What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Two days ago, I created a post that consisted mainly of quotes that I had gathered from some Liberal blogs.

I quoted one of the posts which started a short discussion about hallucinogenic drugs, mainly LSD. I stated my opinion that regular use of LSD caused insanity. One might argue that I don't know what I'm talking about, and since I want to lighten up after some contentious comments left on my blog by myself and others, as well as on other blogs, I decided to discuss my own personal experience with illegal mind altering drugs.

35 years ago, I was introduced to drugs for the first time by my brother, who was in the Air Force stationed at George AFB near Victorville California. He had come home to Wichita on leave, and had brought a civilian friend of his with him.

The friends name was Larry.

My brother introduced me to Marijuana, and I liked it.

Larry invited me to ride with him back to his home in North Hollywood, California. His intention was to go home, pack up his belongings and move to my home town of Wichita, Kansas because he thought the girls in Wichita were pretty.

In retrospect, that should have sent up a red flag right there. No one in their right mind would pull up stakes and move all the way across the country on a whim.

As it happened, he wasn't in his right mind, and probably hadn't been for quite some time.

I traveled back to California with him to help him pack and move, and on the way out, we picked up a hitchhiker from Ohio named Steve. Larry convinced Steve to stay with us, and the three of us smoked pot all the way to California.

Fast forward to a while later. We were staying in Larry's 2nd floor apartment with an unemployed Larry and his two kittens. None of us had any money. We subsisted on a diet of Twinkies and Kool-Aid, which we bought with the money we earned panhandling on the streets of North Hollywood. Much about the time I spent there is unclear, due to the fact that I was continually high. Somewhere in the three weeks that I was there, Larry gave up on the notion of moving to Wichita. Steve and I were more or less stranded in L.A.

Sometime during our stay, Steve and I decided to hitchhike to San Diego. We had some difficulty getting a ride and gave up after a few hours not getting very far. So we turned back, and succeeded getting a ride back to North Hollywood with a couple of "hippies". During the ride back, we were intimidated into dropping a tab of LSD each. We were told it was a 4-way tab of Orange Sunshine. The hippie that gave it to us watched us to make sure we really took it, saying, "Chew it up, man, I wanna see you chew it up." Those words and his face are forever etched into my memory.

Shortly thereafter, I became aware that what appeared to be a mist was enveloping the world. All lights took on an unnatural extremely bright glow. I began to experience "trails". It suddenly occurs to me that I cannot explain what trails are. You would have to experience them I guess.

I don't recall how we got back to Larry's apartment, but we made it. Upon learning that Steve and I had dropped acid, Larry took some himself.(he had quite a large stash of it in his refrigerator. No food, but plenty of drugs.)

The rest of the evening is understandably fuzzy to me, and no wonder! I had taken a 4-way dose of a very powerful hallucinogen.

At one point, I remember going into the bathroom and attempting to urinate. To this day, I don't know if I actually did urinate or if I imagined I did.

At another point I watched music issuing from the stereo speakers. That's right, I said "watched", not listened. The music was dark purple, and it drifted around in the air of the room in large shapeless masses.

Another time I was laying on the shag carpeted floor, casually petting one of Larry's kittens. I looked down at the animal and I saw it's head lolling back with it's throat torn open. Blood covered everything. I remember saying, "Oh, s**t!"

Steve said, laughing, "What's the matter?"

"I killed Larry's cat."

"You what?"

"I killed ...." I reached down to push the bloody carcass away from me.

The cat got up and walked away. I had imagined it was dead. There was nothing wrong with it at all. "Nevermind." I said.

Later, I imagined an old scar on my foot had opened up and started bleeding profusely. It hadn't.

A few minutes later, or it could have been hours, I don't know, (You have no sense of time when you are on LSD.) I SAW the Heebie Jeebies. Would you like to know what Heebie Jeebies look like?

They are tiny little men about 1 inch high. They are all different colors, the colors of the rainbow.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

They form a virtual wall, by standing on each others shoulders and holding hands. Hundreds of them, taking up a space approximately 2 feet wide and 1 foot high.

Then they jump up and down in unison, chanting, "Heebie Jeebie, Heebie Jeebie", over and over.

The "trip" lasted a total of 24 hours straight. There was a side effect of the particular tab that I had taken. It had been "cut" with amphetamines. I didn't care for the acid trip, but I liked the amphetamines. I wanted more and Larry was happy to accommodate.

Larry was prone to sudden fits of rage, and eventually I felt It was not safe to be around him anymore. LSD use had driven him quite insane. So, after just three weeks in North Hollywood, I hitchhiked back home after first stopping in San Diego to visit 2 girls I knew who lived there, that I had met previously back in Wichita.

That was a memorable night. No memory loss there!

I stayed on amphetamines for the next 2 years, with very few moments when I wasn't high.

After I came back home to Wichita, I experimented with various other kinds of drugs, Mushrooms, Peyote, Mescaline, THC, even smoked crack once, but I didn't know how to do it right and I didn't have the needed paraphanalia to do it right, and I didn't get high.

I never did cocaine or heroin.

I took LSD only once more after that, a single hit of pink microdot. It was mild compared to the Orange Sunshine. The only thing scary about that trip was that I was trying to drive at the time, down a street that ran alongside the Big Arkansas River.
The street seemed to want to lead me into the river but fortunately, I had presence of mind enough to know that was illogical, so I just stayed between the lines and the street magically straightened out ahead of me as I drove.

If you ever take LSD, I recommend you don't attempt to drive under it's influence.

Actually, this account doesn't read as funny as it sounds when I tell it to people in person.

I might have been addicted to amphetamines, I don't know, but I can say, with certainty, that I stopped all drug use when I recieved Christ as my Savior at a city wide evangelistic crusade presented by Rev. James Robinson. But that's another post.

That's it. Back to serious blogging tomorrow.