ARTICLE: Jerry with the Koons family, from Palm Beach Post
Doug Scofield
"A & E" section. Deborah Koons Garcia's family is from Palm Beach
County.
[reproduced without permission.]
REMEMBERING UNCLE JERRY
When the Grateful dead's Jerry Garcia visited family here, he gave
what was most precious to him: his time and love.
By Scott Benarde, Palm Beach Post Music Writer
He was quiet, low key, even a bit of a klutz. You know, the kind of
guy who always knocks his knife or fork off the dinner table or bumps
into coffee tables because he's got so many ideas whirling through his
mind.
He resembled a rock 'n' roll Einstein as he ambled around Palm BVeach
casually dressed in his favorite anti-fashionable purple T-shirt and
black pants. (He returned the expensive silk outfit his wife bought
for him at a stylish Worth Avenue shop.) His head of unruly silver
hair, often rebelling against a comb, also stood out; his white beard
added a touch of Santa-like joviality to his appearance.
Hwe also was affectionate, almost doting, especially when it came to
his nieces, West Palm Beach teenagers Maura, Kathleen and Caroline
Koons. He would tell them stories of his childhood, even how his
older brother accidentally cut off the tip of his left middle finger
when he was 7.
To Maura and her sisters, he was Uncle Jerry first, and Jerry Garcia,
lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, second.
While the rock music world lost an icon when Garcia died from a heart
attack on Aug. 9 at age 53, the Koons sisters lost family. Garcia had
married their Aunt Deborah on Valentine's Day 1994. She had known the
hippie San Francisco rocker for more than 20 years.
[picture of Jerry with several young teenagers, his arms around a
couple of them.]
[picture of bears-over-the-mountain-under-the-rainbow T-shirt signed
"TO MAURA, LOVE: uncle JERRY".]
Caption: Maura Koons (second from left, front) and her friends visit
Jerry Garcia backstage at the Miami Arena in 1994. At right is a
T-shirt he autographed for Maura.
Garcia was 'a natural entertainer'
[picture of Jerry with three teenage women, his arms around two of
them.]
Caption: Kathleen Koons (right) brought a couple of friends backstage
to see her uncle, Jerry Garcia, at the Miami Arena in April 1994.
Maura and Jerry "seemed like real good buddies. He seemed very
concerned about her and her about him. They were holding hands,
watching out for each other and cracking jokes," says Boys Club owner
Rick Wently of the time the two visited his Palm Beach store last
February.
From what Maura and other members of West Palm Beach City Commisioner
Jeff Koons' family say, Garcia relished his role as an uncle more than
his role as a rock star. When he came to town, Uncle Jerry was
gracious to a fault.
He was most generous with that which was most precious: his time. And
he gave it to those most precious to him: his family.
When asked, he autographed Grateful Dead T-shirts for the Koons
sisters' school auctions. (One shirt was auctioned for $1,000.)
During Florida concerts, Garcia invited Maura, 13, Kathleen, 15, and
Caroline, 17, to visit backstage, even ride with the group to and from
the gig and stay overnight in the band's hotel.
(Garcia and his nieces had a great laugh together last April while
riding through a crowd of Deadheads at Tampa Stadium. A fan peered
through a window and, thinking the sisters were groupies, shouted,
"Look at the chicks with the band!")
Private time before shows
Garcia even made time for his nieces and their friends at Grateful
Dead concerts.
"He liked to have private time before the shows," Kathleen says. "But
in between sets, he talked to my friends and asked whether they had
any requests."
On the other hand, he did not suffer fools gladly backstage. Kathleen
recalls Uncle Jerry becoming miffed when a fan asked, "When is a
little Jerry going to come along?"
Her uncle's anser, she says, was "'This is pathetic,' and he walked
off with our little group. I was proud."
A painter and designer as well as musician, Garcia gave drawing tips
to Maura, an art student at the Palm Beach County School of the Arts.
"He looked at my work and he showed me a few things. He said, 'You
should shade more in here, be more free with your hand.' I said,
'Wow, OK, cool.'"
Garcia gave the Koons sisters gifts of his artwork. Maura's is a
drawing of "a gorgeous sunrise over the mountains" titled _Sunrise
From the Hilton_, sketched while on tour.
Kathleen remembers Garcia always carrying a small sketch book. He
would take it out while waiting in the family car during shopping
trips around the area. And while hanging around the house he also
would noodle on the family piano.
