At long last, with Jerry Garcia gone, the book is now shut on the Sixties — or so it’s been said in no fewer than 54 news stories describing his passing as the “end of an era.”
This very same era has ended before — many times. The New York Times deemed it over when Abbie Hoffman failed to beat a drug rap in 1981, and Bill Graham’s expiration prompted the Houston Chronicle headline: “Rock Promoter’s Death Marks End of An Era.”
CNN’s Judy Woodruff christened one-time Yippie Jerry Rubin’s jaywalking demise “the end of an era,” with co-anchor Bernie Shaw concurring “It sure is.” The Chicago Tribune, whose Garcia headline claimed “Rock Icon’s Death Marks End of Era,” decided back in 1989 that “Twenty Years Ago, Altamont marked the End of an Era.” Similar Endisms centered around John Lennon, Jackie O, Woodstock and, if the Buffalo News is to be believed, Woodstock ’94, which ” marks the end of one era and the beginning of another.”
Now, with Timothy Leafy suffering from prostate cancer and waiting to hear the heavenly choir (“This is wonderful,” he’s said), one can’t help but anticipate a new dawn in the never-ending end of an era.
