Alcohol vs. Pot

Our past was only prolog to this moment. They were interesting times, and I regret nothing. We enjoyed those times though they were often filled with poverty and want. I have fond memories, though most of the people and events are less real than what I dreamed last night. Did we learn anything?

We probably also crossed paths in the Venice, Marvista, Culver City area.

Yes, probably. I hope we didn't shun each other. as in vying for first position at the counter at Mar Vista Lumber...

Yes, Asherman, I think we learned some things, or if not learned, rounded out senses of things. But you and JL are much more attuned on your sense of how things are than me..

Did we learn anything? I should hope so (and most of it constructive). Imagine living our lives without learning--intellectually and spiritually.

By late 1965 Natalie and I had relocated from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We lived in Marvista and Culver City. At first, I worked in a dry cleaners, then as an apprentice to a tailor. Neither paid enough to keep us, and the dry cleaner was almost as bad a job as picking cotton.

I saw a want ad for Voi-Shan and went to see them. I was hoping for a job perhaps running a drill=press or something similar. They took one look at my background and hired me to work in the laboratory. I rushed back to our one room apartment and tried to remember everything that I supposedly had learned in college chemistry That was a bit of a problem. On the Day President Kennedy was assassinated, I was being advised by my chemistry professor not to sit on the high stools because he was concerned I might fall off in my sleep and hurt myself. Oh well, that discussion was abbreviated by the news from Dallas.

I found that the laboratory was devoted to metallurgical matters, and most of my college chemistry didn't apply anyway. At first my job was to clean the metallic and carbon particles from the sumps. Each night I would go home to a pregnant-sick wife with metal embedded in my skin from fingertips to elbows. By watching and asking questions I learned how to mount and polish specimens, but that only was a respite from scooping out the drains. The pay was just a bit better than the minimum wage, but it was a job with possibilities.

I enrolled in night-courses leading to national certification in metallurgy. After working in the plant all day, I would eat a sandwich and take a bus (who could afford an automobile) to classes. I often got home after mid-night, and then would study for a couple of hours. During the day, I studied during coffee-breaks and lunch. It was tedious, but the more I learned about metallurgy the more fascinating it became. I finished the course work and was duly certified as a Metallurgist. I was only one of about three people who worked in the lab who had national certification, and so my job status was greatly enhanced though the pay lagged. I was given more responsiblity, and no longer was expected to clean the sumps, so I thought things were going pretty well.

By the time our oldest son was born, my pay was large enough to get us a real apartment with its own kitchen, bathroom and even a small room for the baby. Everyday I became more expert in microscopic analysis of metals, and could speak with authority on what should be done with them. I was the only one in the laboratory who could mix some of the etchants needed for exotic metals, not just anyone should be allowed to mix nitroglycerin, or etchants using hydrofluoric acid. I learned to test for hydrogen contamination, and that led me to an interest in how hydrogen can effect fatigue life in various metallic structures.

Who had time to hang out in hippy coffee houses anymore. I'd been there, done that already and we were moving on, so I probably missed crossing paths with youse guys.

I was setting up my first lab at ucla in '65....

It was during those years that I had my first involvement with homicide. Previously, I had been acquainted with death, but never where one person knowingly and willfully killed another. It is difficult to watch a fighter aircraft crash into the sea killing its pilot, or to have to clear out a shipmates personal locker after he vanishes in the night. I had a friend killed in Vietnam. These sort of deaths were upsetting, but not nearly so shocking as murder.

Natalie and I had bought our first automobile, an ancient Nash sub-compact that usually could get us to the grocery store and back. One of the people who worked in the factory asked to borrow the car, and still thinking like a hippy we lent it. The guy brought the car back two weeks later filled with puke. Lesson learned, right? We were close friends with an amiable fellow named Charley Walters and his wife. They had two small children and their family situation was similar to our own. We often visited and went on picnics together. Charley, Orville Huggins and I all came out of the hippy movement, so we hung out a lot together in our free time. One long night shift, the police came and took Charley away.

Later we found out that the same fellow who had so abused our car loan, had burglarized Charley's apartment. He was still in the apartment when Charley's wife arrived home with their children. She recognized that the place had been broken into, so she hid the children behind a couch and went to see what had been taken. The burglar was hiding in a closet, and when she opened the door he stabbed her repeatedly with a knife from the kitchen. Then he fled the scene, but the children heard their mother's screams and witnessed her assailant as he fled. Charley was devastated, and the children were badly traumatized.

The children eventually testified to what they had seen, and the physical evidence was overwhelming. The murderer was convicted and given a life sentence. That means that he was probably released from prison many years ago.

There were some rumors at the time that some of the best acid on the streets was coming from a lab up at UCLA. Hmmnnn........

Well, I know some med people were fairly adventurous, but no, not my one-person (at the time) lab.

