Not thinking I’d win the lottery for tickets, I wrote Bill Graham a letter from my home in Bozeman, Mont., sent the $50 apiece, and asked for three tickets. I signed it Mayor of Bozo City or something. I had gone to Kentucky and then to Florida for Christmas. Tix came to Montana late. I flew to Evansville, Ind. and picked up my car. Drove to Kansas City and picked my friend Cathi, then to Reno where my pal, Tom from Montana, had the tickets. This was very hard logistically, since there were no cell phones or Google maps in those days.
I drove from Reno to San Francisco and got in line. Butted, edged, cajoled, weaseled, sneaked into the line near the front, but around the corner.
That was hard to do because they’d given out numbers from the night before. We were near the cone heads. We got fed vegetable soup and carrot cake by Bill Graham’s sister Esther. Got interviewed. I’m in a red plaid shirt behind Bill as he’s interviewed on the extra DVD that came with the movie; my son picked me right out.
It was quite a trip, airplane, cross country drive, rendezvous in Reno, up front in line, cone heads, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the BMW with a sidecar, breakfast, drive home through snowstorm and 40 below when we got into Montana. BTW, I’ve been Mayor of Bozeman for real three times.
~ Jeff Krauss