Box of Rain"   Yup. Lots of boxes.

I sheet mulched with cardboard on two future beds, I ended up chasing down run away cardboard a few times, until I think I nailed it all down with dug up chunks of soil, wood mulch, a long 4x4, and 50# compost bags may finally open in Spring.

Michael Moreken wrote:
I sheet mulched with cardboard on two future beds, I ended up chasing down run away cardboard a few times, until I think I nailed it all down with dug up chunks of soil, wood mulch, a long 4x4, and 50# compost bags may finally open in Spring.

Yup, I learned early on how to hold it down, my property has a lot of wind. I'm more amused that the Grateful Dead didn't even know they were singing about sheet mulching It entertains me when I turn songs to my own end

While I never went inside to a Grateful Dead concert, I did love the festival-like gatherings that happened outside. I grew up in Palo Alto, so the Grateful Dead came often. Pigpen's parents lived down the street, that was the house that we weren't allowed to go to on Halloween.

I think that the way that it links me to permaculture is the hippie, albeit intellectual culture, I grew up in.

Stacy Witscher wrote:I think that the way that it links me to permaculture is the hippie, albeit intellectual culture, I grew up in.

This.

A 'hippie, albeit intellectual culture' is my new favorite phrase. Dead Heads have often been my favorite people though somehow, I never was much of a fan myself.

The play on words "deadheading the permaculturalist" drew me to this thread. Nice one!

Well, I'm not a deadhead except for this book, which was a favorite to read to the kids (and play the song - I think it came with a cassette back then!): Teddy Bears Picnic by Jerry Garcia, et al.





Edited to add that the video to accompany Jerry and friends for that song is rather lame. Though IMHO, his voice, that song, the muscianship are all still a delight despite the visuals in that one.

Edited a second time because I meant to add a nod for Playing for Change, too! That was an awesome version of Ripple and they do more versions that are just stellar - Stand by Me is one I can play over and over!