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I've told this story a couple of times on Daily Kos before this, but never in as much detail, and never, to the best of my knowledge, with audio.
Some background: I worked concert security for Bill Graham Presents for fifteen years, from 1980-1995. I was a known Deadhead and spent several years as head security on the Grateful Dead's soundbooth, at the request of Dan Healy, who was then the head soundman.
My father was Kent Curtis, the head of the computer research grants division at the National Science Foundation, and in the last year of his life, chief scientist at NSF. He spent much of that year writing the text of the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, which was then passed by Congress and which the government has been trying to water down ever since. Before I was born, when he was in grad school studying physics, my father had been Edward Teller's special chosen grad student, but he and Teller had a major falling out over nuclear weapons (my father abhorred them) and my father left physics and went into mathematics and computers. By the time I was born he was the head of mathematics and computer research at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, then known as the Lawrence Radiation Lab or the Rad Lab for short; my first experiences with computers came about because of my dad, who took me up to the Rad Lab with him starting very early and let me play with the keypunch machines. One of my early memories is doing that when I was about three.
Step back in time with me a bit, to December 1987. My father had breast cancer that had metastasized to his bones, and I'd been to visit him for a couple of weeks that summer for what was almost certainly the last time (and was). This was before the days of the Internet, and my email account was on UseNet. But thanks to a friend of mine on staff at U.C. Berkeley, I had another account on DARPAnet, so I could email back and forth with my dad, and we corresponded pretty frequently.
I'd just turned 28 on the 10th, and was in what had become a pretty crappy relationship, but I had computer access, at least, which helped to ease the pain because I could talk with friends about what was going on in relative privacy. A week later, I got a call from my brother telling me that our dad was dead. I felt like someone had clubbed me, hard, atop my head. My head started to throb as if in pain, and I felt something icy clutching at my heart, then pain in my chest, but I was physically fine, just in a state of emotional shock. It had not been unexpected at some point, but is there ever a point at which you know, deep down, that the end is today, or tomorrow, when you're all the way across the country on the opposite coast? Especially when you've known the end was coming for a bit over three years?
I broke down crying, but felt I really couldn't cry for him as I thought he deserved. I had customers in my lover's store to wait on, things to do, and was alone in the store at the time. I did what I had to do and was unable to cry for him after that for a week and a half, not until something else happened. It's the "something else" that is the tale.
As I said earlier, I spent fifteen years working concert security for Bill Graham Presents, a concert promoter and producer in San Francisco. Most of the big-name shows that came through the Bay Area were BGP shows, and the Grateful Dead, my favorite band, was one of the bands he'd worked with longest; we generally had fifteen or more Dead shows every year, often four or five nights in rapid succession, and always a New Year's Eve run was a part of the year's festivities. That year, there were four shows in the five nights just before and including New Year's Eve, one of them ten days after my father's death. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through them.
During my father's infrequent visits to the West Coast, I had sometimes played for him some of the music I enjoyed, including the Grateful Dead. I chose things that were pretty songs rather than their extended free-form jams, but knowing that my father had an eclectic and educated taste in music, thought he might come to like them as well. He did, in fact, preferring the songs to the extended jams, and I had invited him to come to a show with me sometime. He was too ill to take me up on that and never in town when they played, anyway.
A friend of mine was the chief soundman for the Dead, and the other members of the sound crew were friends as well. In fact, it was my then-lover who had ensured that I and my skillful work with people and delicate situations came to the attention of the crew, who were all friends of his. Christmas Day found us over at the home of the chief soundman, Dan Healy, and his wife, teen daughter, and their infant son. Dan and I wound up sitting at the kitchen table talking about my father and his death.
Dad had had a standing invitation from Dan for free tickets for himself and his family to come to a Grateful Dead show at any time he could go; all I would have had to do is notify the crew and I had ways of doing so. He was invited to not only attend the show but to sit on the couch at the sound booth, a rare honor. My father's cancer never permitted that, either, and he never saw them live, nor did he ever meet Dan. Dan had hoped to meet him someday and talk about things like my father's work with computers; Dad was the head of the computer research grants division for the National Science Foundation and was responsible for funding the research that led to many of the things many people now consider important in computers, such as the mouse. But he had enjoyed the Grateful Dead's music, and I had made certain to send him some.
