RIGHT OF PASSAGE - Part Fourteen - Magical, Mystery, Truth

My condolences to Algernon, but it wasn't Mary Jane who destroyed me.

Smoking marijuana was an experiment, because of the misconceptions, misinformation, legality issues, and dealing with the black market. But it wasn't my undoing.

Marijuana wasn't always known as that, but rather, prior to the 1930's it was called ganja. It's scientific name is cannabis, with subspecies like indica and sativa. It's origin is, as best I recall the Andes. It's use goes back thousands of years. Yet little is known about it's use, as modern archaeologists generally focus more on acceptable mind altering substances, like alcohol. Not always, but more often.

Hah, but did I say I "was destroyed"? If so I got well ahead of myself. The truth is, sadly at almost 25 my life flipped, as in a train wreak, and I was pretty much destroyed. But there is much - hundreds of years within 4 years that my life was rich and flowing, torturous and painful, exotic and fulfilling. I learned a lot in those 4 years... age 20 - 24; experienced a lot. Yes, I was Algernon, and at 25 i lost much that i gained, but I didn't die, and I didn't forget everything.

One important goal during those years was building "Personal Power". I read most of the Carlos Castaneda novels. "The Teachings of Don Juan". A way to oneself... a way to see...

Personal Power and Not Doing were two important lessons. One needed power to survive, and the ability to not do, so as to be a individual. There was much more, the ability to SEE, which is hard to explain... more than seeing auras, though that is a small part.

One might think me MAD, back then, but it was all mainstream, even if it was fringe reality.

The facts are:

I went from being bullied, shy, introverted to the person people came to for help; I had many, many friends, which I learned one night when throwing a party and over 50 people turned up at my apartment...

Initially, I quit college in 1974, but when getting my custodial job, resumed taking classes, but changed my major from electronics tech to liberal arts. Benefits paid for unlimited courses that i could take, and I did. A few years later when I applied for a BA degree, instead of the normal 60 credits to transfer, I had over 90... which shaved a full semester off getting my BA.

I was hardly introverted any longer... quite the opposite. Which when considering the mid 70's was a sexual revolution, and it seems everyone was having sex with everyone, at least for some people, I was one of those people. I was one of those people who hoped to meet and marry his soul-mate too. Who hoped for success. I worked hard, 3 - 11 M-F cleaning the Fine Arts Building, and on the side, I wrote thousands of words, and had seemingly unending encounters with so many interesting people.

In a way now many years later there is this force pushing on me to abandon those years, with shame and guilt. After-all, I smoked marijuana and ate pot brownies often. I had sex with several women, all whom I loved. I studied witchcraft, or "White Magic", and admit to a mushroom or two and a bit o' windowpane. I often walked in the woods - there being a college park adjacent to the campus, with a hundred acres of trees and park space. It was heaven.

And it was hell...

As my parents, my mother in particular was at war with my newfound world. I had little defense against my mother, although I could plead my case with my father, who understood me, to a good amount, but ultimately, he would support my mother, who, like Nurse Ratchet, in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", she saw to it that any heaven I might achieve, she would take it away... and she did. In June 1979.

Prior to that night, I discovered the world is really a pretty remarkable place. Painful in places, yes, but much pleasure to enjoy too.

I'm 56 now, and for the past 30+ years I've wanted to tell my story. I've not been able to. And today, little remains, other than one or two close friends from back then... it's almost like it really never was...

Next Time: But It Was...

RIGHT OF PASSAGE - Part Thirteen - All The Luck, Algernon!

The most poignant, haunting, self descriptive book I ever read was "Flowers For Algernon", by Daniel Keyes. I think I was around 23 at the time, 1976 perhaps. I knew as I was reading it, it was a prophecy of things to come. I really didn't understand then how much of a prophecy it would become.

For a moment, let's step back to when I was around 20. I started community college in the Fall of 1972, fresh out of HS. It was expected of me to go to college, and initially my parents paid the tuition. Since I was a electronics buff, I majored in "electronic technology". I already mentioned the pain I endured passing two semesters of physics.

