Peace Love and Dope?

I guess I became a folk music fan sometime around 1971, but I didn’t know it was folk music that was spinning my young American ears. I was a rock and roll guy - not country and to this day I eschew country music like it is something distasteful…I’m sorry, but that’s just the way I see it.

I was about 18, stationed in Great Falls, Montana, far from home and I remember Neil Young launched an album called "Harvest" and I would sit in my barracks room and listen to Ol' Neil wail out those lonely lyrics and feel his words tear through me like a dry wind out of the desert. One song in particular hit me hard. It was "Old Man", a song about something I didn't really understand. I do now, for I am rapidly realizing my own mortality.

Neil wrote it after meeting an older fellow up in Idaho who just couldn't understand how a young hippie musician could afford to buy so many things, especially real estate in Idaho, when he himself had toiled all those years trying to eke out a living.

Old man, look at my life, twenty four and there’s so much more
Live alone in a paradise that makes me think of two.

Neil, in his usual self-effacing manner told the man that he "was just lucky I guess" and left it at that. I wish I was more like Neil Young in that respect. Neil has weathered the storm of his occupation and is still in my top ten artist’s folder.

My life is a record with occasional poor decisions, but don’t feel sorry for me as I have taken steps to correct them. I learned the good old-fashioned hard way. And I’m not proud of some of it at all, but in order to qualify my current views of life, I will relate a portion, a dark time in my life. I hope for your sake that you can learn from my mistakes.

Like I said before, I was an Airman in the Strategic Air Command and the Vietnam War came for me. Orders came down sending me to Danang airbase, South Vietnam. Like so many young men in uniform, I was off to war. The 70's were a tough time to be a young person in the military and not because of the war, but because of the emerging dope scene and the way it was being projected as the answer. The news reports told stories about Willie Nelson bragging about smoking dope on the roof of the White House with secret service men and every Hollywood Star talking about how they get high on a regular basis and above all of that - cheap dope for G.I.'s in far away exotic places.

I finally gave into the temptation and yes, I bought into it. I embraced the lifestyle because it was the thing to do and above all – everyone else was doing it, a philosophy I learned to regret and to this day it is one of the main reasons I resist following the crowd.

I learned first hand about White Horse methamphetamine, Thai stick, mescaline, red rock heroin, Robilar RC cough medicine, mescaline, Window pane acid, PCP, Orange Sunshine, bongs, pipes and how to roll a one-handed joint with strawberry papers. I saw my buddies scratch themselves raw from heroin withdrawals and on occasion watched perfectly good American boys puke their guts out from an allergic reaction to the opium in the Thai stick they tried to ingest through a bong.

I caught you knockin' at my cellar door
I love you, baby, can I have some more
Ooh, ooh, the damage done.

I learned about delusional behavior and how a person can work 16 hour days, stay up all night and repeat it again and again only to "crash" and collapse when a day off finally was granted. Normal behavior was getting high 99% of the time and working 100% of the time. Lunch was a couple of joints and 3 cans of beer. Rock music was the thread that helped all of us cope with the many miles of smoke, alcohol and copious back-breaking long hours of work.

I was invited one time into the bungalow of a fellow G.I. to listen to music and the bare walls of his abode were lined with the empty bottles of high powered cough medicine - Robular RC out of England. 49% alcohol and 8% codeine if memory serves me right. This fellow weighed about 130 pounds sopping wet and him about 6 foot tall. I remember we listened to Texas musician Johnny Winter sing his early rendition of Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo, a song Rick Derringer later made famous.

I hit the city and I lost my band
I watched the needle take another man
Gone, gone, the damage done.

The keyboardist for the band “The Doors”, Ray Manzarek in a TV interview said something I will never forget, he said we were right about peace and love, but we missed it on the drugs. I agree with him 100 %. Music played a big part in my descent into the drug world, but in retrospect, it wasn’t the music, it was the culture, the times and my deliberate association. I still listen to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and appreciate the music and the talent more than ever; I just don’t include dope. I’ve been clean since 1975.

Long live American music, live as peacefully as possible, but leave the dope to the dopes.