07.01.03 10:16AM

Yesterday morning I committed to the idea that I should make a trek out to St. Louis, to a Grateful Dead show, even though they are not called that anymore, and go back to the deck that collapsed where I broke my neck. I have been milling it around in my head for a month or two and now I think I should make the idea a reality.

What would I hope to accomplish on a trip like this? Well, I know that it is good to face my fears, and to not be afraid of anything in my past. Even though I really don’t fear St. Louis, or any parts of the whole, I think it would be comforting to go back to the campground, and go back to the hospital, and go to the concert that I missed that night. Maybe it is a crazy idea, and maybe someone should tell me that. I also think this will put a little bit of closure on a difficult issue.

I have always thought that I have taken the whole wheelchair and not being able to use my legs thing, really well. From the first few days in the hospital, I’ve always said that everyone has something that they need to overcome. This was my little thing to overcome. Other people have other things. Look at what my brother is having to go through, a divorce. I don’t think I would be able to get through something like that, but then again, I know that I would. I also know that he is going to hopefully be a better man for it. So that is another one of my goals, to hopefully be a better man.

I want to go to that spot where my life was questionable. Where I laid on the ground, people running around me yelling and panicking. A dog on my right was letting out a high pitched scream, a sound that I had never heard previous, and have not heard since. A girl was on my other side and whenever they would lift the lumber from the deck it would start to crush her and she too, would start screaming. It was insanity, complete insanity.

There was a black rain coming down cold and hard, and what lights there were, were drown out by the storm. I was hurt too badly to scream, so I laid there on my back, observing the whole scene and breathing. Slowly, in and out, in and out, in and out. Over and over, until someone discovered me at the bottom of the wreckage. I didn’t know how long it had been. When a survival mode of that extreme kicks in you lose track of everything. The simple dramas of day to day living are relinquished, and all that remains is the breath. In and out. They brought a light over. The thought never crossed my mind that I must be hurt bad, or maybe my neck was broken, or really anything, other than the fact, that my parents didn’t know where I was. They knew I was in either San Francisco, or the last place I called from, Las Vegas. They had no clue about the Grateful Dead or about traveling around the country or about ending up underneath a deck in a campground in Missouri. So while three or four people axed the door down behind me, I laid there, breathing in and then slowly with each exhale, saying my real, given name, Dustin Grella. I knew that otherwise I would be a John Doe, and that my mother would be crying every Christmas that I didn’t make it home.

It is amazing what the human body is capable of when pushed to the very limits, when taken to a life or death situation. I laid there saying my name, nothing more, over and over until they had finished chopping the door down and had an opening big enough to squeeze me through. They moved me toward the door, and a sharp pain went through my entire body. I would imagine that this is when the bone fragments actually went through the spinal cord, but I also know that I was badly injured prior to this.

The screaming continued, and at this point it was getting worse. The people helping on the one side of the deck would start yelling at the people on the other side of the deck. Like a teeter totter, when one side would get lifted, it would start to crush the people on the opposite side. Tensions rising, people were getting frustrated, and nobody was in charge. Most everyone was high on something. Months later Fast Eddie told me that he was directing the whole circus, and if there would be anyone I would want in charge in a scene like this, it would have to be him.

Eventually they put a neck brace on me, and moved me onto a hard board. Above me I could see a girl that had hitchhiked with us from Salt Lake City to Chicago. I started repeating my name

over and over to her, Dustin Grella... Dustin Grella... She knew me as Dusty or Itchy or another one of the dirty dreadlocked hippie kids following the Grateful Dead.

The instant I saw a paramedic, I passed out immediately. I was safe. If there was anything that could be done, I was going to leave it up to them to do. I had expended more than every ounce of energy I had. I should have passed out long ago.

