Posted on 08/19/2009 10:53:47 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie
Edited on 08/20/2009 5:51:05 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
a buddy of mine’s older brother was involved with QSM
and in the mid 70s I knew some folks in the bay area and traveled there for visits several times....their brother/brother in law was at law school at Ole Miss...they were skate and surf equipment magnates and had an illustrious history sorta like a New Riders song...in fact allegedly Marmaduke wrote OK Sam and Dirty Business about their exploits in the early to mid 60s...they had been in that scene from the early Kesey days and so forth....
my cousin...whom I grew up with in Jackson and who is a lib has lived out there since he moved out in 84 or so and became a DMV judge and lives up near the Presidio in rent control
and who btw....doesn't like Obama now
I have not been to San Fran in over 20 years
but don't forget...there were blossoming hippie movements everywhere
Stephan Gaskin and his horde moved not far from where i now type and they are still there
hey dude...
the Dead died with Pig!
no terps for me..
Quaaludes on the other hand were quite fun and had zero to do with losing Vietnam.
Vietnam was lost on capital hill and in Johnson's oval office.
I have never been anything but supportive here of Vietnam war and those I grew up with and knew who fought in it .
That doesn't mean we are glorifying drug use. You might notice I said I haven't used drugs since my early 20s, they get in the way of life and raising 5 children.
But as a southern style long haired boy weaned on the good music of the 60s, a came of age as Lynyrd Skynyrd-Led Zep-Tull-Floyd-Dead sorta fellow born around 3-4 years too late for Vietnam service (1957) that yes I do remember fondly my youth in the south of partying in the woods letting yer hair down, duck camp, deer camp, the insatiable quest for punani, smoking pots and taking some dope within reason and little drinking too. I had a blast...a wonderful growing up.
But was it not without pitfalls? nope...like any youth generation it can be very hazardous.
None of which makes me responsible for Vietnam. I applaud your service. I always have. My family is full of Vets. My uncle was killed in the Ardennes right after he turned 19. Another was gassed in number one. As a baby they passed me over his dying body as he lay at the vets home in Biloxi after 50 years post gassing of a difficult life.
Yes...I agree that LSD influenced many in the Yippie..student movement or was it that because of how they were they were inclined to that. I'm not sure but I'm a staunch southerner...we were not keen on Yippies nor their Freedom Rider agitator predecessors regardless of whether we took LSD or not.
Ahhh, the hard life!
I do remember that most of the people that lived in the bushes of the park panhandle were from out of state, in fact probably 80% of the population of the Haight-Ashbury in 66 was transient flower children, so I was wondering if you had been there. Lots of Army guys hung out on Haight.
And even more so, in the news media!
I enjoyed the hippie life and I enjoyed California and I fought the draft that I didn’t believe in, but after I beat the draft and won my permanent deferment I almost immediately enlisted in the army and asked for jump school.
There was never a time when I did not support our efforts in Vietnam and I was never the type to not make that clear, no matter who I was with or where I was.
One thing that I would not tolerate during my hippie days was draft dodgers that left the country, that proved that they were not standing on principle and I would insist that they leave the house (they often made appearances in the states), if it was a party where I was a stranger then I would make a public appeal to the host to remove the coward or else I was leaving, I kind of liked doing it because it gave me a chance to shock complacent people and make them think, I like to think that most people got my point and agreed with me. Oh, and like always I would have a paperback book in my pocket.
By the way although we were all doing similar things and never discussed it, both of my brothers and my only stepbrother at the time enlisted at different times during the war.
So many cliches and stereotypes of the 1960s are not accurate.
Again, no one posted positive experiences of their or their friend’s use of drugs.
All were negative, one with a person ending up dead.
Please tell me how that would encourage a naive young person to do drugs?
(156)I don't think anybody said it is harmless.
To the contrary, I think that you did exactly that:
(10)Seizures and being admitted to hospital in "serious condition" are not associated with use of LSD per se.
They might be associated with actions the people took while under the influence (e.g. doing stupid sh!t).
[The drug didn't do any harm, the people doing something stupid did. Translation: "I am smart, strong, and mentally together. LSD wont hurt you if you are smart, and strong and mentally together, like i am.]
"a bad reaction to beer" was the cause of a guy's broken jaw and black eye. Nope, it was the bar fight that did those injuries.
[The bar fight was a direct result of the beer inducing an altered mental state.]
(10)...still trying to make LSD out to be the bogeyman...
(17)Yeah, rumor. Nudge nudge, wink, wink
[Translation: I am hip, an insider, know all about dope. If you are like me, drugs won't hurt you.]
(28)A clinically dangerous dose of LSD is so large that your brain would have long since melted down into slag.
A reasonably fit and stable person can drop a dozen hits and come back down just fine... or an unstable person can drop half a hit and lose their sh!t entirely.
Yeah, uh-huh, it's the drug's fault. Right.
I sure wish people were raised to take personal responsibility for their actions. Blaming "the drug" is just a load of irresponsible crap.
[The drug didn't do any harm, the people doing something stupid did. Translation: "I am smart, strong, and mentally together. LSD wont hurt you if you are smart, and strong and mentally together, like i am.]
(33)Manyyearsdecades ago I was around a lot of people who dropped a lot of acid. I saw a few "bad" trips in there, though none that resulted in permanent injury or death, just a little time in the local ER, waiting to sober up.
Every single one of those "bad" trips was caused by over-reaction to external circumstances that were entirely preventable. I have never witnessed LSD itself create a bad trip, nor do I believe it does. Sick people, and bad circumstances, yes, no doubt.
