By Ally Cyrino
The year was 1969, it was my 13th birthday. Woodstock set the stage for rock stars and hippie fans to commune in the harmonious light of peace, love, and rock n’ roll. The Beatles would play an encore performance, their last together, and “Charlie, and his Family” would bring the final curtain down on the darkened stage of the sixties pop culture revolution. I was too young for Woodstock, too late for the Beatles, and resentful that Charlie Manson had ushered out my last hopes to join the hippie culture I had so longed for.
Mine was a typical story of that time, really. Divorced parents, mom remarried, dad disappeared. Stepdaddy was an ass and didn’t want me around. What options are left for a rebellious youth such as myself? I lifted my stepdad’s new surfboard and his stash while he was passed out on a lawn chair in the yard. I began my own revolution. I liberated myself from the shackles of parental persecution, and began the process of discovering the many benefits marijuana.
Later that afternoon, I settled on the dilapidated steps of Venice Beach pier with my dog Jack at my side. I pondered my rather bleak situation. I was frightened of the consequences I would face upon returning home. I had no other option but to scale down the beanstalk from whence I came. Perhaps my step-dad wouldn’t even care. After all, a “four finger lid” only cost about ten bucks. A lid? Oh, that’s what we called a baggie of pot that was four fingers wide. I had it stashed in the pocket of my military field jacket, a gift from dad, or rather, one of the few things he left behind from his days in Vietnam.
I removed the bag from my pocket and searched the others for rolling papers. Even though I had never smoked before, having papers was a cool prop to show the other kids. The papers aided me in making the other kids believe that I actually had smoked before. After several failed attempts at rolling, crippled by the heightened anticipation of my first high, and spilling most of the weed in the sand, I succeed with a pathetically bent, and very crooked, saliva soaked joint. I lit my masterpiece gingerly, inhaled a deep and satisfying lung full of the aromatic flower into my breast. I held that breath until I burst into a pseudo-tuberculin coughing fit that would have matched that of the most advanced stage of a still tobacco addicted emphysema patient. Light headed and dizzy from the coughing, much less the potency of my step-dad’s weed, I fell asleep. The irony of this whole story is that I woke up some fifty years later to find myself an old man. After that birthday, I never smoked again until recently.
Today, I am a retired fireman with all the ramifications of a long hard fought career; broken, and in pain most of my days. All of the drug treatments, steroid injections, and surgeries failed to bring me any relief. My conservative doctor saw the desperation of my situation, and recommended medical marijuana as an alternative treatment. Initially, I scoffed at the suggestion, but after listening to my doctor explain the benefits of such treatment, I took the prescription with me. A few days later, at the height of a pain flare up, I gave in.
Brazenly and without giving a second thought to the many fire recruits that might see my distinct Harley in the parking lot of the dispensary, I went in looking for a miracle. Anything to stop the pain. A pretty young girl gazed at me empathetically from across the counter as I explained my situation. Then she walked me through the process; explained the varieties, different strains, and the many ways to ingest these new breeds of pot. I was amazed at how the industry had grown.
I left the store with an armful of smoking paraphernalia and a few different forms of my prescription in tow. When I arrived home, I decided my first attempt at this would be the oil cartridge in a battery operated pipe. This was seemingly simpler than rolling a joint, and so began my newly found love affair with marijuana.
Now, before you “Generation X” people out there judge me for having surrendered to the pressures of pain and discomfort, let me just say, death would have been a welcome relief from the pain I was feeling. Put your preconceived notions aside for a moment. I’m not in my living room, in my underwear playing air guitar to Led Zeppelin, nor am I sitting on my sofa with a mixture ice cream, of potato chips, and Oreos. Although, that does sound really good right about now.
Remember that you gave up on a whole generation of kids! You gave into the comforts society had to offer you, and turned your backs on the friends that fought and died in a contested war. You gave up your grip on the change that could have affected how the world is today.
Quite frankly I wasn’t unlike those of you who now oppose the ballot measure before us, a child not yet born of the sixties, and certainly much too old for the seventies still to come. I joined the ranks of society and became a pillar of such, a fireman. Before you lift a brow in judgement, perhaps you’d better take a second look back in time to Woodstock. Not one person died as a result of violence, it was a time of peace, love, music, and harmony. I’ll spare you more of this lecture, but if you are blaming marijuana for society’s ills today, you are sadly mistaken. If marijuana were the truly the center stage of the hippie pop rock culture of the sixties, then we would do well to bring it back. The Lost Generation will never quite fit flush into the annals of history. We will be skipped over as the pages ahead hold much more interesting news. Although we hold the unique position of seeing life and time in both perspectives, it is my personal perception that we need to allow the people to have their marijuana without the stigmas of the past. We need to decriminalize its usage and free up society for a return of allusive peace, love, and rock n’ roll.
I’ve seen some of you all swaying back and forth, holding fingers poised in the sign of peace at the concerts of tribute bands of those musicians, and prophets who have long since passed.
Who can still today hear Jimmy’s guitar wail, or sit quietly solemnly during Jim Morrison’s “This Is the End,” and ponder the days of long ago? Did you forget the days we sat together on the tapestry carpeted floors, a vinyl on the stereo, the components cover on our laps separating seeds, and stems? Marijuana still offers that peaceful euphoria that we once experienced. On a grand scale, marijuana could set the world back on a peaceful, more loving axis for us all.
Our two generations are still thriving perhaps more than ever, and lest we forget, we were once as young as the kids are today. Let’s help this new generation to succeed where we failed. Let’s see beyond our own selfishness, let’s not give into the pressures of the establishment. Let’s not lose another entire generation because of our inability to hold on to our plights, and surrender our dreams. Give future generations a chance to make theirs right, and perhaps we will find ourselves wrapped in a blanket of peace, love, and rock n’ roll on a wet rain soaked hillside as we listen to Jimmy play “The Star Spangled Banner” on his Gibson Guitar.
