I am something of a rarity, I hear. I think I may be the only Boomer who went through the 60s, 70s and 80s who’s never tried drugs. Well, not the illicit or illegal variety that is.
That’s not to say I am some holier than thou goody two shoes. I could tell you stories (oh, yeah, I do) about my antics in life, from disappearing girls in my bed to waking up naked and still drunk on the beach with a bunch of kids staring at me who are probably still undergoing therapy.
But for some reason, the whole drug thing has just escaped me. I have not even taken a puff on a cigarette, not even once. In fact, even typing the word is hard for me. Go figure.
As anyone who went to high school in the 70s knows, it wasn’t hard to lay your hands on any drug you could think of. I knew who was dealing them all. I think everyone at Hazen High knew who the connections were. And you’d think with the tragic loss of my brother and the fact that I was not exactly popular would make me a prime candidate for going on a binge every chance I got. And yet, nada! Zip.
I even remember the time I was in bachelor homemaking class and our assignment was to make pasta sauce from scratch. Larry Look thought it would be funny to substitute his stash of weed for the parsley. Needless to say I suddenly took ill and had to go to the nurse’s office. I didn’t want to be involved in this little caper of his.
The closest I ever came to trying drugs was when my girlfriend offered to make pot brownies. Now, I love brownies, so I thought, how cool would that be. My girlfriend is willing to make me brownies. Who cares if there’s a little extra herbaceousness to them.
It never happened. I guess I missed my moment there. Damn, damn and double damn.
My involvement with her also led me to my first chance to snort some coke. It wasn’t her doing. It was her hairdresser, Raleigh. He was a really good hairdresser, but had an odd technique. He would put on an LP (remember those?) of the Who or some other band. It depended on his mood. He would stand back, look at your hair, then walk up and in one motion, lift your hair, snip it, then stand back to ponder some more.
For Christmas he gave each of his customers a bonus. A line of coke. All lined up neatly on a mirror. I, of course, declined.
Then there was the time I was in Fall City with the Seafair Pirates. I was in the restroom when a biker dude offered me some LSD. It was then that I hit on my now famous reply every time I am offered some drugs. It makes them think I am in the know, but I don’t have to join in. My reply to biker dude was:
“Man, I’d be all over it normally. But I had some really heavy, whacked out shit last night and my head is still bangin’. Bad dope I think.”
He nodded knowingly. “Man, been there many times my friend. Be well.” And off he went.
In Jamaica, I had the chance to buy a very large bag of weed for “my girls.” At the many stalls at town markets, you’ll see this happening. The rastafarian salesman will tell the male in the group, “Hey, you want to see the good stuff? Come back here for a minute.” He will lead you back and try to make a deal. He won’t sell to the ladies. He figures you’re the man to talk to about getting the ladies a little high tonight.
So I fell back on my famous line, which has served me so well, so many times and he just nodded knowingly.
Now, I should make it clear that many of my friends and acquaintances have imbibed, sometimes to excess. It makes no matter to me. I’ve drank way too much wine at times. It just happens to be legal.
It also has some measure of control. And I think that’s why I have resisted trying drugs. Hear me out.
If I go to the liquor store and buy a bottle of wine, I know that it has 12% alcohol, tops. A bottle of 100 proof rum is 50% alcohol. Beer, maybe up to 6%. These are knowns. Now, imagine that you go to the store and you buy a bottle of vodka. You bring it home, and you barely get a buzz off of five shots. It doesn’t seem very strong. So you go back to the store and you buy another bottle of vodka. You decide that since it’s so weak, you’re going to double up and do shots all night. Only this time, unknown to you, you scored some really good vodka. You end up dying of alcohol poisoning.
This is my problem with drugs and why I have chosen to stay away. It’s control. I can’t be sure if the stuff is good or not at any particular moment. With booze, I know. And eventually I will pass out. I won’t die, because I can never reach that limit where the alcohol is toxic. I’m a bit of a weany. A bottle and a half of wine over a night and I am really out there. And I pay for it the next morning.
So there you have my little tale of why I grew up in the middle of the drug revolution and I am still a virgin. Virgin. Man, I should tell that story next. That’s a real toe tapper.
Out on the Treasure Coast looking at the bag of dried parsley on the counter, wondering if I should take a hit by making pasta,
– Robb