I need to add this, because I truly believe it. I believe God held me in his hands very close that day. I know that he may not have wanted me to lose the use of my legs or go through the months of rehabilitation just to dress myself. But I also know that he knew I was capable of it, and that from my current actions I was needing a little challenge in my life. You see, everyone has something, whether it be physical, as mine is. You can look at me and say, “Look, there is Dustin, and he is paralyzed.” But problems can also be mental, spiritual, or emotional. Everyone has something to overcome. I believe God blessed me with this gift of a Spinal Cord Injury so that I would be able to have a greater appreciation for the life that I am living. And believe me, when I was running around with the Dead, chasing a high and living a selfish life of hedonism and over indulgence, I was rarely happy and not only didn’t appreciate what I had, but was on a direct crash course with death.

My appreciation for life was not instantaneous, but it came over time. There were days I woke up dreading the wheelchair, and

the fact that I had to be confined to it another day, “Why God? Why me?” But over time I realized that everyone has limitations, even the greatest Kings, Magistrates, and Presidents in the world have limitations. I was now going to have to use what I do have to it’s greatest potential.

In many ways the greatest thing that I lost was my independence. Having to ask someone else to do something for you, every time you want to do anything, becomes very difficult. I think that is one of the things I have worked really hard on since the accident. Personal freedom has become one of the greatest blessings in my life.

I still do what I want to do, when I want to do it, but today, hopefully, my decisions are a little better thought out. Much like a trip to Missouri might not be, but you know what, there are some decisions that might not be in the best interest of all parties involved. Let us say I am a work in progress.

07.02.03 4:21PM

I made it to St. Louis. Right now I am sitting on the same deck that collapsed almost eight years previous. It is kind of strange that they built it to look exactly like the last one. You might think they would change the design. It is kind of odd being here because I just rolled right in here, and came up on the deck, opened up my laptop and started writing. I feel like I should check in with someone, but I don’t want them to tell me I have to leave.

The place seems like a pretty normal little campground. Especially fun for the kids. There are two ponds for fishing and a pool for swimming in. I passed a barn with some horses in it. It’s strange when you think about what the regulars were thinking when a bunch of hippies came and started smoking pot, eating acid, and over dosing on narcotics. Not just a few hippies, but thousands of them, filling the place with vans and campers. Swimming naked in the pool. Swimming naked in the pond. You know, just some innocent fun.

From what I remembered, I didn’t think the deck was quite this big. It seemed skinnier, smaller. I could see how something like this could break my little neck. It is at least fifteen feet wide, about seventy feet long, and is made of big 4x10 beams. I am sitting at the far end of the deck, about fifteen feet above the ground, right where I was standing when it collapsed.

I remember standing here with Shaggy, I forget his real name, and we were blowing off fire crackers and shooting bottle rockets out of our hands, whilst the lightning and thunder roared. It was really pretty exciting. It was almost as if God were partying with us, making his own sort of racket. I felt like I was riding the storm out, sort of like Lieutenant Dan on top of the ship’s mast from that movie Forest Gump.

Even then I had some idea that I was up to no good. I remember Katie telling me not to do any dope, because Grizzly had overdosed. I remember having to be really careful as to who I asked about getting some. My mind frame was such, that if it was killing people, then it must be some pretty good shit. Pretty amazing logic, huh?

I was thinking that there was going to be something big, possibly something go wrong again if I came here. But here I sit, here I write, and everything seems to be going well. No repeats of collapsing decks, no overdoses, no fatal car wrecks. Just normal comfortable day to day living.

That was the whole point, or at least one of them, wasn’t it? To be comfortable with who I am. I think that one is working. The second, I would imagine, is to close the book of tragedy, and open instead the book of life. Start reading from it’s pages, and learning from it. Living the wealth of wisdom that can be found in a quiet summer day, relaxing on a deck, by the pond and the pool.

I still have a busy day ahead of me. I am going to meet with Greg Kessler, a lawyer, my lawyer, the only person I know in St. Louis. Maybe we will eat dinner and talk about what life has been like. Then later tonight I am planning on going out to watch a Grateful Dead (I am sorry I still just have to call them that) show. Hopefully I can get tickets and all that good stuff.

07.03.03 9:21AM

Left St. Louis early this morning. Woke up and had a waffle and orange juice breakfast, compliments of the hotel. That was pretty nice of them. Right now we, Darrin and I, are in Illinois driving east on our way back to Ohio.

