INSIDE BOBKAT'S LAIR...

An introduction to the person who is BobKat...

A Genuine Bobcat...

Looks a little like Kramer, my own avatar here and elsewhere... Kramer is a Maine Coon cat, apparently they are related to bobcats, but I don't know for sure.

Okay... you already know I'm 55, and other basics from reading my blog.... that I like cats. But  there's much more, and in time, I'll share...

To begin, the inside story at the moment on who I am...

I was born in 1954. Middle class family... my father was in the Navy, my mother a registered nurse.

I was an odd child... hyperactive, probably with some form of autism... loved to take things apart, play with things I shouldn't like aspirins and fuse boxes; was the class clown in school, loved nature and liked girls - hung out with my younger sister and her friends, until my mother, concerned it would make me gay, pushed me into friendships with neighborhood male friends. I never was good at sports... rather I liked drawing, liked childhood games, liked to write and dream...

In the early 1960's I got the first Beatles album as a Christmas present. I was home sick when President Kennedy was assassinated... alone, and it was traumatic. My friends and I used to play "space-ship" together, or my sister and friends and I played hop-scotch, mother may I, and sang songs like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat..."

I had a good childhood... but then things went crazy... like when I was around 6yo, in the cub-scouts, I had built a balsa-wood rocket - destroyed by our baby-sitters friend one evening during a drunken party...

Still, I was very naive... was most of my younger years, until around 16... I accepted the "establishment", without question. Everything from sex, drugs and me as my own person, were taboo. But fortunately, my father's side of the family was a lot more normal, and in a way, radical. So the turning point came at age 16 when my cousins were going to the Woodstock movie, and my mother absolutely forbid my going. So I didn't...

My public school years were not good... I was really into reading and science, but I was an oddball... so I got picked on a lot. My parents were there for me, and I am indebted to them for the help, but the downside was I became dependent on them to fight my battles... so when the "rite of passage" came to me, they were not going to let go... which setup a seriously flawed relationship with my family when I came of age in the early 70's.

Key to my success as an adult was my indoctrination into the virtues of cannabis... it opened my mind... I went gradually from a C student in education to and A+ student - my last degree in 1994 was a GPA of 3.9 in a Medical Assistant program from which I graduated - my 3rd degree.

During the age of 21 to 25 and beyond I was able to make friends and had very good relationships with women. I also had problems, medical problems starting in 1979. I moved briefly to Arizona. Then back again to my hometown in Western NY. I changed gears quickly and moved to Boston MA - lived there for almost 7 years until moving to NH where I've been ever since.

My own war against marijuana began in 1986.... I was living in Boston at the time and had gone for a week vacation for my sister's wedding. While there I did what I did often then, I metal detected a lot of the time. At a college park I found a brass pipe, intricately designed and beautiful, used no doubt to smoke cannabis, and after cleaning it up, it was used during my sister's wedding.

On my way home after the wedding, I took the back-roads through the Catskills, and around midnight in a drizzly rain came to a green light at a dark intersection of highways. A car was coming towards me, so although i could have made a left turn up a dark hill, I didn't... I was in no rush. The car passed by, and I made my left turn. At the same time the light changed to orange then red, and just as I made my legal turn, a State Trooper came over the top of the hill I was turning onto. To the trooper, it appeared I'd sped through a red light, which I hadn't. But he pulled me over.

What followed would affect and change my life forever!!!

At the time I drove a 1972 Saab 99... a great car, but prone to break-downs. My trunk was complete with tools to fix anything. On my dashboard were a box of old coins I brought to show my family of the things I found metal detecting. On my passenger seat was an ornate brass pipe so I wouldn't lose it. The state trooper saw it all... he called in back-up... two other state troopers showed up. I'm tired from the drive... i want to get home, but instead the trooper that pulled me over has now cited me for going through a red light and possession of marijuana, although all I had was that pipe on my front passenger seat. But he is also convinced the coins on my dashboard are stolen, the tools in my trunk are "burglary tools", and the mace in my glove-box I was licensed to have in MA was a dangerous weapon. And to top it off he was convinced I was DWI!!! So without any reading of my Miranda Rights, any notice I was under arrest, nothing formal that I was being charged of, I was put in handcuffs and taken to the station to meet with the captain.

I should add another officer on the scene told me - " "sorry, if it were up to me I'd throw the pipe in the woods and let you go on your way". But he said "I'm not the officer in charge".

So I meet with the captain who is being breathlessly told by the "officer in charge" I'm drunk, a pothead, a weapons carrier, and a thief...

The chief tells him to remove the handcuffs, that "yes", they could apply a sobriety test, but after talking to me the chief says - "we could calibrate our machine to sober, with this guy", which is the truth... I wasn't at all intoxicated nor high on drugs...

They drove me back to my car and I was on my way home with two tickets... one for the red light and another for pot possession, none of which was true. But I paid the fines, and until 2001, it wasn't an issue. The fine at the time was $125. The true penalty - a life sentence without parole - forever a Druggie... since 2001, background databases and histories are who we are. Ironically, since males are prone to violence, acts of violence are mostly ignored. Not so with any history with drugs. Most job applications ask if you've ever been convicted of a misdemeanor. There are thousands of different infractions and misdemeanor crimes... most are ignored. But that beautiful pipe that I found, that I shared with friends, that won't be ignored - I paid my fine and honestly know little of the actual infraction/crime I paid for, but it'll haunt me the rest of my life, I know that. 


Just say "NO"? Why bother. Drug arrests are a huge benefit to law enforcement and the legal system. They make millions of dollars a year on drugs... spawns development of super secret spy technology and creates lots of jobs, is an excellent way to train law enforcement in covert ops, with a goal, that will (or should) serve and protect the public...  it's a lucrative crime for all involved, it seems. It's the bogeyman in the closet that we will spend trillions of dollars to protect society from.

So what you'll find in my blogs is a lot of reference to cannabis/marijuana reform. It is, I truly believe, the most ludicrous prohibition our society has ever had to endure - and the consequences to so many people caught up in the "crime" is way beyond acceptable...

There are TOO MANY VICTIMS of the laws against cannabis/marijuana... this doesn't serve the public good.

***

Happy New Year... and may you find your own destiny and enjoy true love in 2010...

Check out Tom Petty Wildflowers - "You Don't Know How It Feels", c1994, Warner Brothers. See my last post for why... it's all in the lyrics, the words... Tom Petty sings: "...just roll another joint."