It's getting wierder, Osso. I was an undergraduate at UCLA in 1965, My relatives lived in MarVista, which is virtually Culver City, on East ave and Venice Blvd., Ash. My family lived in Culver City when I was born. I will not say "small world".

OK, I'm going to get out a map.. I forget where East Avenue is. I lived on Coeur d'Alene, just west of Lincoln, which is the north south street that runs from Santa Monica south to Westchester, eventually joining Sepulveda fairly close to LAX. Coeur d'Alene is between Venice and Washington Blvds. Culver City comes real close to Lincoln Blvd... and that point is now covered by a Costco.

I realize this is a tangent re alcohol and pot.
Hmm, well, this is all fairly close to the Marina, where a bunch of us used to go drink at the Randy Tar, Captain's Table (?), and some other steaky-type restaurants..

Dating was a little complex in, say, 1966. We would go out to dinner and then to a movie and then dancing/drinking, or some combo of those. Just thinking about it makes me tired now.

While I favor marijuana being decriminalized and do not necessarily oppose the use of medical marijuan (though I believe there are other drugs that are safer and more effective), to minimize the downside of marijuana use is, I believe, short sighted.

And Fortune's experience with nausea is not all that unique.

From the American Cancer Society website

Marijuana: possible problems or complications

Smoking or eating raw marijuana can cause a number of effects, including feelings of euphoria, short-term memory loss, difficulty in completing complex tasks, alterations in the perception of time and space, sedation, anxiety, confusion, and inability to concentrate. Other side effects include low blood pressure, tachycardia (fast heart beat), and heart palpitations.

Many researchers agree that marijuana contains known carcinogens (chemicals that can cause cancer). They caution that smoking marijuana may decrease reproductive function as well as increase the risk of respiratory diseases and cancers of the lungs, mouth, and tongue. It may also suppress the body's immune system, and increase the risk of leukemia in children whose mothers smoked marijuana during pregnancy. Women who are pregnant or breast-feeding should not use marijuana.

The symptoms of a marijuana overdose include nausea, vomiting, hacking cough, disturbances to heart rhythms, and numbness in the limbs. Chronic use can also lead to laryngitis, bronchitis, and general apathy.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_Marijuana.asp?sitearea=ETO

Um I just realized I didn't get any further than Page 1 of this thread before I posted this. I hope I'm not repeating information already here. Going back to read the rest of the thread now.

Well, I found a map that has our area on it but cannot manage to transfer it here. Oh, well. Memory will suffice.
(I still have some cells left...)

Osso, it's East BLVD, not ave. Between Venice and Washington Pl (?), and four or so blocks west of the 405 freeway at Sepulveda or Sawtelle. It's been a while, and I don't have many cells left.

Osso, it's East BLVD, not ave. Between Venice and Washington Pl (?), and four or so blocks west of the 405 freeway at Sepulveda or Sawtelle. It's been a while, and I don't have many cells left.

Yeh, I found it on the map, and I found Coeur d'Alene, and found where my ex bro in law and my niece live, and found where my landarch studio was, all on the same lil map, but I couldn't transfer it here, the map keeps disappearing and all I get when I try to transfer it here is the Find The Directions form yet again. (On the RandMcNally.com site, I entered the intersections of Sawtelle Blvd. and Venice Blvd., Mar Vista with Abbot Kinney Blvd. and Venice Blvd., Venice - and found it but couldn't 'keep it'). Abbot Kinney Blvd is the recently renamed West Washington Blvd., but ne'er mind, Washington Blvd & Street are very confusing entities.

Gee, now I need a drink. ('kidding, kidding.)

Now that is an interesting question. I almost feel like making this a new thread.

Did you learn anything?

I grew up in SF California in the 60s, well I was 10 in 1966, so they were a bit older than I. The hippies were like demigods to me. I admired the way they protested all the injustices, questioned everything, tried to create new ways of life in every area from education to farming to interpersonal relationships to . . .

Then, I saw the dream sort of wither and die in the 70s and 80s. A lot of hypocritical things started happening. "I got mine, did you?" looks started happening everywhere. Hippies became stockbrokers.

I felt a little taken aback. Was I stupid to believe?

Anyway, yes, back to Asherman's question: Did that generation learn anything?

And here's a weird thing: If that was a sort of Renaissance, I feel like we're largely slipping back into a Dark Age in USA now. Are there people around to build on what was learned then? Or is it almost like each new generation has to re-learn everything?

What has happened to all that was learned back then? Is it influencing our reality today? How? (I see there is probably more wheat bread in the stores than in 1955, for a silly example).

Well, Asherman and I, who are very close in age, and JLNobody, who is a few years older than us, are all a little older than the main cohort of hippies and you are a little younger than the main group but not by much... you would have been 17 in 1973, right? You were as much behind in age as I was ahead in age.