Recollections from the Sixties

                                                                 ... first in a series

Intro: When I tell my students that I started college in the 1960s, they will ask some interesting questions like this: "Were you at Woodstock?"

I laugh and tell them that my summers were spent working in the open hearth furnaces and in the furnaces at the wheel plant at Bethlehem Steel in Johnstown or anywhere else I could make a few bucks. 

At the time of Woodstock in August, 1969, I was also coaching the Lilly Raiders football team, which went undefeated for the third consecutive season in 1969. 

Woodstock was hardly on my calendar that month. All that I know about it was what I read about in articles or books. 

However, I thought that maybe I should try to recollect my experience in the Sixties. Here is the first installment.

Number 1

I came of age in the Sixties, but that encompassed the period from my eighth grade at St. Brigid's School in Lilly to my years at Penn State University, from 13 years of age to 22. 

That covers my first teenaged experiences to adulthood -- and includes many ventures, some very good, some not as good. 

I thought of the Sixties last night because CNN had a special about how frightening the Sixties were from a political and historical perspective. I am also completing the nonfiction book, "The making of the president, 1968" by Theodore White and a biography of John F. Kennedy by Alan Barkley. I am still intrigued by that period of my life.

In addition, earlier in the week, a fellow sexagenarian wrote about her experience with chocolate marijuana. The writer was Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist whose column, "Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, Dude," set me thinking about my experiences with MJ back in the Sixties and beyond. 

Those experiences were brief and infrequent. As I entered Beaver Hall at University Park, Pa. one fall afternoon in the late Sixties, I smelled something strange, like burning leaves in the fall. After a minute, i realized that the smell was indeed that "Weed" that the Hippies loved.

I did not indulge in the use of MJ for a number of reasons. First, when I was a young boy I tried smoking a cigarette. Just one. The next day, my nasal passages were filled with a horrible substance and I felt nauseated. I never went back to them, fortunately, and as a result, smoking weed was not possible.

In addition, it was illegal, and that is a concern is you are going to be looking for a job some day. 

Fast forward to 1971 when I received my degree at Beaver Stadium. When I walked into the stadium and sat with my fellow graduates, I could have been high simply by the smell of MJ. I was offered some on a number of occasions, but politely deferred.

So, when Maureen Dowd talked about her experience in trying to eat a candy bar laced with some legal marijuana in it in Denver, Colo., in January, she conveyed a frightening experience. However, she also made a major mistake: She ate the whole bar, and for beginners, that was a major mistake. 

Dowd writes about how horrible the next eight hours were for her. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/opinion/dowd-dont-harsh-our-mellow-dude.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Opinion&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article

What makes this intriguing for me is that prior to this experience, she spent the better part of three hours researching this with an expert in Denver, who says that he told her to be careful. 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/matt-brown-maureen-dowd-marijuana-lessons

In short, she should have known better.

Dowd graduated from Catholic University in 1973, and she and I have a similar story: Neither or us used MJ in college. She was a good student, as I was. She was a child of Irish-American parents, as I was. However, she grew up in Washington, D.C., and I call Lilly, Pa., my hometown. Buying some MJ on the streets of Lilly was not an easy task in those days.

The other obvious difference is that she bit into a "marijuana-infused" candy bar, but I have no intention of doing so. 

So, was Colorado's legalization of marijuana a good first step? I have been very critical of the "War on Drugs," which is a another war that the U.S. has lost. Spending billions chasing those who sell or use MJ on the streets is a waste of good resources. Rather than cut down on the use of illegal drugs on the streets, their use has increased exponentially over the past 40 years.

Colorado is earning some big bucks for its efforts. Dowd wrote, "Colorado raked in about $12.6 million the first three months after pot was legalized for adults 21 and over." That was one reason that many who were opposed to this thought that it would be a worth-while social experiment. 

The truth is that Dowd should not have eaten the whole cannabis bar on her first "trip" into the unknown any more than she should have consumed an entire bottle of her "more mundane drugs of choice, chardonnay" or a bottle of vodka. No doubt, she will not repeat her social experiment, and as a 60-something, she should know better than to engage in this. 

Her was her rationale: "I figured if I was reporting on the social revolution rocking Colorado in January, the giddy culmination of pot Prohibition, I should try a taste of legal, edible pot from a local shop."

What I know of journalism today is that I need not ingest any moonshine to write an article about it -- nor do I have to become a member of the Ku Klux Klan to write about it.

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