DAYS OF YORE

Now that I’m getting close to the end, my hearing is poor, my teeth are plastic and my eyesight is dimming, and I no longer give a crap who knows these things, I thought I’d tell a little story.

In my later years, which were a long time ago now, nearly 50 years ago, I bought some land in northern California and supported myself by growing pot. Everyone up there did, many still do, but at the time it was still illegal and there was a thing called C.A.M.P. that started up, which was a joint effort between the Sheriffs Dept. and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA. C.A.M.P. meant Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.

The roads up into those hills are all glorified logging roads that have been widened and improved over time to support the increased use by all the people who moved in up there, but they’re still dirt and will never be paved because the land is too rugged and unstable.

In the Fall, when the pot buds would ripen, the airplane spotters would start flying over the hills looking for crops, and they’d find them, too. We all had CB radios and would be listening when harvest time came near, because we had a code. When the Sheriff Dept. and DEA big stake-side trucks would start rolling north on Highway 101 out of Ukiah, pot lovers along the route would get on their CB radios and start sending out the warnings to those of us up north of them in the mountains that The Law was coming to raid our pot patches.

The code they used depended on how big the raid was that was coming. If it was just a few cars and trucks, we’d hear “There will be a Dancercize class taking place this morning” and if it was more vehicles, “There will be a Dancercise and Jazzercise class”, but if it was lots of them, a big, serious raid was coming, then we heard “There will be Dancercise, Jazzercise, Exercise and Aerobicize classes, get ready” and we knew we’d better grab what we could of our stuff and find a safe place to keep from being arrested if they came to us.

When one of these big raids would happen and there were a few in my neighborhood, I would always be sitting up on a far ridge with a good view and a jug of wine, watching. There’d always be at least one helicopter flying around directing the ground crews, and as the big stakeside trucks filled up with chopped down pot plants I’d see them rolling back out of our remote river valley with all that green sticking out from whacking down someone’s big crop, which was now destined to be destroyed in the big slash burner at a lumber mill in Ukiah.

They never got mine, because I didn’t make it worthwhile for them. They saw my plants alright, but they were after the 50, 100 or more plant patches. I generally had 25 to 40 plants and they were scattered all over the woods in 2’s, 3’s and 4’s. It was just too much work for those fat-bellied deputies to do all that hiking up the hills, down the hills, through the bushes. I didn’t mind, I was plenty strong and fit and I enjoyed it. Growing pot in the woods was one of the most fun things I ever did.

I miss those days, but what the hell, I miss other days in other places, too. Life’s been a great adventure, I traveled all over the world, had a variety of successful businesses, was a custom car painter, shop keeper, built houses and so on and did well at all of them, well enough that I’ve been living off the money for over 20 years and still have more than enough to go another 20 years, though I know my days will run out a lot sooner than that. So while this may not be my final post, it is time to just say the things I feel like saying. Not likely it’s going to get read much anyway, and if it does, it doesn’t matter.