A Purple Haze

A recent article in the NYT by Kim Severson ("Creating a Cuisine out of Smoke", Dining Section, 5/19/10) brought to mind many things, not the least of which was my youthful and sporadic history with The Weed.

Many of us got high in our youth, and perhaps some of us still do. Let me state, emphatically, that I do not. Most, if not all of my friends, also emphatically do not, as revealed in a spirited late night conversation driving up the FDR last week. We do not now, and some of us never did. Those of us who did, but now do not, have various reasons why we do not, along with most people our age. Jobs, mortgages, disapproving spouses, fear of being outed by Facebook, upcoming Senate hearings, etc.

But the main reason that most of us do not, or do not admit that we do, is that we have children.

Sometime between our carefree youth, and now, The Weed and its stronger cousins became dangerous. Most of us who did it back then had no fear that we would turn into coke addicts, meth heads, heroin junkies, prostitutes, drug mules, or criminals of any kind. It was just something that we did, on a Saturday night, usually in the company of cheap wine and pizza while we watched those early episodes of Saturday Night Live and listened to Richard Pryor records (remember "records"?)

Speaking of remembering, I remember doing it on the way to an African Dance Class during my junior (or senior) year at college. I danced my (flat) butt off that night, but was then unable to find the car the next morning, having parked it squarely in front of someone's driveway, causing the angry homeowner to have it towed.

I remember going to the movies to see "Star Wars" during that wonderful week between the end of Senior Year classes and graduation, and having no recollection whatsoever of anything that happened in the movie, other than the scene where all the aliens and their pals were partying in the bar. They were blissfully high, and so were we.

And I recall an earlier memory of a certain teen-aged day trip that I took from New Rochelle to Little Italy with my friend, P., where we shared half a tab of psilocybin as we roamed the streets of the San Gennaro Street Fair. We ended up going to visit her grandmother in Lincoln Towers, and attempted to pour an entire carton of milk into a 4 oz. glass as the housekeeper, Louise, looked on in horror.

The last time I smoked a joint was sometime in the early 80's, long before I met my husband, and years before we had children. I distinctly remember plunging my hand deep into the nether recesses of my handbag to find my key, and feeling the intensely acute sensation of each and every item in the bag. It was bizarre; excruciating, and oddly painful, so much so that I never smoked anything ever again.

In the words of Stephen Stills, "Paranoia strikes deep".

But why, I wonder, was casual drug use such a non-issue back then, and such a big deal now? It was against the law then, as it is now. It could mess you up then, as it can now. It cost money back then, and it certainly is not free now...

Part of the answer, I think, lies with the issue of intent. We did it back then to have fun, as recreation, on our way to something bigger and better, which we knew we were about to do. I remember one guy in particular, returning from a year long backpacking trip getting high in the mountains of wherever. He bought a suit, cut his hair, and left Cambridge for a job in his Daddy's Wall Street firm. The time had come for him to put away his childish things, and he did.

Life is not so simple now. The world is a far more complicated place these days, which means that a stop on the way to get high and have fun can become a permanent jump into the black hole of oblivion and despair. Or so I've heard.

So let us raise a glass - or a joint - and toast the innocent, sticky-sweet days of our youth. And let us recognize that there are still folks out there who live life, create art, dance, cook, and make music through a fragrant purple haze. There have always been these intrepid souls among us, and I was reminded of this last Wednesday night at the Picasso Exhibit at the Met. Take a look at his amazingly bizarre painting, "Man with Lollipop". (1938). Surely, he must have been high.