“Kermit” parked at a campsite in the Nevada outback.

While I was working towards my B.A. in Anthropology at the University of Oregon I had many opportunities to see the Grateful Dead. They played often in the area. The first Dead concert I attended was in 1968, when I was a high school senior. Although I never considered myself a “Deadhead,” their record albums were on regular rotation at the places I lived while in college, along with Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, Pink Floyd, and other popular rock and jazz bands of the era. I lived with musicians most of my years at the university, and our record collection was certainly more diverse and eclectic than most of our peers. I’ve never been in any bands that played their music, but I have always admired the Grateful Dead’s commitment and musical integrity.

When I travel the high deserts and Great Basin region I often encounter other campers and travelers who attended the U of O, or live in Eugene. I suppose the progressive, liberal culture of the university and Eugene has had a great effect on how I view the world, for I always feel an immediate connection to those people.

The recent death of Bob Weir reminds me of an encounter I had the summer of 2023 at a remote and undeveloped hot springs in Nevada. I drove up a long, dusty dirt road to the unmarked place. An old Volkswagen bus was the only other vehicle present. Dozens of Grateful Dead of stickers covered the entire back of the machine.

There were only two people in the hot springs, a couple my age or older. As manners and custom dictated I asked if I could join them, and they replied that there was plenty of room and I was welcome. The water was waist high, and the temperature perfect.

In the course of a rambling conversation about favorite hot springs and camping locations, Nevada history (my mother grew up in Nevada), music, and the sorry state of American politics, the man revealed that he had attended the U of O two of the same years I had been there. He told me he had gone to one of the Grateful Dead concerts, dropped out of college the next day, packed up his things, and began following the band. Eventually he got a job as a stage hand and sort of assistant bodyguard (he was a big man). He toured with the Dead for ten years, and he and his wife met at a Grateful Dead concert. Nearly fifty years later he was still married to the white-haired woman sitting next to him in the hot springs.

They went on to tell me their van used to be plastered with a variety of bumper stickers, mostly for progressive causes—women’s reproductive rights, anti-war, etc. But while traveling through some towns and rural areas MAGA cultists and other right-wingers, usually driving big Dodge Ram pickups or flatbed trucks would honk, flip them off, or even crowd them off the road. So they removed all the stickers except the Grateful Dead ones. After that they got smiles and high fives everywhere they went. It seems even the rednecks loved the Dead!

We were just three strangers meeting by chance in the middle of nowhere, lured by a mutual love of hot springs, and remote high desert camping, and finding an even deeper connection—another testament to the power of music to unite us. Long live the Dead!