What I haven't mentioned is, I was going nowhere. Maybe our society is all about people going nowhere, finding themselves somewhere. By definition, that would be the professional career, the beautiful wife, the house with the white picket fence, etc.

All fine, if that's okay to you. What I'm trying to say is the person I was then was not alive. My whole life I was either the underdog among my friends, both physically and mentally, and also, beginning especially in MS, the target of every bully in the school. My life was looking around corners, avoiding certain places. I had very little extra-curricular activity, though for a year I was a member of the ski-club, and had no problems. Unless shyness, and a sense of not belonging counts?

Yes I was very much into electronics and chemistry. I was also into playing by myself in my back-yard at 16 with Matchbox cars and trucks, building roads and cities and dams. I was a loner. Some of the girls liked me, but no way did I know it. Or if I did, what to do. In HS I craved English classes, physics and chemistry, shop and mechanical drawing. In most every place there was a bully or two that made learning second to survival.

HS was a total loss... though A Mr Gunnard, a counselor, made a difference, as did a handful of other teachers, so I did survive. Surviving MS/HS was my victory! What did I learn? Nothing more at the time other than I'd survived. And surviving meant risking going to a school dance only to get punched, or a knife held at my throat. Once by a Native American blood-brother. Now this event would be vitally important... as the dichotomy was we had been friends enough at one point to cut and blend blood, yet later, he held a knife at my throat.

It should be noted, well several things should be noted:

1) My sister, a 1 and 1/2 younger than me was probably one of the most popular girls in MS/HS. And in several cases the very guys that liked to bully me, she was friends with.

Two ways this can work out. 1) leverage 2) getting a lucky break.

2) My parents donated their life at the time trying to help me. They were constantly at the school. They spoke personally to the parents of some of my worst bullies. Ironically, it fed into my dependence on them, and their's of me. This dynamic would contribute to the disaster to follow.

My sister remained and continues to be my best friend. I was the oldest, but she was the wiser, the smarter, the most popular. And in my early 20's I would become the brother she turned to... and essentially, we are like satellites, revolving and holding each other together.

I rarely se my sister, haven't for over 20 years. You might recall I eventually had little choice but to move away. My sister didn't. So we talk occassionally on the phone, have vacations when we meet. I have two brothers too. Both now live in Florida. I live in NH... Land of Lynch, since the Old Man of the Mountain crumbled. An obvious sign that Gov. Lynch was wrong for NH, yet here he is in his third term as governor.

Sorry, ahead of myself.

What I'm trying to say is I had no sense of self. At age 18 I was destined to be a serial killer, sorry to say. I had all the hallmarks... liked to play with fire, no regard for nature, a loner, a late aged bed-wetter, like Sarah Silverman!

But so I'm in college and I have very few friends. Finding a girlfriend is out of the question - my body or mind do not even consider it.I'm on kiddo-pilot, believing adults tell you what to do, and don't trust anyone.

So the mouse Algernon was given an experimental drug, designed to boost it's IQ. It was an apparent, total success! Algernon could wind through the mazes like nothing, and even started to exhibit self-awareness.

Algernon had a partner - a man with a very low IQ. He was a subject just as Algernon was. The story recount the amazing success of the experiment with both the man and Algernon. With one tragic twist; Algernon dies, and the man? He doesn't die... far worse that that fate. Haunting.

In my early 20's I first moved onto the second floor of a renovated horse-barn, at the edge of the property of the community college I attended. I was in my 3rd semester in college, having just moved out, away from home. And a lot of things happened.

I want to leave you here with this thought...

The "experimental drug" might just as well have been marijuana... since near then is when I used it a second time and my life changed.

There are continuous news articles trying to cast marijuana as the demon weed, schizophrenia, in particular, and yet nothing about how good it is as a natural medicine, a natural high, far safer than legal alternatives, alcohol and tobacco.

