10/19/23
Newsletter #492
The Crack of Dawn
I’m presently sitting here waiting to be picked up for the airport. I’m returning to San Rafael to visit my buddy, John. I thought, “Hey, let’s fire up the old (new) laptop and see if everything is working correctly.” I’m glad that I did because I discovered that my flight is delayed an hour. This is the first time I’ve used my laptop since my last trip in June, and I feel like Microsoft has done everything possible to screw up and delay what I wanted to do, which is write this. Pop-ups, offers, updates, passwords, password confirmations — my God. It’s as though the I.T. guys have nothing to do but figure out how to make the experience of using the computer as unpleasant as possible.
So anyway, let’s go back to early September 1970. It was the first day of junior high school, 7th grade. Many long yellow buses pulled up in front of West Maple Junior High, which had just been built in the last year or two. A couple of hundred kids got off the many buses. Most kids headed right into the school, where they were supposed to go. But there were some people, long haired, hippy-looking kids heading away from the school. “Where are they going?” I thought, as well as “I sure could use a cigarette.” I was just 12 years old and had already picked up the habit at summer camp.
I followed the kids who were not going into school. They were all heading in the same direction, so I followed them. Just north of the school they were just starting to build a whole subdivision. So far, they had only put up the brick wall in front of the subdivision. This area was known as, “The Wall.” Perhaps 25 kids were loitering beside this brick wall, and most of them were smoking. Thank God. I pulled a pack of Larks from my pocket and lit up. This was now where I would be going every morning before school for my last cigarette before school. Also, people were buying and selling pot. I didn’t smoke pot, yet, but I still knew that I was part of this group, referred to as the “stoners.” Yet, I felt somehow removed. Maybe it was because nobody smoked Larks but me. But also, all these kids were older than me – 8th and 9th graders — I was the only 7th grader. I would become good friends with some of these kids. But on that first day I didn’t know anybody and didn’t speak to anyone.
Over the course of the year, by golly if they didn’t go ahead and build that subdivision behind the Wall. This forced the stoners to migrate to the south side of the school where there was “The Ravine,” which was just that, a wooded ravine, with a junked, black, 1959 Plymouth at the bottom with no wheels. Down in the Ravine many dope deals were made, and everybody smoked cigarettes – mostly Kools and Marlboros, I’d guess. Maybe Winstons and Newports. People would ask me, “Hey, got a spare cigarette?” I’d offer them my pack of Larks, and invariably they would turn me down. Larks had charcoal filters, which I thought tasted good, but it seemed that no one else did, even folks who really wanted a cigarette.
As I went through junior high school, from 7th to 9th grade, most days began in the Ravine. By the time I was in 9th grade I was the school pot dealer. I was a young entrepreneur. In reality I was a junior associate for an older buddy of mine who was one of the pot dealers at the high school.
My father had been a menswear salesman and had many old sport coats. He gave me a number of old ones, and I particularly liked a gray and black, pin-striped, cashmere jacket, that had a lot of pockets. I also wore a leather pouch on my belt. I was loaded for bear. I would generally have several different kinds of weed. I always had Mexican shit weed that was smuggled over the border in compressed kilos that hadn’t been allowed to dry properly, thus accounting for the shitty flavor, but it still had THC and got you high. Frequently, I would also have brown Jamaican, that was lovely and smelled exotic. Years later I went to Jamaica, and it was the same shit. Less frequently I would have Colombian Gold, which was superb. A few times I got Hawaiian: either Kona Gold or Maui Wowie, and both were terrific. But they commanded higher prices than younger kids could afford. My buddy/partner/boss could sell the high-quality shit at high school, where kids had more money.
By the time I got to High School in 72-73 – the giant hit record was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John and Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann – I was in business on my own. Seizing new business opportunities, I moved into the hallucinogenic market. I sold LSD, mescaline, white pills that were called THC, although God only knows what they were, except they were good.
I’m in San Rafael. It’s 90 today. I just went swimming.
Over and out.
That's very sweet, August, and I appreciate it. However, as assiduous as I might be about this newsletter, I can't let it become the dragon controlling my life. I will miss one every now and then, that's just how it crumbles, cookie-wise.
Glad to read this memory, and glad you see it posted. We worry about you when you disappear. 💙