The Wheel is Turning
Strolling through the dust, commotion, craziness, and magic of the Oregon Country Fair this Sunday, I thought about the Grateful Dead. They performed at the Fair 41 years ago, presented by the Springfield Creamery, Sue and Chuck (brother of Ken) Kesey’s beloved company and home of Nancy’s Yogurt. And there, my friends (especially those of you not from around these parts), you have the quintessential countercultural trifecta. You know you want to see the playlist. Here it is.
In fact, the Dead had been out to the Fair 10 years before that, in August of 1972, when Sue and Chuck hit a rough patch, and the Creamery was in trouble. They went down to San Francisco to ask the Dead whether they’d put on a benefit show to help out. The Keseys took over what is now one of the parking lots at the Fair site; volunteers showed up to construct a stage; and the voluble Merry Prankster, Ken Babbs, emceed. It was 100 degrees. The band played a 31-minute rendition of Dark Star. An estimated 20,000 folks sprawled across the meadow. Tickets sold for $3.00.
That was a much longer aside than I was planning to write. Back to me walking the hot, dusty path looking at a man in pink fuzzy short shorts with a pig snout attached to his nose. Oh. No. I mean back to me hearing Dead songs in my head, in particular this one, from 1996:
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Lyrics stay with you, or with me anyway, because they touch some place deep inside. The wheel is turning—whatever that means to you. I know what it means to me. And going back or standing still are not options. Especially the “going back” part. As weary as I have become of irony these days, I am wearier still of nostalgia. If I thought my best days were behind me, I would, in fact, “let go.” But I am too curious about what might be next to do that. I also know, a very hard lesson of the last two years, that you can’t hold on either. Because the wheel is turning.