Trippin'

The time was the nineteen-seventies. The place was a small town. Drug culture had insinuated itself into our little town. Stoners and slackers dealt drugs directly from their parents' homes. Parents wondered why their kids were suddenly so popular, what with friends dropping by twenty-four hours a day, for furtive visits and exchanges. Some parents eventually caught on and became pissed.

At this point, my family had two houses on adjacent lots. One had been empty. At age twelve I’d found that this was the perfect time to move in. So, here I was, at age sixteen, still there. My friends really seemed to like it, too.

My first LSD adventure started innocently enough with a visit from a friend. She was very hip and had connections in actual cities. She appeared at my front door one afternoon, a gleam in her eye and contraband in her purse. I invited her inside. She got right to the point.

"Here, I have something for you. Acid. Blotter acid."

"Oh. Well, should I take the whole thing, or just snip it in half?"

"Either way."

"Should I take it now?"

"If you want. I have to run. Enjoy!"

"Wait. How long does it take to feel the effects?"

"About an hour."

I eyed the hit of acid. As I recall, it had Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck on it. What could be the harm in this tiny piece of paper with such a sweet, familiar cartoon character on it? I put it in my mouth. I awaited the effects with major butterflies in my stomach. Instead of going out, I decided it might be best to stay home.

As the drug took effect, I stood at my front screen door and watched people walk up and down the street. The colorful visual effects began, along with a sense of euphoria. I thought that I might burst out laughing at anytime, not cool behavior for a person who happened to be alone. Then I noticed it. The people parading up and down my street knew. They probably could have seen my dilated pupils at ten yards. Yep. They knew that something was askew and were giving me significant looks, laughing and talking about me.

The day quickly progressed as I puttered around the house. It was the perfect level of stimulation: no people to deal with, no bothersome tasks to worry about. It was a perfect experience. Time flew. I probably saw it fly – clock faces and calendar pages swirling about my head, the essence of time a tornado dissipating out a window. My brain cells doing who knows what, I moved colorfully and euphorically through the day.

Later that evening I got hungry, and decided to go next door to my grandparents' house to eat. In a strange act of family togetherness, I watched The Jackie Gleason Show with my grandfather. In a sketch, Gleason was alone in a lifeboat on the ocean, pondering his fate dramatically. Oh! Wait a minute! He wasn’t in the middle of the ocean after all, but practically at the shoreline. Hysterical stuff here! I experienced a new appreciation of Jackie Gleason, and had an LSD/Jackie Gleason Epiphany.

As my grandmother offered me mystery food, she didn’t seem to notice that my pupils seemed the size of dimes. Was it my imagination, or was the food actually moving around on the plate? My grandmother's kitchen and dining nook suddenly seemed very small and garishly painted. I felt as though I was trapped in a dollhouse. I ate the food. I went back next door. I went to bed. I must have had interesting dreams that night.

Such were the highlights of my first time, my wild trip. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, eat your hearts out! In retrospect I'm glad that I stayed home. Wandering around, tripping in Small Town USA, would not have been prudent.