BABY BOOMER REVERIE: 1978

The headline rocked the boomer world: U.S. SPRAYS MEXICAN POT WITH DEADLY HERBICIDE.

My phone rang non-stop. I had a small, select clientele. I did what many baby boomers “heads” did: support your habit—which could get expensive indeed if generous with friends—by operating a modest business. All my regulars were boomers with one exception and she was the mother of a boomer customer who kept her own “stash.” By this time, marijuana had spread far beyond the hippies and many hippies had slogged back to the mainstream.

I tried to get the very best product. This was before Humboldt County California exported, so my supply usually came from Southern Mexico—Michoacan, Yucatan, Oaxaca—named after the states where it was grown. In the early boomer days, I could score Jamaican (a beautiful lime green color and speedier than most marijuana) but by the mid-1970s it was all being consumed there, regarded as a sacrament by local Rastafarians. Some boomers here thought of it as a sacrament, too, but was more of religion in itself.

“Was the pot you sold me sprayed with paraquat, dude??!!”

I had no idea. “If it were,” I surmised, “it would be dead.”

“That’s not what I read. Traces fall on lots of plants and it’s enough to cause permanent lung damage.”

“I’ll find out,” I offered.

When I asked my source, he said: “If it were, it would be dead.”

“I tried that,” I said. “Got another answer?”

“Say no.”

I said no. This calmed my clients, but they still fretted. “Is there any antidote if we’ve been poisoned?’

I asked my source.

“I heard that clay can offset the effects.”

“You mean eat clay?”

“You can, but health food stores sell it in a more digestible form.”

“Eat clay?!” my worried customers exclaimed.

I outlined the health food store alternative. Most in North Hollywood were sold out within a week.

The author

Trivia Factoids

The Mexican paraquat scare accelerated the already burgeoning development of domestic pot farms, especially in heavily boomer populated Northern California.

BOOMER TRIVIA QUIZ

►Match Game: Connect the boomer celebrity with the drug crime

Paul McCartney
John Denver
Ryan O’Neil
Mackenzie Phillips
Rush Limbaugh

Cocaine possession, methamphetamine possession, multiple prescription scheme, marijuana smuggling, marijuana delivered to home via post office.

♫ Baby Boomer Song Game: What’s the next line? ♫

Awaitin’ for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station…

Answers to Boomer Trivia Quiz at end of post

NOTABLE QUOTABLES

Boomer Bon Mots

If you can remember anything about the 60s, you weren’t really there. Paul Kanter, Jefferson Airplane

The ‘60s are gone, dope will never be as cheap, sex never as free, and the rock and roll never as great. Abbie Hoffman

Drugs are a bet with the mind. Jim Morrison, Doors

THIS DAY IN BABY BOOMER HISTORY

1999
Two disaffected students at Columbine High School in Colorado murder 12 students and a teacher, and then kill themselves. By this time, older boomers had grandchildren at the school.

1998
A Federal court rules that Monica Lewinsky does not have a valid immunity agreement with Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

1994
Danny Harold Rolling, who went on a serial killing spree of female students at the University of Florida, is sentenced to death.

1992
100th television episode of Murphy Brown, which depicts a boomer single mother who decides to have a baby without a father in her life.

Madonna signs a $60 million deal with Time Warner.

1990
Pete Rose pleads guilty to hiding $300,000 in income from the IRS.

1981
Final performance of boomer favorite television show Soap airs.

1980
Cubans begin to arrive in U.S. from Mariel boat lift.

1977
Woody Allen’s movie Annie Hall premieres.

1974
Paul McCartney releases Band on the Run.

1969
The Great White Hope wins the Tony Award for Best Play. James Earl Jones as the lead grabs Best Actor. The sad but inspiring story of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, was made into a 1970 hit movie starring James Earl Jones.

1964
86% of black students stage a one-day boycott of public schools in Cleveland to protest de facto segregation and other discrimination.

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ANSWERS TO BOOMER TRIVIA QUIZ

♫ Baby Boomer Song Game: What’s the next line? ♫

Awaitin’ for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin’ that the train is on time
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station…
One toke over the line.

►Match Game: Connect the boomer celebrity with the drug crime

Paul McCartney→ marijuana smuggling
John Denver→ marijuana delivered to home via post office
Ryan O’Neil→ methamphetamine possession
Mackenzie Phillips→ cocaine possession
Rush Limbaugh→ multiple prescription scheme