December 1977. Christmas break for those high school graduates who’d gone off to college. Those like our friend Mark.

Yup, it was the end of the fall semester. But… nope, Mark would not be returning to Carlton College for spring semester.

Mark… Mr. Cool, Mr. yes we are going to follow his lead but no we don’t really know why we’re doing it… was back, and everything at our East Center street apartment also took a big step back. Oh it wasn’t a step back to the way things were, it was more a step back to ways that my adult mind would never consider any kind of step forward so… it was a step back. See… Mark had been “kicked out” of school. Apparently, he never attended any classes but he did learn a few things. Actually… he had learned exactly TWO things.

How to play drums and how to smoke weed.

Fortunately, he found someplace else to play drums so we were not expected to accommodate him with that. He did expect to live with us and since Ronny definitely did not want to move out, our living room became Mark’s room. Mark was still Mr. Cool in our eyes so he got exactly what he wanted.

What Mark wanted most of all now, was to show us how to smoke weed.

Heh… yea, like HE was going to show US how to smoke weed! The rest of us had been smoking since the eleventh grade and to look at Ronnie and some of the “friends” attached to him, one might think he’d been doing it since he was born. But if Mark was any good at anything, he was good at convincing everyone how good he was at whatever he wanted us to think he was good at so…

So of course we listened, and did exactly what he wanted us to do.

So the first thing we needed to be able to smoke weed like the college men do, was to make “his room” into a proper smoking room. Up to now, the decor of our party pad had been been pretty basic and pretty unimaginative. Salvation Army furniture and pretty bare walls and floors. Melvin did up his room with stuff he got from Sears (more on that later) but the rest of the place didn’t get much decoration attention from any of us. Parties and hanging out outside had been the thing all summer and once winter set in, when I wasn’t working I was helping my dad at home a lot.

The first thing the room needed was to be dark, so the windows were covered with blankets. Then we had to get the black lights and blacklight posters and all the proper smoking paraphernalia from the closest head shop. I have no memory of this place or even where it was. We may have even had to go up to the cities to get the stuff for all I know. Needless to say, we got all that Mark said we needed and then some.

Under Mark’s tutelage we discovered the wonders of the “power hitter” the “chamber pipe” and the mother of all tools for getting high with style… the “double-bubble geodesic bong with duel tubbed chambers and a gatling gun bowl set”. Wow! I’m feeling a little buzz coming on just thinking about it. Oo(^_^)y-~

When it all came together, when the pipes and papers, cleaning tray and stash box were all arranged properly on the smoking table. The blacklight-lit posters glowed in the darkened room as did the plastic trim on “Geo” the bong, standing tall in her central place of honor. Our cool new resident pot smoking guru Mark, scanned his wondrous new world of weed and declared that it was good.

It was time for our dark new pot smoking room to be filled with pot smoke, and of course some…

“Dark Side of the Moon”