Slim's, Trailer Park, Near St. Louis, Southern Missouri

No, this is not Slim, it's a retired railroad man from Ohio at the Long Branch Trailer Park...but you get the idea.

more on the big drive East:
"The one real digression we made was somewhere way out in the country in southern Missouri," Sandy Rothman says. "The Whites are actually this Acadian family and the stop in Missouri was to see some of their old people from Maine; we were seeing this guy named Slim, who Jerry used to talk about as a sort of Neal Cassady-type character, and I can see what he meant — he was this virile cowboy guy that all the women loved. It was in this trailer park and it was all Missouri people, but they were actually Acadian hillbillies. It was a great scene there. We played all night one night and all these people came around and listened to us play. There was a big bonfire and a lot of Cajun food; an amazing scene. Jerry always said it felt like being in some incredible movie. We finally tore ourselves away from it so we could make our beeline up to Neil's." The Colonels went their own way, and knocked 'em dead at Newport that July on the main stage and in workshops.(1)

It's funny to think of Slim's campground as a "venue"!


Slim's campground was way out in a rural district somewhere possibly not too awfully far from St. Louis, but to get an exact location I think Roland White would need to be consulted. Roland lives in Nashville and can be contacted through his website. He's the best source of information I can think of. Another possibility would be Roger Bush, the Colonels' bass player; he lives in Arizona and may not be the easiest person to get a reply from, but he's affable and it wouldn't be impossible. I'm not sure if Slim was a LeBlanc family member; I didn't think so, but it could be. Roland would be the source on that.(2)

Jerry came with me a time or two (probably in 1964 or late '63) to play house parties for members of the Arkansas diaspora I knew here in the Bay Area; does that mean some guy's house was also "an early Garcia venue"? (2)




Jerry picked here a few times in 
late 1963-1964 Sandy Rothman


1.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia:An American Life, pg.63 
2.)^Rothman, Sandy, March 18, 2012