420 Archive

That breeze you felt yesterday could very well have been caused by my flapping jaws, as I contributed to the 420 Archive. This is a project geared towards obtaining the oral history from those who had firsthand experience with the “activism and culture surrounding the prohibition of cannabis in the United States.”

HeadSodBuster hit me up with a text on Tuesday, asking if I was down for an interview about the early days of being up here on Bell Springs Road. I agreed because I am never one to be short of breath when it comes to the subject of the gentle giant of herbs, the one that allows me to thumb my nose at Corporate ‘Merica and her devotion to opiates.

Been there-for a minute-and done that, never to do it again.

Punctual to the minute, Joe Hoover arrived at 2:00 to conduct the interview, after arranging logistics with HeadSodBuster. It turns out Joe was visiting Cali from Minnesota to interview back-to-the-landers, and he was stoked to be able to squeeze one more unscheduled interview onto his plate.

Mind you, though the term “back-to-the-land” may apply, I have never thought of myself as such. Gluten-Free Mama and I made the decision to relocate from downtown San Jose to Bell Springs Road in May of 1982, because we did not want to raise children on the streets of San Jose. Oh, by the way, we were expecting our first in September of that year.

Joe explained some basic goals and objectives of the 420 Archive, gave me the opportunity to ask questions and then we commenced. In as coherent a manner possible, I related to him the events leading up to GF Mama and I having the option of both quitting our jobs in San Jose, and moving up to Northern Mendocino County.

"Be it ever so humble..."

I explained about the dream conceived of when I was overseas in the army, that some of my siblings and I would relocate to the Bay Area, go to school and search for land. Then, after finishing our respective educations, we would move north and form a community.

For $68.00 a month over 13 years, I paid off the $8,000 that the land cost. For those of us who are math-challenged, that is four hundred dollars per acre. I reminisced about spending the summer of 1981 building a shell of cabin with two of my brothers and a neighbor.

Finally, I told Joe how Gluten-Free Mama and I settled into our 16 by 20 foot “home” a year later, with no running water, no electricity, no furnishings, no cabinets/cupboards, and with boarded up openings for windows. It had a loft but no steps leading up to the loft. I could use a ladder, but at five months along, it was unthinkable that GF Mama would be climbing any ladders, besides the ones in her head.

Statement from 420 Archive

She remembers lying on the bed in our “dark cave,” possessions heaped up all around us, a gentle June drizzle making the cabin unduly chilly, and wondering, “What in the *%&#! have I gotten myself into?”

I described the back door to my house, a door constructed from left-over two by eight pine that I had used on the upstairs floor, and how for 25 years I had no way to lock it. “That was actually OK,” I went on, “because I misplaced the keys to the brand new front door about two weeks after we moved in, so what difference did it make? May as well be consistent…”

I told Joe about being CAMPed on in 1985, about the notice from the government that our home and property were being seized, and about the nine months’ legal struggle to extricate myself from the whole mess. I gave thanks to smart lawyers and told him I paid Ron Sinnoway the $17,500 with a smile. And I meant every word of it.

For what? 33 cannabis plants.

Earlier this spring, when all the intended girls were in the ground behind my house and the total came up 33, I said, “Best find one more homeless waif and send her to me; 33 (also my number in the lottery for the draft, back in 1971) is not going to cut it.”

Joe continued to probe, and I filled him in on the history of our family. I told him that Papa had come from Michigan after WWII, and settled in the San Gabriel Valley, where the house backed up against a vast orange grove. After the grove was replaced by tract homes in the late fifties, Papa started to feel hemmed in. He had wanted to relocate to NorCal when JT and I were in high school, to start a restaurant, but we both essentially told him, “Go for it, Papa, so long as your plans do not include us.” It was he and Mama who were the first to move up to The Bell and the first to grow cannabis in 1978 on our land.

When the little school on the mountain ran into issues in the late eighties, I took on the role of liaison between the little educational collective and the Laytonville Unified School District. This involved going back to Dominican College out of Talmadge, to obtain my teaching credential, but I owed my community much for its support of me when my home had been seized by the government.

After our little school was finally forced to close down, I joined the middle school in Laytonville, a position that certainly seems aligned wth my permanently arrested juvenile development. There are many who view my volatile reaction  to our recently-lobotomized government, as immature.

Like the meme says, “I don’t want to have to explain to my children, why I stayed silent.”

So yes, I prattled on for ninety minutes yesterday, reflecting, enjoying-even marveling at what I was saying. I told Joe that I have always been a seize-the-day kind of guy, there being only two major choices I made that bucked that trend: buying 20 acres of land, and going back to school to get a teaching credential. 

Our wedding morning, fatigue jacket, et al...

As I wrote about three weeks ago, even the date for Gluten-Free Mama’s and my marriage, was only arranged 24 hours in advance, contingent on the two witnesses being available to travel to Ukiah.

So yeah, breezy day yesterday, as the winds of time and change swirl about, mixing in with my droning voice, to chronicle the path cannabis has taken, to get where it is today. 

When asked by Joe how I felt about two of my adult sons being involved with cannabis, I told him I was proud of them. Along with SmallBoy and HeadSodBuster, I told Joe there was also Ben-Jam-In, who taught at Ukiah High School.

“All three are community contributors,” I mentioned, “and what more can you ask?” 

Our path could never have been traversed without cannabis, and I am grateful that we now have the opportunity to talk about a time when people were subject to losing their homes for the dastardly crime of growing 33 plants.

Big ups, 420 Archive.