In the Early Days

      Lucky Tailor and I couldn't find any grass, if you can believe that, but the reefer scene wasn't always what it is today. Things are better now, but we still have a ways to go. Thirty years ago we suffered dry spells in the Midwest, usually in late summer and worsening before election cycles. It wasn't classic rock then. It was just rock.

      I can remember back in the Park Layne days, going to the park in August and giving the High Sign and somebody telling me it's dry. That sinking feeling. Days of searching, looking for the friend of a friend. Sitting by the phone, sitting down the road while a friend went to check the prospects at some third-or-fourth-party's house. Pay phones and parking lots and suburban streets. Trying to look like I wasn't waiting on a drug deal.

      I remember one particular summer in Muncie, 1989, and the trials we endured looking for a bit of smoke. We went from Crawfordsville to Dayton and the story was the same. Waiting and driving and waiting some more and it never panned out. A sure thing was never a sure thing and eventually somebody would try and sell us lettuce opium. Sometimes we bought it.

      The fucked up thing is, this was how pot was a gateway drug. You know how they tell you Marijuana is bad because it leads to harder things? Well this is how.

      When it dried up, you'd ask everybody you knew where to get some pot. Eventually somebody would say “Everybody's dry now, but I know where to get some coke”. I lost friends to this every year. They'd think “Well hell, they lied to me about pot. Told me it would addict me and make me an ax wielding maniac or at the very least grow titties like a girl. Maybe they lied to me about the blow too”. Next thing you know they're selling blowjobs on Penn Street in Springfield or popping their collars and listening to Billy Ocean.     Like I said, I lost friends to this every year.

      This is why I started selling pot. It was never about the money. Selling pot for the money is like running a pizzeria for the money. The risk is greater than the reward if you do it right and don't take advantage of people. You do it for the love of it.

      In the dry spell of '89, the Connersville boys called and said they had a sure thing. A friend of a friend who lived on Jackson Street had the hookup. I picked them up and they took me to a guy's house who had us drive him to Whitely. He took our money and walked in the front door of a house and fifteen minutes later I saw him go out the back wearing a different jacket and hat.

      I was all for storming the joint, but the Connersville boys talked me down. We waited fifteen more minutes and then I went and knocked. The residents claimed a total stranger entered their house, exchanged jackets, and escaped out the back way. I knew he couldn't have made it back to Jackson Street yet by foot. I assumed he would stop for crack somewhere 

      I had the Connersville boys drive me back to his house where I kicked in his door and stole his color TV and a box of fried chicken from his freezer. I got my fifty bucks back on the TV. We ate the chicken.

      The next day they called and had another sure thing in Connersville. They had a friend holding a half ounce for me. They dragged me 46.1 miles to their “sure thing” where I waited at a railroad bridge, hunting geodes. They arrived and gave me three thin joints and thirty five bucks back. Lucky and I smoked one with them, on the 46.1 mile ride back, and dropped them back in the village where they came from.

       It was Wednesday night, so we smoked a second and went to the “Skin to Win” wet tee shirt contest at The Golden Fox. It was a good way for Ball State girls to make rent.

       I tucked the last doobie behind my ear and we returned to my place on Wheeling to smoke it. When we got there, my girlfriend who didn't live there, had locked us out. She would do that. She said she was never trying to keep me out of my own house. She just wanted to feel safe and wanted to know when I got home 

      I had ways around that.

      I had a window I liked to keep unlocked for such situations. Failing that, there was a door behind the refrigerator I could jimmy and push through. This particular night the window worked well enough. I climbed in, and opened the door for Mr. Tailor.

      Once we were safely inside and Amy not woken, I reached behind my ear for the last hardworn joint and it wasn't there. We panicked. We searched the car and the gravel and bushes outside the window and nothing. There was a rack of albums below the window I had climbed in. LP's. Vinyl records for you youngsters. Zepplin and Halen and Rush. Kansas Leftoverture and Frampton Comes Alive and Journey Escape. 

      We dumped them all out looking to see if the spliff might have fallen inside when I climbed in.

We searched the gravel and bushes again, flicking our bics until they melted down and we eventually gave up. Lucky made me promise to call him if I found it, and he was headed out the driveway in the Tercel when I ran my hands through my hair...

                                              ...and found the joint behind my OTHER ear.

(We were joyful. We might have hugged).

Let this be a lesson. ALWAYS check behind the OTHER EAR.

Waiting for Beaver Fever

Just after I Turned onto the Rim Road and General Crook trail, we stopped for another water break. That's where we found the sign. "It is illegal to grow Marijuana in YOUR National Forest". Paranoid now, I dumped my sack of seeds around the sign. That sign no longer exists. I guess it gave people ideas.
The trail wound around the rim, rising and falling, weaving through the pines. Occasionally, an ATV would blow past, leaving us in a cloud of dust. We walked to the side of the trail, which was made of limestone and cinder. Maya's pads were suffering from the sharp stone and the day was hot, so we stayed off the path and in the shade and soft grass.

Just as I was wondering if my calculations were off and we had passed the first of the mapped water holes, we dropped below a small hill and in the distance saw the small green sign identifying Johnson Spring. My heart raced with anticipation. Would it be flowing? Would it be safe? With the fire ban in place and no filter, I had no means of purification.

My research told me to avoid stagnant or brackish water. Also to watch for white encrustation around the edges that might indicate the presence of poisons or alkali. It took a few minutes of searching through the tall weeds to find the source of the spring.

The water from Johnson Spring seeped out of the ground and formed a tiny pool just shy of a cubic foot in size. A narrow stream bed, dry and overgrown, extended both north and south from the shallow depression. There were a few plants growing in and around the water. The spring looked clean and cool and flowed slowly from the bottom, avoiding stagnation. It had no discernible odor.

