1986 and ’87, Geneva, New York.

Ready for the spring formal for one of the fraternities, maybe Phi Sig, at Hobart College. In my thrifted dress, haha, and my grandma’s jewelry. And a really interesting shade of blonde hair. But my tan was looking good!

Ha ha! Lol! I thought I could do this in three parts.  Silly me.  Thinking maybe six?  We shall see. So #3 has me back in Geneva, New York circa 1986-88.  Oh my goodness.  1986 is when The Grateful Dead was gifted to me…. The gift that keeps on giving.  

Spring of ‘86 was the end of my first year at HWS.  My good friend and I had crushes on some boys that were into the Dead.  We spent a good amount of time skanking to the Dead and smoking a good amount of weed that spring.  HWS had a fairly infamous, or famous,  Folk Festival every spring on the quad.  It was a huge, wild, fun weekend.  And always coincided with the heart of lacrosse season, so there was usually a game that weekend, and if I recall correctly some parties at The Barn.  Folk Fest always featured some Dead cover bands.  I think the most popular one was called Milk?  I cannot recall for sure and so far no one has been able to confirm this for me. I thought they were from Syracuse.  For some reason central New York is a hotbed of Deadheads.  Fraternities also had huge spring parties, like Thetes Rites of Spring bacchanalia that featured Dead cover bands as well. Oh my gosh to go back to being twenty or twenty one years old, footloose and fancy free, wild and young and a warm, sunny spring weekend. Good times were had drinking, dancing, flirting.  For every hour spent in Smith Library studying and writing reports there was an opposite and unequal amount of partying.  Spring in the Finger Lakes is pretty spectacular.  

The Dead toured that year, of course they did, so we made plans to get to the show at Rich Stadium in Orchard Park.   I think my parents bought me my ticket, and one for the above-mentioned friend.  She lived in Syracuse and so would have to travel to the stadium.  I don’t know why we didn’t make better plans but for some reason we didn’t and I never ended up finding her or getting her her ticket.  This was only the second time I had been to a concert at the stadium and I don’t know what I was expecting or thinking, but duh, we should have made more firm plans.  Anyway, I traveled to the show with a bunch of my hometown friends, baked, both literally and figuratively on a blanket center field, was awed by the goings on around me, and generally had a fucking blast.  So, back to the boys….Jonah and Chris. I crushed on Jonah and my friend had a situationship with Chris. We met up that summer in the ‘Cuse at Sutter’s Old Mill for their Dead night when I went to visit my friend for a weekend. I read that Chris passed away quite a few years ago and I have no idea what happened to Jonah, but thanks, guys, for the awesome memories of dancing like maniacs in your dorm room to the Dead, Stevie Wonder,  Bob Marley and some other groovy music.

Fall of 1986….. I had a crush, unhealthy situationship with an adorable fellow from New Jersey.  Bad choice, Kara.  I was smitten and slightly obsessed.  I first had a sort of thing with his room-mate… yeah, dumb….but then developed a thing for T. He was cute.  We had fun in his car parked late at night at the sunken gardens out at Houghton House.  I think it was the sex that had me hooked rather than any real basis of a relationship.  Anyway, for some reason I always associate The Cure with this time in my life.  The Cure is perfect for when you are a heartbroken 20 year old “in love” with the wrong person.  Of course it wasn’t love, it was juvenile something-or-other.  But I was crushed badly when it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. Like I was wrecked. At that time in my life I was not good at managing my energy.  I leaked it all over the place.  Something I am still working on today forty fucking years later. Good grief!  Let’s Go to Bed, In Between Days, Boys Don’t Cry– I sure did a lot of crying, lol.  These songs remind me of a precious and fragile time in my life.  A lot of growing up was happening at that time.  Another band that got me through the grief was Steely Dan.  We listened to this all through the winter of late ‘86 and early ‘87, sitting in the hallway, studying, smoking Camels, lamenting boys. Peg. Josie. The entire Aja album.  Black Cow. Oh, my gosh.  Those songs got me through until I found myself again.  And of course I found more boys.  Boys who actually liked me. That spring I was introduced to the boy who would introduce me to more Dead, particularly Scarlet Begonias and Fire on the Mountain, my absolute most favorite Grateful Dead songs to this day.  I always think of him when I hear these.  I often wonder if he still listens to The Dead.  I lost touch with him a long time ago when I was an insensitive asshole and broke up with him in a careless manner.  I feel really shitty about that. Sometimes when I’m overthinking and wonder,  if I could take it back, what would have been the trajectory of my life?  But maybe we weren’t meant to be together forever.  The universe does move in mysterious ways. Anyway, we spent a lot of time listening to Traffic’s John Barleycorn Must Die, and Low Spark of the High Heeled Boys,  Merle Haggard, in addition to The Dead and basically had a pretty intense two and a half year relationship.  He was a very good guy.  

Random other music memories from the spring of 1987:

Aerosmith and Run DMC and Beastie Boys blasting while playing suck me and blow me. Whaahh! On a spring evening, in gloaming.  Oh, drinking games….another topic for another day.