There was a time I couldn't go to a college dance, a bluegrass festival, a rock-concert without feeling paranoid. Until the effects of cannabis hit, around that time. The effects were gradual, and at times difficult, as cannabis had a way of bringing out one's paranoia, and the fact that it was illegal tripled that sense of fear. To my advantage was it was near the mid 70's, and pot was mainstream. 90% of the people I knew between age 21 and 27 smoked pot at least once. Rather significant considering I got a job as a custodian at the community college, at the fine arts center... a victory! The culmination of a dream, since Ray Bradbury's "Frost and Fire".

I was not only among the "scientists" at the college, but all the artists too. Almost overnight my life changed. I began to find myself, and others most importantly. I developed a hunger for knowledge, and my job provided me the benefit of free tuition - unlimited.

Because of the influence of cannabis, my life literally opened up and soon I was enjoying learning, loving Nature, hiking, girlfriends, friends, and writing... within four years I wrote my required million words, my future became clear, I felt great...

Flower's For Algernon!!!

NEXT: The Magical, Mystery, Truth...

RITE OF PASSAGE - PART 12 - FOCUS: ON BRASS TACKS

I hope you'll excuse the delay in getting my next blog out. I've had a serious health issue, a cold or flu since the beginning of the year. In addition, the following is a more focused view on my experiences in the mid 1970's...

I didn't know what to expect - moving away from home, age 18. It was pretty much expected, my doing so, back then in the earl 70's. I was simply, an unlikely candidate; I'd never exhibited a streak of Independence. I'd lived, dependent upon my routine and controlled environment. My traditional and predictable environment. For all practical purposes I'm the kind of guy who would have lived at home, with the parents until at least age 30.

I wasn't raised in the type of family that encouraged independent thinking, self-sufficiency, or self-esteem for that matter. Most decisions were approved, and then reversed by my mother as if my mother decided I should do what I I'd just asked, or a plain, "no". My father was a sales manager, traveled a lot, and so my mother ruled the nest. To make things worse, I was a collector, of what she called "itsy-bitsy's". Pretty much everything from books, to Matchbox cars, baseball cards, and I loved to draw and write.

My mother would both look at me with pride suggesting I'd write the next "Gone With the Wind", someday, but at the same time it was a joke. In her words, "I wasn't a writer". Having said that, I wasn't a writer. That was my reality. I was to be a teacher or sales manager like my father. The collectibles I collected constantly vanished as my mother constantly cleaned. And as soon as my "childhood" waned, my drawing and writings vanished too. A passing phase she was sure I'd grown out of. Baby pictures were priceless, my drawing and writing, not at all important - just clutter.

Our's was a "proper, Christian family". Church on Sundays, though my Dad, when around, rarely went to church. In the early days they had the occasional beer, then later the Manhattans. My mother was as pure as an angel when it came to sex, no talk of it, no discussions. My father was a flirt. A damn good flirt. I'm always wondering how far he went on those business trips he often took. My mother never questioned him, and I never asked. But he made no mistake about the fact that sex was something good, and something to have whenever the opportunity might present itself. He used to say, "it's the one you could have had and didn't that will haunt you the most". And it's true. So while my mother nurtured "the husband" in me, the "faithful husband", my father secretly encouraged me to sow my seed... which was a joke as growing up I was not only extremely naive, but geeky, gawky, and thin. I was every bully's target... and up to a couple years after graduating HS I still didn't know how to talk to a woman.

Recall, at age 6 my mother forbade me to hang out with my sister and her friends, and "fixed me up with boys", to be friends with.That "forbadence" stayed with me for a long time, and still haunts me today. I was in a traffic accident a few years ago, a woman in a mini-van rear-ended me. A young, attractive woman was driving the other vehicle, and when I told my mother about the accident she made a snide comment that if a "man had been driving, I would have fought tooth and nail in court to get everything out of the accident I could". Guilt.

But to be fair, my real handicap wasn't women, it wasn't lack of motivation, but rather, my parents had protected me as much as they could while I grew up, and were constantly trying to protect me from the bullies that latched onto me. Without intending to, at least overtly, they made me dependent on them.