"He was a klutz," she said. "He would pour water on himself, knock
silverware off the table. He was the funniest person I ever met in my
life. He would play piano at the house. He was a natural entertainer
and always had me in stitches."
Garcia's history of drug use and heroin addiction didn't affect the
family's love for him.
"He was the nicest guy I ever met," eldest sister Caroline, 17, says.
"You've never met a person that you immediately recall being so nice
-- and not because of who he was -- something about him immediately
made you fall in love with him.
"I feel bad for people who knew him through his shows and creativity,
but never got to know him as a person. He made me feel comfortable."
Garcia dined with the Koons family at home and at Palm Beach eateries
Amici and Bice. He was self-conscious about being recognized, yet he
stood out in his favorite outfit: that purple T-shirt-black-jeans
combo. Still, "He was comfortable here because lots of people didn't
know him," says 15-year-old Kathleen Koons. One one occasion Garcia
appeared relieved when singer Robert Goulet, dining in the same
restaurant, got more attention.
'He could laugh at himself'
Dinner conversation included a spectrum of subjects including Garcia's
short, AWOL-filled stint in the Army.
"He was a member of a Nike missile battery definding (against) Russian
bomers in 1960 or '61," Jeff Koons recalls, "and he joked that
(becuase of him) 'The Russians never bombed San Francisco.'
"He could laugh at himself," Koons adds. "And I never heard him say
anything negative -- except about crazy tabloid reports. He was
frustrated with that -- or if a concert didn't reach a level he
thought it should, like the Tampa concert, he would be self-critical."
One of Kathleen's favorite impressions is how her aunt and uncle "were
an inseparable couple in every way, like newlyweds all the time."
She did see Garcia become upset one time.
"I never saw them fight except when she forgot to send the limo to
pick him up for the wedding," Kathleen recalls. "He was late for the
wedding. He just came in and said, 'I'm really mad,' and shut the
dressing room door and left and the wedding went on and that's it."
It lasted a glorious couple of years. Garcia died of a hart attack in
his sleep in a Marin County drug rehabilitation center.
In the nights following his death, Maura says, "I lit a candle and
said a prayer for him. I was crying most of the time."
'Started on another journey'
Garcia had made plans to return to West Palm Beach in the spring to
scuba dive and perform at SunFest with Bruce Hornsby. [!!!!!!] The
private memorial service at St. Stevens [sic] Church in Tiberon,
Calif. -- attended by Hornsby and Bob Dylan, among others -- was a
celebration of life, says Jeff Koons. "People weren't down."
Minister Matthew Fox set the tone remarking that, "Jerry has started
on another journey." Each band member stood and spoke. So did
Deborah Koons Garcia.
"Deborah was very brave," Maura says, "to stand up and say her
spoeech. She said it was, 'His body that gave up on him, and his
spirit wanted to live. We recognize him through his body, but his
spirit kept him alive.'"
Jeff Koons remembers mandolin player David Grisman and the Gery Garcia
Band playing _Amazing Grace_ and other spirituals -- and how the sun
kept streaming through the church windows.
[end]
doog
--
doug scofield @-`-,-- do...@mail.hcsc.com
harris computer systems ft lauderdale, florida
"Don't expect it to be easy. Don't expect some chick
to sit back and talk about nature and children." -- ani
Scot age 34 look 24 act 14. -thats a j
> When the Grateful dead's Jerry Garcia visited family here, he gave
> what was most precious to him: his time and love.
facetoo. He really was a class act.
Peace
Sco...@delphi.com
Stuart Talkofsky
few hours in my life just having a nonsense conversation with the man.
Through his music and interviews he came across to me as his relatives
said he was.
Nice to read positive things about an unspoiled by his success human.
With all his wealth and fame he was just a regular guy.
Geoff Wells
>
>From the Sunday, September 3 Palm Beach Post, page one and more of the
>"A & E" section. Deborah Koons Garcia's family is from Palm Beach
>County.
>"He was the nicest guy I ever met," eldest sister Caroline, 17, says.
>"I feel bad for people who knew him through his shows and creativity,
>but never got to know him as a person. He made me feel comfortable."
I never have felt badly about not knowing Jerry personally. I always figured
that I knew him as an artist intimately, and that was a relationship that I will
always cherish.
But he always made me comfortable, too.
| Geoffrey Wells
| ge...@lmsc.lockheed.com
Mike
>Thanks for posting this wonderful article. Would have loved to spend a
>few hours in my life just having a nonsense conversation with the man.
I'm sure you could have pulled it off.