by Tess Coffey, Assistant to the GM, WXPN

1995 should have been the greatest year in my memory. It had the potential. I was finally marrying my obsession of 8 years; slow start to a hurried and final ending. And 1995 would see the close of the only department store that I ever loved, John Wanamaker’s. But what hurt more was when I heard the intro to “He’s Gone.” The great American band leader, Jerry Garcia died. That August, “Cold Snow and Rain” fell. “Well she went up to her room where she sang her faithful tune. Well I’m goin where those chilly winds don’t blow.” We watched every news offering on his death, taped a brilliant Jerry bio PBS showed on television and watched it over and over again, rewind, play. We watched the skeleton covered in roses live again with his guitar. We called friends and took the El to Independence Mall at 5th and Chestnut where Dead Heads gathered to say an unexpected goodbye. The Philadelphia Police Department kept an appreciated distance from the quiet, saddened crowd on that August 9. This was the same crowd they’d watched for trouble and drugs at the Spectrum, so many times, but tonight this crowd gathered in mourning. We watched as the brilliant, round, white face of the moon came around the Penn Mutual Insurance building’s south east edge and cried out in recognition of a new ghost, “Jerry!” And we sang Cumberland Blues, “I can’t stay much longer, Melinda, the sun is getting high.” Incense burned, candles burned, bongos beat and we moved on. The night told us, “He’s Gone, Goin’ where the wind don’t blow so strange, Maybe off on some high cold mountain chain.” I’m remembering watching The Grateful Dead play Bird Song late that night on that PBS show, “Don’t cry now, don’t you cry, don’t you cry anymore. Sleep in the stars, don’t you cry, dry your eyes on the wind.” Sleep in the stars, Jerry.