Turtle Crossing Kayak Rentals

59 years ago tonight - Mickey Hart joined the Grateful Dead and came to live with Phil and me at this house on Belvedere Street, where all we could offer him was a tiny closet under the stairs leading to the landlord's upstairs flat.

An excerpt from my book - "Dancing with the Dead" - tells part of that story:
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“The night in September that New Yorker Mickey Hart was swept into the band as a second drummer, (after jamming with them at Haight Street’s converted vaudeville and film house, the Straight Theater), Phil and I invited him to sleep in the tiny space under the stairs that led to the landlord’s flat. It was no larger than the size of a single mattress, only a few feet high at its highest and certainly not great, but it’s all we could offer him.

He had only a sleeping bag, a flashlight, a radio, his rubber practice pad and his drumsticks. He also had candles, incense and matches, but I reasoned him out of using those in that tiny, enclosed space. He’d pull the door nearly shut, turn on the tiny lamp I gave him to use, sit cross-legged on his mattress and practice on the rubber pad for hours.

He had a hard time sleeping during the day, as the landlord’s adolescent son kept running up and down the stairs right above his face, never quietly. Mickey would occasionally bang on the underside of the stairs with a broom handle and yell at the boy. Once, exasperated, he crawled out of the closet, jumped to his feet and ran out the door to chase the boy down the street with the broom. He didn’t really want to catch him—he just wanted to make a point.

Mickey later told me about an incident that happened when the Dead played at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. during Clinton’s presidency. Mickey had been hanging out in his onstage “cubby”—a small room-like area each band member had behind the gear—and he’d wandered out to get ready to go onstage.

A straight-looking guy in his late thirties walked up to Mickey, pointed at him and said, “17th and Belvedere!” Mickey looked at him quizzically.

“You remember that kid you used to chase down the street with a broom when you lived at that house?” He pointed back at himself, “I was that kid!”

Mickey took a step back, eyebrows raised, and asked, “Who are you?”

The man introduced himself as the head of Clinton’s Secret Service detail. For one extremely rare moment, Mickey was speechless."

(c) Rosie McGee, Dancing with the Dead, All Rights Reserved

(For information about and to order that early-days Grateful Dead memoir - "Dancing with the Dead" (or its sequel or both as a bundle) - go to my website: https://rosiemcgee.com/collections/rosie-mcgees-books

- Rosie

🙈😜🤣