Now ironically, at age 18, having graduated HS and gone onto college, I was destined to be the "perfect sheep" in the family pasture. I literally didn't have a mind of my own. I fit in perfectly with a neurotic family in which the child never grows up, but is expected to behave in a way that feigns growth. I probably would have married the woman I couldn't touch, would have become a store manager at a dept. store, bought a modest house and like everyone else, hated it. But I'd learn to pretend, like everyone else, that everything was perfect.

Only one problem.

Marijuana!

Age 19 I was beginning my junior year of community college. I was pursuing an Associates of Science degree, in electrical technology. I'd begun college on schedule the fall after graduating high school. I had two terms of physics under my belt... and for anyone familiar with physics, you'll know why I'm proud of that. I carried a B average for two terms, but the math, the calculus was coming next.

It was, near as I recall the summer of 1973, I was not yet 18. At 18 I could legally drink alcohol at that time. It was, something to look forwards to. Getting drafted wasn't. I was in college because that is what a middle class person at my age did. I'd chosen "electrical technology", being as I was a home electronics hobbyist. I was also a chemist... chemistry sets being popular back then, I had a room in the attic where I had both an electronics lab, plus chemistry lab. God only knows what I created, with the chemistry set!? I had crystals, scums, bubbling mases the likes of Dr. Frankenstein. I accomplished nothing. The rest of the time I was in HS, and generally home by myself isolating myself in my room or the backyard, playing with matchbox toys.

I was a loner growing up. My first friends were my sister and her tow friends, Julie and Susie. But by age 6, my mother was actively breaking up the friendship - boys don't belong with girls.

She was afraid I'd grow up gay. I've told the story before. Her fears were totally unfounded and dysfunctional. The current controversy over "this princess" concept of raising girls is proof of that. Fact is, there was no reason my sister and her friends couldn't be my best friends around age six.

By age 19 I'd had 3 girlfriends. Brenda, in 8th grade, lasted a long, hot week... over the phone we talked about heady topics like breast size. But i broke up with her after a week, for totally insane reasons. Then, Diane, whom I met through a co-worker, a women whom I consider to be my GF, but there really was no connection; the physical attraction and personal experience was quite limited. We didn't "French-kiss" nor physically touch flesh to flesh for the 3 years I called her my GF. Then, a "fling" one Friday night when I visited a friend I'd met through my sister. Four of us were in the room. Myself and the two men played cards along with a woman sitting on a couch. My friend said if I wanted sex, just ask her. I did, but truly, I didn't know what sex was, and I was around 18 years old. I asked her, we bedded together, but all i remember is how erotic it was French kissing her. We didn't have intercourse, nor anything oral.

Around a year and a half after graduating HS, after losing my virginity to a stranger woman at a state park, I met my first "real" GF. Her name was Sue.

I met her at a party, and despite my shyness, struck up a conversation with her. By this time I had moved away from home. I was so scared... a male friend who was at my apartment, who knew Sue, I had asked his advice. His response: "If you don't ask her out, someone else will".

I asked her out.

Our first date, I hitch-hiked 20 miles in a storm of pouring rain to her house... to be with her. My friend came by later to bring me home. I honestly don't remember the first time we had sex, but I know it was very good. We eventually moved into an apartment together. We had sex at least 10 times a day... we were a couple for almost 3 years. My mother despised her, and it began the war - the war of morals.

I can honestly say "the war" escalated to the point that my relationship with Sue led to a quandary - a war between my mother and myself, a war between right and wrong, a war that ultimately made me believe I was cursed. I wasn't, but I was... because, I loved Sue with all my heart, and my mother despised her with hers.

The rebellion of youth began.

And I lost...

"Brass-Tacks"... moral, don't question authority.

I did, and I still do...

RITE OF PASSAGE - Part Eleven - Pursuing the Dream

Dreams and Reality, quite the combination!

