That’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, 4/12/78, Second Set, in case you’re wondering. And it’s the Grateful Dead, of course. A while back, I told the Subdude that I thought one of the appealing things about the Dead was how they had a sense of the apocalyptic without seeming too bummed out about it. That may seem like an oxymoron unless what you think might get destroyed in the apocalypse maybe wasn’t worth all the fight to preserve it. In my own private apocalypses (apocalypti?) I’ve certainly found that to be true. Whatever it was that I was trying to hold onto, to preserve in the face of utter annihilation, was totally not worth whatever came in the wake of the flood.
So it wasn’t any surprise to me when Rosa Lee brought “Truckin'” into the conversation about the End Times today. That song is as familiar to me in a soothsaying context as whatever obscure passage it was that they used on “The World Tomorrow” to compare the Soviet Union to the prophecied bear that would come from the north to destroy Israel. Whenever Truckin’ comes into the zeitgeist, it’s time to get ready to move. It might be a moment of darkness or it might be a moment of blinding light that tells us it’s time to move on, but it’s only in retrospect that we can take stock of how long and how strange the trip has been.
In the end, however, we are all headed home. Maybe not to stay. Maybe just long enough to patch our bones. But rest assured, there is that place where each of us belongs. We’re restless types, so we might have to go out and get our trucking on again. Whether that’s your thing or if you want to settle down is totally a soul calling, not really basis for judgement. The important thing is to keep rolling and appreciate the journey.