We landed? One giant step? Oh, I believe it … I just don’t personally recall it. The memory of that historic day somewhat blurred by the fact that—this was 1969, right?—we were was stoned out of our gourds.
July 20. Yup, that would have been about right. Our neighborhood in Berkeley—with the exception of straight folk, of course, and there were a few—had turned into a commune. Mostly taking place in Joyce’s back yard, because Joyce had the space, Joyce shared her house … and Joyce owned the pressure cooker.
Which meant that Jim and Cathy lived there, I think, or did they live in the cottage behind us, and Jim built the geodesic greenhouse in Joyce’s yard. Between jobs as commune delivery man and UPS driver. And yes, your UPS driver would sell you a lid—I’m telling you, things just worked. One brief shining moment.
Berkeley and San Francisco communes were all one network, since the City was only twenty minutes away. Jim delivered milk and bread; what you had, you shared. One neighborhood to another. Ours wasn’t very productive. There was an avocado tree across the street … but mostly we smoked dope and laughed. Those paroxysms of stoned laughter; I wonder if I will find anything so funny again.
And it was summer. Summer in Berkeley is sweet, the temperature hovers around seventy-five. Good naked weather, and naked we went. Joyce’s yard was nicely verdant and nicely fenced, nice for us and for Jim’s modest dome. Nothing attention-calling; dope just grew like a motherfucker in there. Of course, we smoked it all, we were up to our eyeballs in dope, nobody ever heard of shake. Buds were prized—but hey, once you sieved it, didn’t it all roll real nice.
Joyce’s pressure cooker took anything. She tossed in great handfuls of seeds, stems, leaves, and a pound of butter, set the timer to one hour … and made chocolate chip cookies with the butter. Tasty as hell, but you had to regard that thing in your hand for what it was: a little bomb. Bombs. Getting stoned in the body is slow. Thorough. Sweet. Very different than smoke. We listened to music, we laughed, we were silent, we lay on the grass. The afternoon progressed so slowly, so sunnily. Someone made history somewhere. A slight coolness touched the air, the fog was building up out to sea. Regretfully, people slowly dressed. Joyce made coffee. In time, as darkness approached, one by one, people stumbled home.
Calling to one another as they left, “Hey man. We landed on the moon today!”
“Cool!”
I expect it was.
{ fin }
To quote Zippy… YOW!
Far out. Peace.
Two things –
First I do remember (oh shame most terrible shame) the moon landing even though I was stoned out of my mind at the time (redemption,oh glorious redemption) – I guess it’s because I was such a science fiction freak at the time there was no way I could miss it or let it slip from my memory.
Second – I’m hoping Bad Behaviour won’t stop this comment – this is a test