The Lost Summers... 

 the lost summer part one

Rob Swerding and I hitchiked to California together the summer after graduation (summer 1970). We got picked up by the police in San Francisco cus a law was passed to detain anyone "under the age of 18 wihout adult guardianship in the state of Ca." Bob was turning 18 in a week, so they let him go and put me in juvenile jail till they could get my parents to fly me back to NY. Even tho my folks told the cops they knew i was there, they didnt care. So 2 days in jail and then i was taken, in handcuffs, to the airport and put on a plane. It was weird! So, back in NY I needed work..so my one of my relatives got me a job as an usher for the David Frost Show. Did that for a year and decided it was time for college.- Reet

the lost summer Part two

By the time we hit 17 I had a chance to repay the favor Reet had done by turning me on to Zappa. I had discovered Grateful Dead and although skeptical, Reet agreed to accompany me to the Fillmore east to see The Dead. The rest, as they say, is history. We found a way to share our love of music between Zappa and Jerry, balancing the brilliant and caustic wit of Frank's stuff with the psychedelic ramblings of Garcia. The common thread, of course, was the magic of the music and the incredible, yet different, guitar playing of Zappa and Garcia. We saw hundreds of shows over those years, many of which featured either The Dead or The Mothers. Many of these shows happened during my college years in Stony Brook, 60 miles out of NYC in Long Island. It became another tour stop for most musicians and allowed us to see our favorites not only in The City but on our own campus which turned into one big party over concert weekends. Reet was now a high school graduate but not in college yet. Instead, he was an usher at The David Frost TV show, filmed in Manhattan. He was a frequent visitor to Stony Brook and, being the memorable character he is, became a crowd favorite. We even ventured to the show ourselves to watch Reet work his magic. Reet got his first taste of "rubbing elbows" with celebrities and I know he still gets a kick when he has a chance encounter with the famous. He solicits autographs via mail to this day, proudly displaying them at Captain Video. His ability to entertain reached new heights during "The David Frost" years. Reet had given notice he was quitting to head "Out West" in the summer of 1971 and as a reward, Frost had called his usher, The Reet, up on stage to play his classic "William Tell Overture" on his teeth! Reet had reached Prime Time! Along with that honor came a check for "scale" still amounting to a few hundred dollars of traveling money. Reet and myself then flew to Dallas to meet Jeff. I met Jeff during freshman year at Stony Brook and he shared a love of similar music to Reet and myself, creating an immediate friendship. Plus he was the only one of the three of us with a drivers license and car, a key factor in being able to cruise the western United States. Reet and I were both such city kids we didn't even drive until our mid twenties. Reet had been west the summer before, hitchhiking with a friend from Roosevelt School in Connecticut. Reet had finished high school there, having struggled scholastically at the local high school which jeopardized his graduation. Reet's trip west that prior year was cut short as he was "deported" from California for being underage. Now the three of us cruised from Texas to California, stopping at the favorite National Parks and looking for live rock shows to see, especially Grateful Dead. We sleazed and scammed our way thru the summer, sleeping out under the stars and seeing The Dead 3 times, once in LA and twice in Berkeley. We had a great summer and it obviously had a major impact in our lives as we three all came to live in California-Jeff for 25 years, myself for 20 and Reet for over 10 years himself. And,of course, with VCR's not quite invented yet we never even saw the David Frost Show performance during that summer in California! - E.Q

I met Reet during my freshman year of college at Stony Brook after getting to be friendly with Ed Suchow and The Grape. I got to be close friends at Stony Brook with the "Jackson Heights crowd", which often included Reet, who would come out to Stony Brook for concerts. Actually that year is rather a blur for me now, except for the long list of concerts that we all saw in the Stony Brook gym. Music meant more to all of us than almost anything else. And live concerts were certainly the peak of that. The summer of '71 when Reet, Ed Suchow & I traveled the western United States was especially fun. It was my first venture that far and we had a blast all summer, highlighted by the music that we managed to see. We structured our California visit to catch shows by Grateful Dead in both Berkeley and Hollywood. I remember seeing Reet in a Grateful-Dead induced bliss at that Hollywood Palladium show, where we were standing just a few feet from the low stage. The rest of that summer was spent mostly camping and driving around (with me doing all the driving). We had an early car cassette player in the car we used, and that alone made for a great trip. - da jeff

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