Last Saturday, my daughter Rachel came over for a visit. My wife, Andrea had been cleaning out the bedroom closet and set aside a number of photo albums. She brought a few of them over to the dining room table for a trip down memory lane.
Most of the books had photos of when the kids were little and we reminisced about toys, clothes and events attended.
Then the big white photo album with the aged photos came out. The one with pictures from before we were married. Some highlights as reviewed with our daughter:
*Photos of my wife’s trip out west, just before we met. The ones featuring the local guys that she and her girlfriend hung out with. I love looking at those.
*A Halloween party from thirty-five years ago, featuring an assortment of drunken revelers including my friend John dressed as Aunt Jemima, complete with blackface. From the good old days, before political correctness ruined our fun...remember?
*A photo of me sitting crossed legged on a hotel room floor, licking the glue edge on a joint, with a mound of freshly cleaned pot at the ready.
*A lovely group photo taken from my parents farmhouse in northern Michigan. A group of guys and gals sitting around a coffee table littered with drug paraphernalia and a big bottle of Southern Comfort (I’m most embarrassed by the presence of the Southern Comfort).
As my brother Tony wryly noted, “It’s a good thing we didn’t take selfies back in the day.”
Well, I’m out of the closet. I inhaled...a lot.
But so did everybody else (I think that was my excuse the first time I got caught smoking by my Mom).
And by everybody else, I mean everybody. It’s like that list of people that endorse Ferris Bueller as recited by the school secretary. “The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads.” Yes, those people and more were using weed in the mid 70’s.
I just purchased a Blue Oyster Cult CD from Amazon (sit tight, I’m going to link the pot thing with BOC).
I started thinking about the time I saw heavy metal Gods, BOC, live in concert. Set the Wayback Machine to August 23, 1975, the setting is Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. The “World Series of Rock” line-up in order of appearance: Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, BOC, Aerosmith, Uriah Heep and Rod Stewart and Faces. Those attending with me shall remain nameless ( did I ever mention that I went everywhere with my best friend Rob?).
The success of any road trip starts with sound planning. That is why we bought a plump bag of herb and a mysterious vial of hash oil for the long day ahead. We went to the dealer’s for the weed, the hash oil a purely impulse buy.
Once home, we thought it best to try the oil. If it was going to make us go schizoid, it would be best to do that the night before and not ruin the concert experience. Our friendly neighborhood dealer recommended that we dispense the oil by spreading it on the Zig-Zag white we were going to roll a standard joint with.
Sounded reasonable. However, once the joint was lit and flame met oil, it slowed the burning process, and a dreaded sidewinder was the result. While we enjoyed the buzz (nobody went schizoid), the delivery system would need tweaking.
A trip to the head shop at Van Born and Telegraph was in order. We would need a special pipe for our mysterious impulse buy. The store was an odd mash-up of party store, deli and head shop. We carefully inspected all of the glass pipes behind the counter before settling on a very plain glass pipe (no weed leaf emblems, peace signs or butterflies for this manly bunch).
Before we could make our purchase, we were forced to wait as the clerk cut up ring bologna for some old fart. We watched quietly from behind glassy eyes as the gross tube of mystery meat was plucked out of a nasty jar of spice water and cut to very specific lengths. After what seemed like forever, old fart strode happily from the store and we made our selection. We would need to try the pipe out immediately... to make sure that it worked properly.
As soon as we hit Van Born, we saw the purchaser of the ring bologna walking home, munching on a section of his gross tube. Since he was walking on the driver side of the vehicle and I was the passenger, I suggested to the driver, Andy (oops, I wasn’t going to mention names), that he roll down the window and ask the old fart how his dick tastes ( I cleverly thought that the ring bologna looked like a dick, not my dick, but a dick).
Driver felt this was a good one, rolled down his window, delivered the line with gusto and promptly slammed into the back of a car which had stopped right in front of us. Before both cars could rock to a complete stop, a cop appeared on the scene. Talk about being scared straight. I can honestly say I don’t remember what happened to Driver, but I know a trip to jail was somehow avoided.
The next morning arrived bright and clear, more than could be said for the group heading to Cleveland. I was holding the glass vial of hash oil. I took it from my pocket to make sure it was safe and promptly dropped it on the driveway. The thin glass vial fractured, but the oil inside was so sticky that it did not escape. We would have to take the damaged vial with us in a baggie (no shortage of those) and make do.
I can’t really tell you much about the day long concert (the weed, oil and forty years distance being primary reasons). I do recall:
*We sat near the OD tent (that stands for overdose for you youngsters) and were entertained during the endless parade of guitar and drum solos by the endless parade of kids who could not handle their high. They should have tried everything out the night before like the wiser kids at the show.
*The day started hot, rained, and got hot again. The grassy field turned to mud with stoners slipping accidentally and on purpose, an homage to Woodstock.
*Aerosmith stole the show, touring behind Toys in the Attic. They were the only band to stay away from endless soloing and string together hit after hit.
*Uriah Heep was pure shit. They thankfully ended their gig around 7 pm. The stage announcer (not Wavy Gravy) told everybody to settle in as Rod Stewart and Faces would not take the stage until it was dark. Two hours of waiting, after seven hours of partying. What to do?
*No memory of Rod Stewart and Faces. None.
We drove home from Cleveland immediately after the show. The term “designated driver” had not yet been invented. And if it had, it would have been roundly mocked by the crew heading back to Dearborn from this all day affair. We took turns driving. For safety. I drove five minutes before waking up one of my friends and telling him it was his turn.
I end this saga the way I do most memories from this period of my life:
I have no idea how I survived.
Cheers! Jim
PS If any of my kids read this, it’s fiction...never happened... and don’t do drugs