[The drug didn't do any harm, the people doing something stupid did. Translation: "I am smart, strong, and mentally together. LSD wont hurt you if you are smart, and strong and mentally together, like i am.]
Personal responsibility, and responsibility for the safety of one's friends and family, can prevent bad trips.
[ A person with any sense of " responsibility for the safety of one's friends and family..." would never conceive the idea of dropping acid.]
(36)I don't suppose the cops let him keep it?
Dang, didn't think so...\
[Translation: I am hip, an insider, know all about dope. If you are like me, drugs won't hurt you.]
(42)I'm just saying that the chemical itself is NOT the cause of the problems.
Millions of people dropped acid over the years with no adverse reactions, because they did so in safe surroundings with friends who helped keep them from doing stupid things.
Blaming personal irresponsibility and stupid actions on a drug (whatever the drug) is a cop-out. If one is so weak that one can't take responsibility for oneself, and one doesn't have friends to help out, then one should not do drugs, any drugs.
Unfortunately, as you correctly point out, a lot of people do, who shouldn't.
[The drug didn't do any harm, the people doing something stupid did. Translation: "I am smart, strong, and mentally together. LSD wont hurt you if you are smart, and strong and mentally together, like i am.]
(67)Owsley was quite a critter. Still is, actually.
I was living in New Jersey during that period, so anything that made it out to the East Coast had been handled a lot. But Owsley's products were always distinguished.
I believe he established a quality standard that none since (other than the US Government USP-grade LSD-25) has approached.
[The drug didn't do any harm, the people doing something stupid did. Translation: "I am smart, strong, and mentally together. LSD wont hurt you if you are smart, and strong and mentally together, like i am.]
(91)Acid is an incredibly powerful psychoactive drug. In my opinion it surpasses all other drugs in the regard that it is not for everyone, indeed most people probably should avoid it, because it will likely change their point of view about their lives, and most people can't handle questions like that.
[The drug didn't do any harm, the people doing something stupid did. Translation: "I am smart, strong, and mentally together. LSD wont hurt you if you are smart, and strong and mentally together, like i am.]
...most people can drop acid without a bad trip.
[Long passage comparing LSD to beer or wine.]
(98)...but take my word that any that you've heard a name for from the late 60's and early 70's is in there, plus some USP lab-grade in sealed ampules (don't ask) that was the best of all.
[Translation: I am hip, an insider, know all about dope. If you are like me, drugs won't hurt you.]
(135)I guarantee you I didn't get ripped off. :)
And blotter, and White Owsley, and windowpane, and a variety of "dots", and my particular favorite, a light green tab with dark flecks called "chocolate chip mint"... but the sealed USP ampules of pure 25, that was the good shit
[Translation: I am hip, an insider, know all about dope. If you are like me, drugs won't hurt you.] [Picture of LSD vial]
[Translation: I am hip, an insider, know all about dope. If you are like me, drugs won't hurt you.]
(156)I did say that in my opinion, acid got blamed for a huge variety of mishaps, injuries, psychoses, and deaths, which were actually the result of a person, often with existing psychological problems, ingesting not only acid but typically other stuff as well, in an unsafe environment, and doing stupid actions.
...a lot more people get their lives F-ed up due to alcohol than acid, for example.
Don't sweat the "innocent teenager" of today too much -- they've usually got more information about drugs than we did, and if something as generic as a discussion of long-past activities tips them over the line, I submit they would have found some other excuse if this one didn't exist.
[The drug didn't do any harm, the people doing something stupid did. Translation: "I am smart, strong, and mentally together. LSD wont hurt you if you are smart, and strong and mentally together, like i am.]
I believe that these posts are a subconscious attempt to convince yourself that you have not been damaged by LSD. I also believe that they constitute an unintentional advertisement for LSD. Therefore I think they have no place here.
If you cannot understand this, may I humbly suggest that you ask someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth to give you their opinion.
DG
I do not intend to condemn anything you did 40 years ago. Only about today. Yet you defend yourselves.
Is 40 years ago a subject want to explore?
DG
p.s. if so, I cannot guarantee to remain civil.
I don’t know what you are asking me, I get the impression that you are angry about something and want to go off on people, you are picking around like you want to end the discussion on this thread and hijack it to your own ends for some reason.
Personally I would like to see you just move on to another thread.
November 1965--pre-Haight-Ashbury.
Vietnam 1965: The Day It Became the Longest War
Read this as a four-page article in Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute May 1996.
LBJ lost it November 1965.
Cronkite put the last knife in after Tet 1968.
Jane Fonda did her part.
John Kerry did his part.
And, still, Hell ain't half full.
Now if we get Obama out of the Afghan situation we will succeed there.
Traitors being like weeds.
Further this deponent sayeth not.
>>”you are picking around like you want to end the discussion on this thread...”
I guess me saying that made it pretty easy to guess...
DG
But hey. They are just offhand comments on a web forum, the recollections of someone who left that phase of life decades ago and has no desire to return to it. I mean, sure I hope my comments are interesting to other FReepers, agree or disagree. But really, it's not that important in the grand scheme of things. There are much more important things to get all worked up about.
;-)
I urge you to take a few deep breaths, and not worry about me, or my experiences, or my opinions, or what I say about them. Have a great evening and a better tomorrow.
I love these dope threads.
I learn so much about the folks here. lol
I know you’ve got your priorities straight.
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