The lost years

I think I know where it started; it was a comment made on the spur of the moment, trying to look cool. I have never been part of a group; I have ADD, sleep apnea, and insomnia - these have been with me for as long as I can remember. Heck, even in high school I played football for 4 years (lettered 3 of them) but I was not a jock - a buddy and I stole a box of Mars Bars (specifically because of their soft interior), a bunch of chocolate flavored x-lax, some Chicklets and some Chicklet-like laxatives; we carefully opened the Mars Bars on one end and pushed 4 squares of x-lax into each, swapped out the chicklets for the gum laxatives and gave them to the rest of the football team. I swear the sewage system overloaded; with the entire football team sitting on the toilet all night. We only wished we could have seen it. Of course, the payback was painful - in practice, the team tackled us constantly (and I was the center, heh - Jim Strickerts my friend, was a halfback).

Anyway, by the time I got to college I was lost; ADD does odd things, like if someone is not in my face I forget about them (really, I lost some friends both male and female because if I did not see them or they did not call me, I would forget about them), I slept all the time and just sort of wandered around campus in a daze. My final GPA was .69 and it was that high because I got "A"s sports classes like karate, and stuff. Anyway, I was in the locker room when I hear someone around the corner say that he had some pot for sale. To sound cool, I said "hey, if you have any extra, let me know". Next thing you know, I got a call from the guy, saying he had a bag of pot for me. He sold me a lid for $10.00 (this is back in the old days - 1967 - when pot was cheap and sold by the lid, the match-box, or the joint. So I started smoking pot. Then I joined the Marine Corps, think about that for a moment - ADD, insomnia, sleep apnea and weapons, lots and lots of weapons. I got to shoot M79 grenade launchers, toss grenades, shoot m60 machine guns, shoot marksman+ at the firing range but I could fall asleep with a DI's hand on my throat screaming at me to wake up. A buddy and I rented a car and took a trip to Chicago on Route 66 - the car was a Carmen Ghia.



We got caught, put in the Great Lakes brig and flown back to San Diego, my buddy went back to our company,but since we were separated and I was put into Headquarters Battalion and Casual company made up of Marines who were their way out for in-service/pre-service use of drugs. The corporal sold me my first LSD, the gunny sold me some pot, and a couple jar-heads kept saying "it smells like pot", "who's smoking pot" as a joke because they were sure no one would be dumb enough to smoke pot in the common room. I had to go up to the guys and offer them a toke if they would shut up - they were stunned and apologized for being stupid. Later that night while I was like really, really stoned on acid, the MPs came crashing into the barracks; after a bunch of shouting and hollering, the Sargent said "Look if you are going to smoke pot in here, please warn the firewatch so they don't keep making fire reports! Can I get a toke?"