Grueling Childhood Memories

Some of us have good memories of childhood, while others submerge whatever pain was inflicted on them, for fear it will arise from the depths and repeat itself on future generations to come. Not I. I've always embraced whatever pain that has been thrust upon me, from whatever ever avenue it barreled down on me from; or experienced it from some suburban cul-de-sac, where one could find hidden young men huffing paint, long before it was locked behind closed glass doors at the hardware store.

Sometimes, the kids I knew just bought models for access to the airplane glue, and the models never became a reality. I wasn't one for huffing or headaches. My choice of high was POT. Remember pot. Yet, the dreaded weed also known as "reefer", "smirch", "weed", "smoke", "green", "puff", but I digress. I could name a thousand call signs for marijuana. What marijuana lacks in today's world is variety in flavor. TASTE. Yes, the quality where potency in concerned has excelled beyond measure, but smoking it today puts me to sleep, and most of it, if not all of it, smells like Christmas tree shopping year around.

Since Cannabis Indicus arrived on the scene back in the 1970's, the textural flavor of the new breeds has diminished with time. (Some call them "strains" now, but they never heard the songs Down To The Night Club-Bump City or What Is Hip by Tower of Power. It's how my generation partied. When bands actually had horn sections in them, and while we all waited for Gabriel to blow his on the final day after experiencing the Missile of October.)  This is one of the reasons I clearly hope they legalize it soon, so these blends, much like fine roasted coffees you find on your grocer's shelf, can flow through the United States, unimpeded; allowing experienced connoisseurs to once again TASTE, Columbia Red or Acapulco Gold. I can't remember the last time I smoked pot, without turning into a blood-sugar starved, shaking heap of useless flesh on someone's floor. I abstain, as it were, based on this reality, and the the fact that it scares the shit out of people who haven't one clue that some of us are capable of OD'ing on future pot.

We knew drug songs, and drug songs.

Which brings me to todays' adventure,... which by the way has very little to do with pot, but is a tale of going shopping with all the kid's in tow. My daughter's ("G"), friend ("R") who is a avid reader of history posed a simple question, asking my wife and myself, "What does Puff the Magic Dragon mean". Of course, I went into historical teaching mode, replying, "Puff the Magic Dragon was a AC-47, with 4 GE mini-guns mounted on...."..., when my wife piped up,..."Honey...come on...Puff the Magic Dragon is a song that was about smoking pot".

Which just goes to show you, she's too young to have ever seen John Wayne's Green Berets, no matter how much she loves George Takei and is a avid follower of his Facebook page blog site. She thinks he's funny and simply adores him. I think his phasers are set on stunning.

It never occurred to me that she wasn't scolding me in front of the children, based on my rendition of what Puff the Magic Dragon means to me, based on my age and lifetime experiences. I seldom pull punches when asked about historical question, especially about a period I lived in. It was nothing like that at all. My wife was merely sharing her life experience and began to sing the song aloud:

"Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff, oh"

I piped in, "Wait a minute, you think that song was about smoking pot?"

"Yes, what DO you think Little Jackie Paper was all about? Huh? Rolling papers.", she said with the self assured nature of a bonafide flower child of the 1960's.

I tried my best to wrap my head around her experience, seeing that she is twenty years younger than I am, and I've smoked more pot than Bob Marley and Bob Marley's Ghost. True story: I owned an electric auto pipe that ran off of a fish pump, that held one ounce at a time. Bong, smong. I grew up in Berkeley. We put the "stone" in the word stoner. It's sad how Berkeley has revert back to its Conservative roots since my younger years of growing up there. It's much too right winged for me today. I actually saw people selling tie-dyed T-shirt for three for $30.00 on Telegraph Avenue.

Blasphemy!!

That reminds me, one day I'll have to tell you all the history behind the phrase "getting stoned", and where came from and how it relates to "getting wasted". Another true story, but few believe it, and that what makes it such a delicious piece of trivia.

Anyway, my daughter's friend is a total history geek, which is quite interesting, because my daughter's one and only interest is in the boy band One Direction. That is until her best friend shows up. Then anything I put on TV for them to watch, especially things of historical significance, they devour ravenously in a competitive nature. Nothing like watching little empty brains fill up before your very eyes. Today's movie was the beginning of a trilogy, based on the life of Musashi Miyamoto, starring Toshiro Mifune. I had just finished watching my Buster Keaton fix for the day (Three Ages), when I decided,... since they must watch the boob tube, there is no requirement stating they have to watch boob material.

