I BEG YOUR PARDON -- RESTITUTION

NOT A JOKING MATTER

Every now and then we narrate experiences that cause personal reactions that differ with the ones that we know.  The interesting part of the meeting of the two positions is that we have to be honest about the value of each.  Since it is rare that each side of the truth is absolutely equal, an honest weighing of them is essential if any progress is to be made in life.  I therefore have to make you all aware that my opinion about marijuana has been called into question by some of you and outright condemned by another.  That's three.  The condemnation was from the very first.  If I apply the soup kitchen cockroach theory, "if you see one, you know that there are a lot more where that one came from," -- or the "silent majority" -- it is imperative that I beg pardon from you all.  

I admit that over the time of the "365 Thoughts..." blog I have made some humorous and cavalier remarks about marijuana and alcohol.  At my age I should know better.  I am not without knowing the destructive effects that are caused by these two drugs.  In my professional life I have had to discipline severely victims of addiction to the one or the other.  Having been enlightened by those memories should have made me censor myself before offending you with wise cracks about how I enjoyed the use of the illegal weed in the shadier corners of my past.  

It is true that as we go forward into the years, what we leave behind often becomes the grist for our humor mill.  The narrow escapes from exploding firecrackers; the “near misses” while driving the family sedan; the sneaking into the movie theatre without getting caught and finally, in my case, the story of the window I broke with a snowball and was able to escape retribution.  To the degree of immorality that these adventures may be, they do stay away from causing the ruination of lives.  They somehow float around in the backwater of our minds while making an occasional appearance when we are exchanging past foibles.  I made the mistake of including marijuana and alcohol use among those that might be categorized as “harmless.”    Please forgive me.
With a sinner's past like that, I need a saint's future.  If I get it, you will not have to cry at my funeral.

PICK YOUR POISON

Drugs, drugs, drugs.  I have some personal stories about drugs.  None of them touch on the consequences of mixing marijuana into bourbon as I seem to have done here.  Actually, I have to confess that even when I was doing marijuana, I would never do both of them together. I was afraid that the mixing of the two would perhaps kill me.  Seeing that I was never in a suicidal mode when toking my way through a mellow evening with my thirty-something friends, it is clear that I was in no danger of crossing the line into vitally dangerous territory.  In fact, the most dangerous thing I ever did was to brag that even at my age and after some 20 years away from the baseball diamond, the 70 MPH pitching machine could not strike me out.  It was not very late into the night, so I still can't figure out why I would have ever said such a thing.  The "put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is" upshot of the brag was "I had to pay for the next buy of "Sensemilla Columbian Select" greenery.  At the time, that was somewhere close to $50.00 per ounce.
That's about what it would take for one evening of "mellowship" for the six of us.
We set the date.  I promised that I would not take any time to practice before the test.  We gathered at the batting cage at the appointed time and place.  It was decided that they would feed $1.00 into the machine.  If  I remember well, that was about 25 balls at 70 miles-per-hour.  By the 22nd pitch I had two strikes on me.  One of the "gang" was trying to make me quit while I was ahead.  Pitch 23, foul tip.  Whoooo!  Pitches 24 and 25 clean contact.  I WIN!   So what do we do?  We go to our favorite bar, of course.  We had no weed because everyone thought that I would buy the next pouchful.  So that night was a Canadian rye and Kentucky Bourbon gathering.
So, we went from being Illegal Aliens to being Legal ones.  I will end this by saying simply that if the buffoons in D.C. want to balance the budget, all they have to do is to legalize and tax their sweet old aunt Mary Jane.  On top of that, the market would freeze out the transfer of the wealth from South to North and the illegal immigration problem would be halfway solved.
See how smart I am?  Much smarter than the bribe takers in D.C.  Problem is, I'm on the wrong end of the wealth redistribution stick.