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The Tom Constanten Chronicles, Part 3: Panic Mode in the Desert
Step back in time as Tom Constanten narrates a series of personal chronicles. Listen to firsthand accounts of life with Pigpen, musical breakthroughs, and unforgettable moments from the heart of the 60s music scene.
It was the spring of 1962. Phil Lesh and I were enrolled in a class at Mills College with Luciano Berio. Berio told us he would arrange for scholarships for us to attend the courses at Darmstadt, Germany. Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and others held classes there in their music, and there were concerts galore. The plan had been for Phil to join me in Las Vegas, wherefrom we would depart for Europe. So we got into my ’55 Oldsmobile Holiday and made the (pre-Interstate 5) drive from Berkeley to Vegas.
One time, driving back to my house, I missed a turn and we were suddenly on dirt roads in the desert. “No problem,” thought I. I’d wandered out here as a kid and knew my way around. Or so I thought. Suddenly the road was blocked by a furrow of earth. So I turned around and promptly got to another one!
What had happened, I figured out later, was I missed a fork in the road and guessed wrong on the way back. You don’t see them in one direction, but from the other, it looks like a choice you hadn’t counted on having to make. I wasn’t worried. I’d been here before, as mentioned above. Beyond that, I was into astronomy at the time, and I could tell the directions from the stars. Furthermore, the lights of Las Vegas made it obvious. I knew that after a few turnarounds, we’d be fine. Meanwhile, Phil was drifting into panic mode, envisioning them finding our parched skeletons.
Sure enough, a couple of switchbacks, and we were back on Michael Way by the Woodrums’ house.
Another time I was returning to the house from a walk in the desert and saw Phil on the phone through the window. My mother was alarmed by something she found in his effects and summarily threw him out of the house. I felt helpless and betrayed. I got Bill Walker on the phone and arranged for him to move into the Snake Ranch. We called it that because that’s how Bill answered the phone. It was on Bonanza Road near the Tonopah Highway, across from Thriftimart. I drove him there and said I’d be in touch, then made a tearful drive back to what I knew would be an icy “welcome.”
Since then, Phil returned to town in triumph often. By then my parents were no longer around.
