Jerome John Garcia was born on August 1st 1942 in San Francisco. His father was a swing musician named Jose, and his mother was a nurse named Ruth. At four years old, Garcia lost the middle finger from his right hand when his older brother chopped it off with an axe while the boys were splitting wood. A year later, Jerry watched as his father drowned while they were out fishing. His grandparents then raised him while his mother worked. In 1957 he received his first guitar for his 15th birthday and began taking classes for painting at a nearby college. Garcia played a little country, jazz, folk, blues and whatever else appeased him. Garcia dropped out of high school in 1960 and enlisted in the Army. He didn't really last long because he was stationed in San Francisco so he often would sneak off base and go jam with his friends. Garcia was discharged from the Army after receiving 2 court marshals and 8 AWOLs. For a while, Garcia and a poet named Robert Hunter teamed up to create some music. Later, Hunter would become the main lyricist for the Grateful Dead. Garcia spent all of his time in Dana Morgan's Music store in Palo Alto, San Francisco. This is also where Jerry met Pigpen (Ron McKernan). Jerry and Pigpen played together as early as 1961 and continued to play together for the next 11 years. At first, they had an acoustic jug band, but by1965, Pigpen was able to convince Jerry to put an electric band together called the Warlocks. They used that name throughout 1965, until they realized another band already had that name. That's when Jerry opened up the dictionary and found the words The Grateful Dead.
             Both of them pretty much lived life on the wild side and Palo Alto was definitely the place for them. Ken Kesey was there along with LSD experiments that were going on at both Stanford University and at Menlo Park. In 1964, Jerry took LSD for the first time when Robert Hunter told Jerry he had to try it. Si...