After all, it is the Age of Technology. (actually, it's the Technological Renaissance)

I would never lie to a child, not even in today's world, with all the pain that has followed any twenty year old since he was eight in, during this Second Reconstruction period in America, sans Civil War. Even though the Project for a New America Century is rumored to have ceased and desisted, the impact of its roll-out was still devastating to American children of 9/11. The future psychological and social implications, far outweigh the impact of 9/11. Smart phones don't make kids smart. From what I understand, smart phones make kids dumb.

For whatever it is worth, Iraq and Afghanistan existed, just like Vietnam did, and Syria may be on the way soon. I want these children to know I love them. So, the best way to do the is by infusing them with the truth about the way the world works, before I die because no one's life is guaranteed. I chose not to hide reality from them. Even more so, now that women can assume the combat role position in the Armed Forces, which means, if drafted, they have the same right to suffer from PTSD as any male does, once people start the shooting war within the confines of your personal space. This ain't your Great-Grandfather's Call of Duty.

I don't really think of my childhood as grueling, but a place of enlightened dialogue with a lot of "man" this and "man" that. Still, it was dialogue, and not this closeted, silenced, accepted injustice. We didn't roll like that. We ate tear gas for breakfast. Rubber bullet wounds were part of the cycle of growing up. Seriously, I attended Willard Jr. High on Telegraph Avenue on Berkeley. You know what they say, don't you? Location, location, location, and timing... just this side of People Park.

Survival is based on understanding the balance, not always accepting the dictum.

Some love, but will never know Haight,..

"Man" isn't said enough today, but there is a lot more violence, and ten times the amount of drug use in this Conservative Rhythm Nation.

Having  eclectic taste is verboten today and goes against the tribe since Eddie McGee won 1st place on Big Brother, so much so that wanna-be famous people get kicked off of Fantasy Island wholesale. You couldn't socially engineer the acceptance of William Mega then, who sabotaged himself, so what makes Julie Chen so mad when the racist and homophobic comments are aired today?

There are still people who think that way, Julie.

Racism is no longer considered a bad thing, but racialist have no where else to flee to. So grabbing my nut sack in New York City on a random stop-and-frisk based on my skin color, or slicing my teenage heart in two with a 9mm, because I stood my ground, after you stalked me for more than a mile in Florida, is just a common everyday occurrence in post 1970's America. The College Republicans saw to that, and are holding steady ground by exerting their God given rights to continued on going Manifest Destiny projects, while destroying recent minor innovations like evolution  and Darwinism through the propagation of Creationism and creationist ideas.

Even I didn't get that high way back when, but I really can't speak for what they've been smoking.

Future weed, perhaps?

Self medication, through pot smoking, to ease the pain of whether or not one would die in a war, after being drafted was pretty normal in 1970's America. I missed the draft by two years, so I lost many people I knew personally, and saw many more fucked up beyond recognition as they DEROSed back to the "World"; which should have been our first clue about what happens to a soldiers who live in hell, coming straight home with no down time to re-evaluate what they'd been through. It should be no surprise that the suicide rates outpace war deaths among American Iraq and Afghanistan combat vets; which makes me wonder, who embedded Lindsey Tanner's ass in the conversation?

As Janelle Monae states, "We will create and destroy ten art movements in ten years".

So you must do you part. I'm doing mine by re-educating the youth of today, before America breaks down and we accept a President who's so visionary that he's a Pol Pot re-do, and the destruction of American intelligentsia becomes an accepted practice. I wear glasses and have an opinion. My opinion matters. Like, "Could your child do this?" The realities of war are harsh.

I'm no Leonard Lipton, but we will march again, I assure you, and things haven't changed so much since 1965.

As as we were headed home, "R", smiled and said...."Ok, you are ruining my childhood memories", because she wanted them to be kid-like, fanciful, imaginary, and playful...you know, kid stuff about friendship. Well, the little boy grows up and the Dragon is left all alone. The Dragon goes off by himself. The lyrics to Puff implies death, but teachers today never discuss such things with children, nor do their parents. No one really knows what the intent of the song was when Lipton wrote it based on  Ogden's "Tale Of The Custard Dragon". In 2008, Rush Limbaugh and Company's Paul Shaklin re-recorded the tune under the title "Barack The Magic Negro", and Chip Saltsman used this version to run for Chairman of the Republican National Convention,... and Julie Chen was just as confused and in pain then as she is in 2013.

And, I ruined "R"'s childhood memories?

I'm not sure this was ever a children's song, and maybe there was always more to the layers of Lenny Lipton's work. All I know is, mine never included Puff The Magic Dragon as a marijuana smoking song.

Although, I have gotten high and watched H. R. Pufnstuf.

Now that was a grueling childhood memory.