Lampico, California is a census designated place in Santa Cruz County and sits along the

foothills of that area. It was founded in 1927 and today the population stands at approximately

880 people. Lampico is considered a beautiful retreat. That is the perfect place if you

really want to live surrounded by nature but also still be able to reasonably commute to work.

In fact, in an archived article that I found in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, it said that Silicon

Valley employees are some of those who live in Lampico and commute out to their tech jobs in

Palo Alto and the surrounding areas. It's remote but not completely totally out in the middle of

nowhere. Grateful dead frontman Jerry Garcia, his family had a country home in Lampico,

where they vacationed when he was a child. In fact, if there are any dead heads out there,

then you are aware that Jerry was missing most of his middle finger on his right hand,

yet still managed to become one of the most influential guitarists of his generation,

which is quite an astounding feat. That accident happened at Jerry's family home,

there in Lampico. I guess that there might be the area's most notable claim to fame,

closely followed by the story I'm going to share with you today. So rumor had it that Jerry

chopped off his own middle finger in an attempt to become ineligible for the draft.

But the truth wasn't quite as draft dodgy as that. In 1947, when he was four,

Jerry and his brother Chip were taking turns chopping wood while the other one held the wooden

place. And when it was Jerry's turn to hold the wood one time, his brother either missed or

slipped and ended up severely injuring Jerry's middle finger. It wasn't exactly chopped off at

the time, but ultimately doctors were unable to reattach the digit. He was left with most of his

middle finger missing, and he went on to become one of the founding members of the Grateful Dead 18 years

later, out of Palo Alto, California, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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