Goodbye, Sandy

Thank you for all the kind wishes, everyone. I'm sure it's going to take awhile for me to process this loss and I'm ok with the grief because it proves what she meant to me. While talking to Steve last night, he reminded me of a great adventure that he, Sandy, myself and my then fiancee had. I will flesh it out later but it started in Monclair, NJ at 10 pm on a Friday night and included attending the Heatwave Festival outside of Toronto on Sat and making it back for dinner with my soon to be wife's parents at 5 pm on Sunday in Livingston, NJ. Back when we were young. 

Sandy and I were both music nuts. We would discuss any and all releases and took great pride in finding something new and then let the other know about it. This really manifested itself in my junior year of high school when I was the music director of our high school radio station. Our radio station was an actual broadcast one, not just on campus. Because of that, I would get a non-stop supply of new releases, often before they were available to general public. I would take them home for a few days to listen and write up a review for the on air djs so they could work them into their rotation. When I became a senior, Sandy became the new music director and we continued our quest for something to turn the other on to. 

After Sandy graduated, she got a job as a studio manager at SIR (Studio Instrument Rentals) in NYC, so sometimes she would call me in to hear what some group had recorded recently before in became an album. Cool stuff. When Heatwave was announced it was referred to as the New Wave/Punk Woodstock. The lineup was thick with the latest and greatest...The Clash, B-52s, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders and more. I wanted to go but couldn't find others who did. I was on the phone with Sandy and she informed me that SIR was providing the sound system for the festival and she might be able to get free passes for me. She called back in 30 mins and said that she had as many passes as she needed but she had to go since she was getting them. Her, Steve, myself and fiance all got hooked up. Steve wasn't able to leave until 10 pm from his apartment so we loaded my Chrysler land yacht and waited to shove off. The one thing that we were lacking was a supply of drugs. That was back in the days that there would be droughts of pot. All of us tried everything we could and we ended up with exactly two joints and three hits of blotter. We had the make the best of it so we decided to take nothing until on the festival grounds. The only thing that caused us some concern was getting through customs. I had a pair of ratty moccasins that had it's leather delaminating so I tucked the joints in between the layers. Steve had a cut on his hand so he put the blotter in the gauze of a band aid, then putting it on his hand. We worried about nothing because we were waved thru after asking where we were going. Customs took under 5 mins. Drove to Mosport International Speedway outside of Toronto and went into the concert with the first wave of vehicles. Got a great spot close, but not too close to the stage and settled in for many hours of music. It was one of the beautiful late summer days with bright sun and not a lot of humidity. Around 4 pm we decided to drop the acid and as we were talking about it a topless blonde godess was walking in the grass in front of us that had late summer grasshoppers parting like the Red Sea around her. It was like a slo-,mo movie sequence. After we all asked the others if we actually saw what we just saw, we went back to time to take our meager supply except Steve was giggling non-stop. Steve had used the facilities earlier and after he did his business, washed his hands...soaking the bandaid and dissolving the LSD which had been seeping into his cut. Neither Sandy or I had any desire to cut up the bandaid so Steve proceeded to pup the whole thing into his mouth and he was off the the races. 

Regardless, the music was great. As the sun was setting, The Talking Heads came on stage. They had just finished recording Remain In Light and was premiering those songs before the album came out.. It was also the first time the band expanded into what ended up becoming the Stop Making Sense movie lineup. Nobody expected it and everyone was agog and what transpired. As they jammed hard with the new afro-beats the moon rose over the stage. I may not have been tripping but the effect of music and moonrise was damn close. The Clash had border difficulties and had to cancel which was a bummer. We left the concert just before midnight while The Kings were playing (Switch Into Glide/The Beat Goes On) so we didn't get caught in post concert traffic jams. Got on the road, took turns driving, slept at a gas station until it opened to fuel up and made it back to NJ in time for dinner on Sunday. Can't say I was much of a conversationalist that night. I was beat. And wouldn't you know, as soon as I got back to my apartment I got a call saying they had a bag of weed for me!