jerry garcia died of a heart attack 14 years ago today

how strange was it that jerry garcia's long strange (beautiful) trip ended with a heart attack at a residential drug treatment center on august 9, 1994? garcia had celebrated his 53rd birthday - and had played his last concert with the grateful dead a month earlier, on july 9, at soldier field in chicago. a life cut way too short.

1995 was a very significant year in my life. garcia's untimely death that summer was but one small memory in a tapestry that included the death of my father, followed by birth of my daughter, and a fire in the st. george cooperative apartment building that we lived in at the time. that fire (and, ironically, the resulting water damage from the fire fighting efforts) left us among the sizable chunk of building residents physically displaced for a few months while our apartments were reconstructed.

1995 is not a year that i'll ever forget.

r.i.p. jerry garcia