With few friends growing up, and "the underdog" to those I had, I was operating on level 2 self-esteem. 10 being ideal.

I see signs these days, newspaper articles and school billboards announcing "Understanding Bullying".

Ironic. Since age 5 I was bullied. I can still remember, age 6 maybe, crossing the road to "see" my neighborhood, stranger, to me. His name was mike T. And we got into a fight, and he rubbed my face in the dirt. I lost. Have no idea why, or why?

Then, getting older, i had neighborhood friends, very good friends, but when in a group, I was the underdog ( which puts it quite well).

Those days were a dream. Age 4 - 8... constant exploring... walking miles, anywhere, alone. Parks woods, and later, age 13, hunting with childhood friends, never killing deer, but we did get some ducks. Hunted age 13 -16, then things changed. Again.

Hunting ended. Focusing on graduating HS took priority. Women were not in my life, or at that age girls... sex was not even something I really knew existed. Naive.

Age 16 through 19 remain vague... mostly working, at a dept store and planning my exodus from parents and home.

Come age 20 I believe things started to assemble itself.

Two years of community college was a "no go". I was majoring in electronic technology ( before home computers were even dreamed about). My parents were paying my tuition, and by the third term i wanted out - about age 19.

On a dreary, rainy night I said "good-bye, I love you", to my parents, in bed, and they were very nonchalant about it. As I was driving to my new apartment, I considered that a good sign. I was off to new beginnings, I had ideas and most important dreams. But I knew it might be impossible. I'd grown up the under-dog, the excluded, the bullied for 8 years, unless you add the original bully incident with Mike T., age 6.

But that dreary, rainy night was perfect. I arrived at my new home, a room on the second floor of a rebuilt horse-barn, at the edge of the college campus. There were two large apartments downstairs, and 5 rooms upstairs, bathroom, and kitchen. We all used cannabis, plus other substances... we had fun together, and I made friends.

I switched my major to Liberal Arts, dropping the technology, and wanted to write. I sold my car, a 1969 Ford Mustang, I bought a bike.

Said it before, a sci-fi book I got as a present at age 8, "R is for Rocket", by Ray Bradbury, was key to my future... a short-story within it called "Frost and Fire", set my goal.

In the story, the humans live on the planet Mercury, survivors of a manned expedition of the planet. They somehow made emergency landings, saving the ships, but ultimately they had to abandon the ships, survive a near death run to some caves and from there, those that survived multiplied. Two primary problems.

Ultimately the caves the survivors lived in were too small to support the growing population. They divided... exiled to caves lower down the mountains, where the protection from the Sun's radiation was more acute. After an undisclosed time, though hinted as 100, 200 years, the two societies were enemies, though they rarely met. The environment of Mercury gave them half an hour at best, morning and night to wander outside, and enjoy a sudden plume of flowers and plants.

One other vital effect of living on Mercury. In that 100 - 200 year span, those in the lower caves were born, grew up, became adults, parents, and grandparents all within 7 days. Those in the upper valley, lived ten days.

The hero of the story is named Sim. And around age 8, second day after birth, he hears rumor that there are "scientists" still living and searching for an answer, to end the suffering. Mostly they are laughed at, and said to be a myth.

Sim by day 3 is already planning and trying to find where the "scientists" are. And he gets a break... he finds them. Deeper in the caves his aging slows some, so he spends time taking in decades of history in hours... and discovers that two space-ships are intact, and located some mile away, very close, from the upper caves.

Sim lives in the lower caves. Nearly half an hour from the upper caves. Only one way he can move there, and that is challenge a resident to a duel... a fight to the death, winner takes refuge.

Along the way he meets his soul-mate, nice touch. Wins the duel in the blazing hot afternoon sun, and he and his lover move into their new cave and gain 3 extra days of life. Time to plan.

I did pretty much the same. The story became my guide in my early 20's... I had little time... by age 24 I needed a life-plan.

I had a lot to do ahead... but on that rainy, dreary night I moved out on my own... I was ready to build my life.

Next Time Brass Tacks...