Kevin Arrow - Grateful Dead Tape Covers
August 1983 I was in my early twenties and drove cross-country from Miami to Oregon listening to Grateful Dead bootleg audio cassettes and coloring in "J-cards", the cardboard inserts with audio cassettes in the back of a Ford Country Squire Station Wagon. My friends and I stopped to see numerous Grateful Dead shows along the way. #SummerTour
We were ultimately heading to a Merry Prankster reunion concert hosted by the Springfield Creamery at Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene Oregon.
No one had tickets. When we arrived in Eugene we took up a donation from friends to buy art supplies so I could make counterfeit tickets. Graphic design was part of the experience: tie dye tee shirts, bumper stickers, flyers. The bootleg ticket makers were a small subset of people within the deadhead community.
We all got into the auditorium without a problem.
I saw Ken Kesey standing in the lobby and I approached him to say hi, introduce myself and explain how I made bootleg tickets to get in and that I drove from Miami to Eugene to see the shows. He told me to go to his family owned Springfield Creamery the next day to pick up free passes for the other shows. Little did I realize that the tickets were for the orchestra pit sitting amongst all of these older prankster friends along with Ken Kesey.
Fast forward to 1984 and Ken Kesey is speaking at the Miami International Book Fair. I go to hear him speak and I wait until he is finished to say hello. Not only does he recognize me, he remembers my name and asks me questions about the driving route we took back from Oregon to Miami.
Ken Kesey remembered my trip.
