Reminiscences. Share 'em if ya got 'em.

[EYESORE 9001]

In my case, I’m sharing because I still have a few reminiscences rattling down upstairs. If our stories manage to get preserved in the digital effluvium, they’re still a snapshot of experiences from the days when widespread use of cannabis made a comeback from a a bygone era of of acceptance and accessibility. That oral history will survive in a much better way than scraps and segments remain of American society’s relationship with cannabis up until Reefer Madness hit the big screen.

Today, I’ll share an interview with Chico Marx in which the origin of Groucho’s name is revealed. I’ll say no more. The YouTube video is brief, yet provides a memory that could have been lost if not for this serendipitous interview question.

[MiHale]

1. I got caught...my stash was found...

I was a teenager probably a junior in high school, about 1968. My Dad had a talk with me about ‘grass’ and its ‘evils’. He played the clarinet and loved to go to jazz clubs, he was familiar with cannabis.

We got talking about jazz, the people in the clubs, what happened in there, got around to talking about usage in the club. After a bunch of meaningless drivel I asked him what they kept their ’grass’ in before baggies.
He told me paper bags, envelopes and the like, said it was bad cause some would always spill out into their pockets, but it was okay cause it was like a hidden stash. You just turned the pocket liner inside out and used the stuff you shook out.

A light suddenly brightened in my head…That’s where we got the term ‘shake’…the last little bit left.
That was the only conversation we had on cannabis. I got my stash back…and found a better place to keep it.

[EYESORE 9001]

2. Fascinating

When I was a high school senior, my mother found my stash, who in turn told my father in preparation for the inevitable ‘talk’ to come. It ended with an almost verbatim prequel to Mr. Hand’s diatribe in Fast Times at Ridgemont High: ‘and stop smoking that dope!’ In between, however, he admitted to having smoked hemp on a production farm during WW II, saying ‘we knew it was a narcotic’, as I thought ‘hypocritical much?’

[lark]

3. I have some getting caught stories as well, but the funniest was the one mom missed.

My sister and I had a little bit of lsd and decided to take it one Saturday. We weren;t out of our minds, just very very high. We were sitting on the floor, listening to Led Zeppelin and laughing. My mom came in the room, and seemed to get a contact high from us. She sat down on the floor with us and listented to the music and we talked about rock and roll and laughed and then she got up to do more chores & told us to do ours. We, of course, thought this was hysterical, so we laughed for awhile, then got up and did our chores. I think a good part of our high and hilarity was getting away with it.