I must say that after I wrote yesterday, it became one of my most memorable days. On the way leaving the campground I was at complete peace with myself. It was exactly what I was looking for. Then came a thick rain while I was driving home. The whole experience, the whole process was so worth it, was so cleansing.

I went up to the show. Tickets were fifty dollars, and I really didn’t want to pay all of that, so I tried unsuccessfully to get a free ticket, a miracle. It sucked because I tried so long and so hard, and still I had to end up buying one. Such is life. I guess I was fortunate enough to have the cash to buy one. Some people didn’t. Darrin, my brother, said that he wasn’t really into the Dead, and would prefer to go back to the hotel. I don’t know if he was doing it just for my benefit, so I would be able to be alone, or so that I would have some time with my old friends. I was hanging out with Spinny and Pineapple Head Jeremy and I think he felt a little out of his element. I don’t know.

What I do know is that he went back to the hotel, and the acquaintances that I saw outside of the show I didn’t see for the rest of the night. I spent the night wandering aimlessly, trying to fit in, looking for somewhere I might know someone. I eventually wandered past security and went backstage, only to get stopped at the dressing room and turned around. Then I was sitting up in the front row and just before the second set began the security guard told me to go away.

It was strange too, because as soon as I turned around to leave, the music started. They opened with All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan. As I was rolling away I heared “There must be some kind of way out of here...” I sat at the top of the section for a while, but couldn’t get into the music. I sat there, watching a bunch of old guys play the same songs they had been playing for the past however many years.

I left the pavilion and started to wander around the lawn seats. The old Riverport Amphitheater, now called UPM Bank Pavilion, is really nasty. It is built in the middle of this corporate park, sort of like Shoreline, but with a fraction of the trees. For the most part it is a bunch of steel and concrete. I much prefer Blossom, with it’s trees and endless fields of grass.

I bought a poster, then went to the front gate and sat and waited. I started getting frustrated and thinking that I should take the poster up to the front of the show, rip it in half and throw it at them up on stage. That would be my statement. But then I realized that it would be pointless. They don’t care, really. They made twenty bucks off of it, I could go and buy a thousand posters and burn them all for all they cared.

I could still faintly hear the music, and they started to play Fire on the Mountain. That is the song that I knew I was finally done. I could finally go home and leave that entire mess behind me.

Long distance runner what you holdin’ out for?
Caught in slow motion in your dash to the door
The flame from your stage has now spread to the floor
You gave all you got, why you wanta’ give more?

Yes, what was I waiting for? There was nothing left for me here. I wasn’t the recipient of the privileges I thought I had earned, and for that I was pouting a bit. But it was more than that. The people that I had been with outside the show, most of whose real names I still don’t know, were waiting for just the chance I had, to get out of this quagmire. They were running from one scam to the next in a state of constant paranoia. Worried that the cops or the feds or their friends, were going to find out what they were doing.

So I did just that. Got on the phone and went to call my brother at the hotel. I turned on the phone, and in all caps it read, “I AM A CHILD OF GOD”. What a relief. The definition of who I am had once again been changed. Now, instead of defining myself as a Deadhead, with ripped up jeans and smelling like I don’t give a damn, I can define myself as a Child of God. Much better, much more positive, and much healthier in the long run.

I called the hotel and told my brother I was ready to go. I rolled myself outside and opened up my poster that I bought. I wrote THE END across the yin-yang symbol in the center, and signed my name at the bottom. Then, like one of those little Buddhist prayers, I rolled it up, put my string around it, and let it go. Darrin pulled up. I got in. He may have thought I was a little agro or something because when I got into the car I grabbed all of my Dead bootlegs and tossed them out the window. I could hear the cases breaking as they scattered across the lawn, and a group of hippie kids run over and picking them up out of the grass. One man gathers what another man spills.

Darrin looking concerned asked me, “What happened in there?”

I simply smiled, shook my head, and said, “I’m done.”

It wasn’t the music, or the people, or the drugs, it is the whole thing. The whole scene is what I was into before, and it was the whole scene that I was saying goodbye to yesterday. I rolled away from the show happier than I had ever been at one.

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