So over a good wine and snacks on the night of Christmas Day, I related to Dan what had transpired with my father, and when, and we got to talking about things like funeral arrangements and music. My Dad hadn't wanted a funeral, nor did he want any of us to travel cross-country to be there; he wanted a simple memorial service and a cremation rather than a grave. He thought elaborate funerals were a waste of money and a coffin a form of ensuring a long life for trash in the earth that would be better off disposed of (in his eyes) properly. There was music he wanted played, and music he did not, specifically anything funereal.
One thing the Dead often did when someone that they knew died was to play a specific song, "He's Gone", but knowing what my Dad had requested, knew that that wasn't his idea of a good song for a memorial. I did know his favorite Dead song, though, since we'd talked about just that, and mentioned it: "Uncle John's Band". This song is one that, back in that time, the Dead didn't play more than once during a set of shows; every show was different, and they played many, many different songs during the course of a run.
December 27, 1987 was the first show of four over the course of five nights, and as usual, I was head of security for the sound and lights booth. I knew most of the guests who would come to hang out in the sound booth area, not just the crew, and part of my job was to be diplomatic about asking people to leave that area when it got too crowded. I was able to do so in such a way that it made them feel welcomed and wanted even as I was kicking them out, no easy task. I also had to know who to ask, and when, since there were some who were never asked to leave. It was a job with a lot of responsibility and one which required a lot of skill in talking to people and convincing them to do what was required.
The show started, and the first set was without major events that I can remember. It was a good show; the Dead were solid, playing well together. The aisle around the soundbooth was clear and the Deadheads standing nearby were taking responsibility to keep it that way, as I had requested they do; when you want someone to do something, tell them why and they will usually cooperate if they think it's a good reason. The reason we needed an aisle around the booth and to the front of stage was so medical personnel could get up to the front of stage quickly in case someone there was overcome with "crowd syndrome" in the crush of people at the front of the stage. I told this to all the Deadheads standing near the soundbooth and asked for their help in keeping this aisle clear for that reason; they were all happy to cooperate and to do so, and throughout the show, would ask people who decided to stand in the aisle to keep it clear. It made life a lot easier for all my security folks around the perimeter of the soundbooth and for the medical personnel from Rock Medicine. (Like everyone on soundbooth security except me, everyone from Rock Medicine was a volunteer.)
Set break: nothing unusual, except that I had a difficult time not crying every time I thought about my dad. It was still a raw place in my soul and would be for a long time, I thought. I wanted something to happen, some way to help him go, as I still felt him somewhat near, watching. This was strange because when I was seven, he moved clear across the country, and made it very clear when I was fifteen that the family he considered important to him was the one he had with my stepmother and their daughters. (I have little to no contact with my half-sisters to this day, but my sister Sandy does.) So why I felt him near me, I don't know or understand, but the feeling was there. It was as if his spirit was waiting for something, something specific.
And then the second set started. The Grateful Dead launched into "Playing in the Band", something they often started a set with, and which often went into a second song, that song. "Uncle John's Band". And they did; they segued into "Uncle John's Band". At that moment, Howard, a friend of mine who worked on the sound crew, came off the soundbooth platform and took me by the hand. He summoned a security volunteer over and told him to watch the booth entrance, something which was my job. He led me by the hand up to the soundbooth mixer, where Dan Healy took off his headphones and placed them on my head so that I could hear the board feed. They left me there, watching the show, dancing gently, crying. Crying because I felt my dad near. Crying because I felt him going home, crossing over to where spirits go after they die. (In my tradition, it is the Summerlands.) I felt my father going home during the song and knew it was for him that it was played; why else would the sound crew have taken me by the hand and led me up there, and placed the headphones on my head for that specific song?
After the show, I went up to Dan and said "thank you". He replied "you're welcome", and I knew then for certain that it had been his doing. He had asked the Dead to be sure and play that song ten days after my father died, as a memorial to him. Dan never met my father, nor did any of the Grateful Dead, but they played it for him, and for me, that night. "Uncle John's Band" was a song played once during a run, during the time I was working at Dead shows, but this run they played it twice: once for my father, on 12/27/87, and once on New Year's Eve.
I never felt him near me after that. "Uncle John's Band" had been the trigger that helped him cross over. And the raw place within my own soul faded, healed, and let me be at peace, knowing my dad's spirit was where he needed to be.
Here's a link to the show; go to this site and select "Uncle John's Band" to hear the song. I can't embed audio from this site and have never been able to find a link to this performance of this song elsewhere, so please go to the site and enjoy the streaming audio.
And thank you for letting me share this story with you. To this day, I still miss having a father; but to this day, I remember feeling his spirit going home.