Next I looked for the presence of hemlocks, belladonna, or other noxious plants that can leach toxins. I wasn't able to identify the few plants that grew there, but none were recognizably poisonous.

Like with water, there are warning signs that unidentified plants may be hazardous. I saw no furry plants, resinous plants, or plants with red or white berries or flowers. Again, no guarantee.

Maya's canine constitution could handle any likely micro organisms. I let her drink her fill.

The most prevalent danger from untreated water is Giardiasis, a protozoan infestation that wreaks havoc on the small intestine. The Giardia are carried in the intestines of humans, cattle, other small mammals, and is spread to water through fecal contamination. The affliction these little bastards cause is known by the colorful name Beaver Fever. Most animals who carry the protozoa are asymptomatic, as are some people. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide suffer the symptoms of

Giardiasis.

Symptoms can appear any time between one and fifteen days after ingestion, and begin suddenly. There are gut wrenching cramps, explosive diarrhea, and projectile vomiting. These occur along with loss of appetite, general weakness, and odorous belching. Symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to six weeks and when its all over, it can cause varying degrees of permanent lactose intolerance.

Everything I knew about water, I learned in books before I hit the trail. The one thing all of them had in common was the assertion that untreated groundwater cannot be assumed safe without extensive study and high powered microscopy. Even boiled or filtered water can contain unseen dangers like salinity, alkalinity, heavy metals, chemicals, and pesticides,

I cringe to see people drink untreated water of any kind, and would have preferred another option. The only tracks I saw near the spring were from birds. I saw no sign of cattle, and the dry stream, even at full flow, would too small to support beavers. With the added assurance that it was spring water and only just broke the surface, I drank.

The rural folk I grew up around taught me that the bowels are the barometer of health. I subscribe to this adage and generally pay attention, more so in survival situations. For the next two weeks, however, I would be worriedly monitoring all of my bodily functions. Each fart or rumbling of belly could be cause for concern. I was properly hydrated and feeling fit, but had condemned myself to weeks of apprehension and fear. Time would tell.

We spent the hottest part of the afternoon resting in the shade and hydrating. Maya had some kibble and I mixed the last of my bread crumbs with the last of the gravy mix and had a meager lunch. The only comestibles left for me was a can of Tomato soup.

I had to make the decision whether to continue on or spend the night near the spring and start the next day refreshed and with full bottles. My maps indicated there was another spring three miles distant. There were a few hours of daylight left so after stashing half the gear, we took our chances and moved on. If Kehl spring wasn't flowing, we might have to return anyway.

Journal Days 4-5

Day 4

I just noticed I've been writing in this book upside down from the back so I turned it over and started at the other end.

I got up and the sun was high again today. I don't know if its the altitude or the cold, but I've sure been doing some sleeping. I breakfasted on canned green beans, mashed potatoes, and Knorr's Mushroom Hunter gravy. I have a big canister of the gravy mix and it has chunks of dried mushrooms.  Its very good and the 'shrooms rehydrate nicely. I'll have to remember that. I found it in the trunk of my old Oldsmobile. I've never seen it in the stores. I hope they still make it.

Maya and I walked down the track we're camped on to Forest Road 147. It was only a few hundred yards. Maybe a quarter mile give or take. Her feet are improving, yet tender. We stuck to the trees and walked on the thick, soft, pine needles. She wanted to go farther, but I noticed her react if she stepped on rocks so we'll have to wait a bit before we do any real hiking.

We returned to camp and I polished off a can of yams before napping from three to six. I wonder how long before I get used to this thin air. It doesn't seem to affect Maya, but she doesn't smoke like I do. We're above 7,000 feet up here. I had to turn my lighters up to get them to work properly.

Dinner was soups. Cream of Mushroom and Cream of Celery. Smoked my last cigarette and picked some Mullein. Mullein makes a decent tobacco substitute in a pinch. The herb books say that smoking it is actually good for the lungs. The trick to smoking Mullein is to remove the veins in the leaves. That makes it taste much better. I'm carrying a few dozen packs of rolling papers.

Just before the sun went down, we were serenaded by three different Ladderback woodpeckers. I hope they are eating Bark Beetles. With the drought, the beetles have wiped out a lot of the trees. At night, I can hear the click click click as the beetles munch away. During the day you can see patches of rust throughout the forest where the trees have died. We hit the sack at nine and within a half hour there was an elk barking within feet of our tarp. It's another cold night. My breath has been visible since dusk.

Day 5

Again the sun was high when we crawled out of the tarp. I hiked up the ridge to the northwest with Maya. We were scouting the area for a place to retreat for the upcoming weekend where we might be seen by less people, and not visible from the road. I guessed I could wait another day to fetch more water. Maya was looking and walking well, but I didn't want to walk her down the rough gravel roads to the lake. I cooked spaghetti at about four o'clock.

At about seven, I followed last night's fresh elk track up the ridge behind us and found the fresh elk himself. He was a young fellow, and had four points still in velvet. Maya was riveted, and the creature allowed us to watch it for a bit before crashing away through the brush. That was her first sighting and she learned the word elk that night.

We climbed down and had a dinner of macaroni and mozzarella with tomato sauce. Afterward, I reconfigured the tarps to be tighter and warmer. By time I finished, the first three stars of the night were out and we heard coyotes in the distance. An hour later, as I was pulling the last pot of coffee of the night off the fire, we heard an elk bugling. This wasn't the same sound as the warning barks we had been hearing. It was similar to the sound a pool hose makes if you swing it over your head.