The summer of 1991 wasn't much of a summer. Like the previous summers of the last few years, it was wasted for me since I didn't go away for a vacation or did anything worthwhile like get a part-time job and attend summer classes. Instead, it was pretty much a sit at home affair with the occasional bike ride through the hills to let off steam.
However, there was very memorable moment of that particular summer - my first time smoking weed. For the 17 year old kid in me, it was like getting laid for the first time...somewhat bizarre and disorienting but very pleasant nonetheless.
As my more experienced associate started rolling a phat blunt with a cigar shell, I started thinking about how smoking joints was still being viewed as a forbidden pleasure. After all, it wasn't until the mid-90s that weed smoking was becoming more mainstream and the pro-marijuana groups were out in full force for decriminilization. In 1991, it was still considered taboo.
Of course, that all went away once we (there were 4 of us, including myself) started lighting it up and passing the blunt around. I don't know where to describe the beginning sensation...it was like a sudden calm came over me...a moment of clarity that most people may never experience in their lives, drug-induced or not. It's funny but I began to realize at that point that, hey, I was going to fail out of high school if I didn't stop clowning around and cutting classes all the time...something that my parents, my guidance counselor, and various teachers could not convince me of but the weed did.
Ray began to babble on about Scooby Doo and how the cartoon show was a metaphor for the legalization of everything from shrooms to bestiality, all while doing his best Shaggy voice.
Matt started giggling about his Scanners fantasy of being able to blow up everything with his mind and proceeded to concentrate on blowing up the tv by staring at it intensely with his blue and grey eyes.
Darlene started stripping...and, man, it was unsettling how professional it was.
At the end, we all started singing Depeche Mode's "Never Let Me Down Again" loudly, all the while dancing around the room like the tribal idiots that we were.
That's the memory that the song evokes for me.