I was very fortunate when Ramon came into my life. He was an extraordinary man. He always lived life to the fullest. He never let fear slow him down or keep him from being true to himself. His heart was full of love, and he was without guile. I watched him begin to grow into himself and knew that someday he would be a great shaman.

However, like many other extraordinary persons, his life fell short of his promise, and he never made it to his greatness. He died while still young – along with Jesus, Janice, Jimmy, John, and all the rest.
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I met Ramon a long time ago. I met him in Lander, Wyoming. He called himself Mexican then. He and his partner Karen and his friend Sunshine were hitchhiking to the ’73 Rainbow Gathering. We stopped and gave them a lift the rest of the way into the gathering.

We stayed connected in the gathering. One day we all tripped together and realized that each of us had found new and worthy friends. We met afterwards in the mountains above Boulder. We camped alongside a little stream together and tripped more there.

After awhile, Karen and I headed east on the rest of our journey across the country and back. We took the rest of the summer and then some, slowly traveling east and then back again to Berkeley. On the way, in the orchards in Emmett, Idaho, where we were picking apples, we got pregnant.
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One day, just after Ariana was born. We were in our house on Grant Street in Berkeley. I heard a knock and opened the front door. There stood Ramon and his Karen. They had been living in Mexico and had wanted to find us. So they stopped by to see where we had gotten to.

I wasn’t into traveling at that time, what with a new and beautiful little girl in my life. They heard me on this and decided that they wanted to settle down a bit themselves, especially Karen who wanted to be a mother herself someday.

They went back to Florida, to Gainesville I believe, and went to school. Karen and I stayed in Berkeley for a few more years. But it was getting too scary there, way too much anger for us, especially now that Ariana was with us, so we moved up to the little town of Swisshome, in the Oregon Coast range.

I had a lot of trouble in Swisshome and later in Deadwood too. I am not a country boy at all. And no one there was interested in acid or exploring consciousness. The men there weren’t even interested in a men’s group. After a year there, I left and moved to nearby Eugene. Much better for me. Karen came with me, although she soon left me, taking Ariana with her, after sleeping with one of our old friends in Santa Fe.

After I got over her betrayal and the bummer of losing day to day contact with Ariana, I began to put my life together. Ramon came back into my life then. He was working now. He had a good job. He and his Karen were no longer together either. I guess that Ramon liked the young girls more than being married.
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I was tripping with a friend named Drew in Eugene at the time. He and I were close. I really liked him. He was a good tripper. After awhile though, he moved back to Alabama and I didn’t see him for awhile.

Then something uncanny began to happen. Drew would call me from Alabama. Then Ramon would call me later the same day. Drew was still in Alabama. Ramon was in Kansas. They didn’t know each other at all.

Funny things kept happening. They both got into coke at the same time. They both asked for my help. They both overcame the habit with the help of acid; and, what is most weird, both of their coke connections died soon after they stopped using coke.

Their calling me, in unison almost, went on for months. Then one day Drew called and said that he wanted to come and see me. He came soon after that, and we had our visit and tripped together. Several days later, Drew left, and then the very next day Ramon showed up. He and I visited and tripped together too. This new pattern, with each of them visiting me within days of each other, continued for several more months.

Finally I told both of them what was happening and invited them to come and visit me at the same time. They both did and we all had a great time, visiting and tripping. They became good friends too. We all became brothers.

After awhile, Drew settled down with a woman who wanted to own him. At the same time, Ramon became more and more important in my life. He was awesome, magical. We became partners. We traveled, we tripped, and eventually we lived together in the mountains, in Gold Hill above Boulder. Drew’s woman had slowed him down some, but he was still close with us. In fact, he rented the house right next to ours in Gold Hill.
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Eventually though, in spite of acid, in spite of our closeness, and in him spite of being Ariana’s Godfather, Ramon got carried away by the Deadheads and the young girls again. He began touring with the Dead, was soon back into coke. He drank a lot too – wine for breakfast.

Before the end, he seriously injured some man by running a stoplight. He was in a jealous rage at the time, thinking that his current young girl was fucking someone else. He did time for that, and later, when he came out, I told him that he had just gotten a wakeup call. I told him that the next one would be heavier. I didn’t know it would be his last.

At the New Year’s Eve Dead show in the Bay Area, he left his friends to score some coke. He had ten thousand dollars on him. He was shot that night and died shortly afterwards in the hospital. The story that his friends got from the police was that he had tried to rob a taxicab and an off duty cop had shot him.

Not true, of course. He had a lot of money on him. He didn’t need to rob anyone. Ramon wasn’t a thief anyway. He was an honest man, right up to his end. No, he was set up.

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