ROCKIN' thru the Grushkin archives

I'm particularly proud of the psychedelic-era photos featured in ROCKIN'. Why? Because that's MY era. I was a Dead Head and proud of it. So to find a photo of Neal Casady piloting the Prankster bus, or the photo Zane Kesey took of his Dad, Ken, sparking up the ghost of Jerry Garcia . . . well, I can relate to all that big time. Not to mention, my first book was GRATEFUL DEAD BOOK OF THE DEAD HEADS (and Jerry wrote the foreword to that one).

Also there in Chapter Five (on pages 144 - 145) is a photo of Norman Ruth's Terrapin Trailways bus, outta New Mexico. I got to know Norman and the extended travelin' family back in the early '80s, when the DEAD HEADS book was in its formative stages. In the photo here, taken by Ken Friedman of Bill Graham Presents, that's me with Norman outside the Berkeley Greek Theater in the summer of 1984, a year after the book was published. Interestingly (for anybody interested), THE BOOK OF THE DEAD HEADS went through 16 US printings, and was never out of print for more than 23 years. ROCKIN'--I expect no less from you too!