Bertha, Eddie and My Brother

Today my iPod was cued to ‘random’ when Los Lobos’ version of Bertha caught my ears by surprise. It was from that moment and song that this recollection showed up.

My brother and his friend Eddie loved the Grateful Dead and in the early 80’s when the Dead where playing a run of shows at Brenden Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands they had tickets. Each night the preshow parking lot was filled with Dead Heads, gypsies, fans and over night entrepreneurs from East Rutherford cashing in on the influx of The Following, making grill cheese and flipping veggie burgers. Both Eddie and my brother had been celebrating for hours, not that these two needed a parking lot full of helium balloons, pot brownies, grill cheese makers or the make shift vendor village to celebrate. They grew up in the suburbs at a time when kids roamed after and created fun. It was real life social networking and they never lacked in finding or providing it themselves. It flowed naturally within the geography of the Meadowlands infiltrating the surrounding towns and had far reaching effects on character building. And these two were characters. On a recent camping trip, they had spent all day canoeing and exploring the Delaware and all night with another famous and historic liquid, beer, which they consumed until they were toasted by the campfire. My brother was the only camper who did not sleep in a tent preferring a hammock under the stars. Around 3 am when the sky opened up and the monsoon arrived, he twisted out of the hammock, stumbled to the canoe, found his life jacket, put it on and went back to sleep in the hammock. Eddie had watched this peering out from his tent and would explain to Michael the next morning when he wondered aloud why he woke with his life jacket on. On the night of the Dead show however, once inside the arena, Eddie and my brother found their seats, way up in the balcony. So now these two, who were quite high are way up in the balcony. I felt the need to point out the obvious there. At some point after the music started they separated and soon after the Dead began to jam on Bertha. It was during the jam that Eddie heard his name being called over the microphone. Alone and believing he was being paged; he began a long spiral descent through dancing and twirling dead head women, concert folk and security from the balcony toward the lower levels of the arena. He was stopped by security but managed to keep going toward the stage insisting that his name was being called and his friend was missing.

He reached the seats on the floor of the arena just when the song was ending. It was at that moment he stopped hearing his name being called and he found my brother who had earlier meandered down into the crowd. He also found out that the lyric Jerry was singing was actually, “Bertha don’t you come around here, any more”. My brother had to explain to Eddie Moore that he wasn’t being paged he was just hearing the song as…...Bertha don’t you come around here, Eddie Moore…….

I’m sure those two shared more stories that I’ll never know. They shared friendship, the love of camping and canoeing; countless beers and ultimately they shared pancreatic cancer. When my brother was too sick to be left alone, his wife had to work and my Dad on occasion couldn’t come by, Eddie would keep him company not knowing that he too had the same disease that would be diagnosed three months after my brothers death. That’s a long sentence but it’s not my fault. The universe made it that way, not me. Within four months of each other they each left beautiful daughters who were just shy of their teenage years in this parallel universe filed with stories, forget-me–nots, Love and tears. Happy Birthday Michael. This picture is from the first time I ever saw you, when Mommy brought you home.

I’m sending Love and Light to you and Eddie and I’m going to play the Dead’s version of Bertha and dance like angels are with me ;) and all that because I may very well be a character too………