Dateline: 1987. Location: Alpine Valley music amphitheater in southern WI. The largest outdoor music venue in the country. Gargantuan capacity. Endless sloping lawn down to the stage. When the Grateful Dead played there each summer, it was an invasion for several days, as they played for multiple nights. The entire 'deadhead' city spread out all over the place, over 50,000 twirling hippies. It's a huge marketplace / bizarre. It's not a normal concert scene with generally normal concertgoers with normal lives & jobs. This ain't that. Anyhoots. '87 was the 1st of 3 summers of Grateful Dead concerts. Almost went in '86 but wasn't quite into them enough at that point. But when '87 rolled around I was primed & ready after a steady diet of Dead on CD. Four of us went. I lived in a house with 15 guys (upcoming multi-part blurb) for most of my college. How I graduated is the eternal mystery. I went with flatmate Todd, his buddy Dave, & my buddy ...