Smells of incense and strains of a guitar waft through an open door at 216 Calder Way. The windows are a small museum. Sari skirts hang next to African carvings; wool sweaters next to gilded mirrors. And in front, a hand painted sign — Althea's Imports.

Doug Bledsoe just opened the import shop this summer. But he doesn't spend much time around — he's always out on the road. It's how he's spent most of his life: following bands, working concert booths, being free.

Bledsoe spent years following the Grateful Dead; he can't even count the number of shows he's seen. "It's over 200, maybe closer to four (hundred)," he said. "I just started (touring) because I love the music, and it was a way to see the Dead every night. Depending on when you saw them, the Grateful Dead was either the best or the worst band ever. When they were on and tight, there was magic in the room.

"And I've got so many memories of (times on) tour," he continued. "Like I'll never forget the time I met Jerry (Garcia). It was on tour, and he was just walking around. I didn't know what to say! All I could do was shake his hand and say 'Thanks for the music.' "

When Garcia died in August of 1995, Bledsoe's life changed. "Now I'm following a lot of different bands," he said. "Some are really good, like Phil (Lesh) and Friends — they're great now. But I'm also working booths at shows I don't even like. I don't enjoy the music, but I need to make a living. I don't think anything compares to when Jerry was alive."

This summer, which marked six years since Garcia's death and the end of the Grateful Dead, Bledsoe opened Althea's Imports above Mike's Video. "I like that it's a college town," he explained. "And if you feel like traveling, it's three and a half hours from anywhere."

The shop is named for Bledsoe's dog, a black Austrian Shepherd with clear, white eyes. "And Doug's dog is named after the Dead song ('Althea')," Niki Bookhammer, a friend of Bledsoe's, explained. "Her eyes are really cool. The store was originally named Althea's Eyes, but people kept thinking it was an optometrist, so Doug changed it."

When he opened his shop, Bledsoe intended to sell the unique treasures he found throughout the country. "I'm worried, though," he said, "because the stuff's not selling that well. That could be because a lot of people don't know about the shop yet. But I might have to make it more like a head shop: T-shirts and pipes and stuff like that. I really don't want to have to do that. We'll see how it turns out."

As of now, everything in the store was selected or imported personally by Bledsoe through friends around the world. "Most of the blankets and knit stuff is from Mexico 'cause Doug knows families down there," Niki explained. "Those tapestries (on the walls) are from India; a lot of the sweaters are from Ecuador; the boxes are from Poland. When the store opened, we had boxes from everywhere!"

Bledsoe also sells the artwork of his friend Richard Biffle, an artist who created images for the Grateful Dead. The framed paintings in the back of the store are some of his best known works: an old man under a tree with the words 'Grateful Dead,' a skeleton playing a flute at the edge of moonlit water.

Right now, Niki, her boyfriend Michael Vaughn, and some friends are working the shop, and Bledsoe's on the road, stopping at shows to work his booth. He said it's not the same since Jerry's death, and he's mostly working to support his store. And everyday, he's remembering.

"The Dead are amazing," Bledsoe said. "They can take you to a high point, like with 'Fire on the Mountain' to . . . something slow and beautiful like 'Morning Dew.' Jerry said when he was alive that all he ever wanted was to be a competent musician, and he was. He could take you to heaven . . . Sometimes you could sense that history was being made, right in that room. There was nowhere else you'd want to be but there sharing that music. For me, it was always about the music."