‘Acres and Acres of Marijuana’ - Sept. 1973

The Conclusion - Part 3 of 3

The boys are back on the road heading for David’s hotel after finishing off having a successful and safe snip, bag and run operation on a huge Acapulco marijuana growing field up in the Sierra Madre Mountains. We’ll continue on with David and his thoughts;

I am definitely sure that our crazy night out was the point of my true beginning of watching TB’s back, and he of mine in our long friendship and teamwork we shared together. I don’t know how to explain our chemistry other than from minute one after meeting in the church, we began a flow and rhythm that felt as natural as natural can be, just like it happens for millions of people throughout the world. . .

During our careful drive back to town, TB explained to me that there were so many similar large growing fields of this same seedless weed all over in hidden pockets of the mountains, and to get away with this kind of illegal activity, he educated me that there had to be some kind of political criminal involvement going on. Meaning, many corrupt politicians along with various higher up police and military hands were being greased to just look the other way and do not disturb the golden egg laying goose. .
And something else interesting happened on our drive, and that was we started talking about our American politicians and all the self-serving games they play and do. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Yeah, well, this bad behavior seems to run in the blood of some not so honest politicians where and whatever countries on the planet they strut their stuff.
That exact lesson from TB rang a familiar tone in my brain because from a few years earlier living on Shelter Island during the summers, a very wise trusting new friend named Johnny Mayer became a great teacher for me regarding the political world all around us. Johnny educated me about politics being a full-on blood sport and that was some really good advice, and furthering that wisdom with making sure I always took the time to measure and then peel away the layers of whatever these folks said after they opened up their perpetual lying mouths.
Continuing on that theme, we talked about the corruption of too many political animals who seemed to get away with just way too many things, and right in front of the American public without much attention being paid to these smooth obvious lying operators.
As an example, TB talked in depth about the Viet Nam war and how the military industrial complex worked out having big time money flowing action coming their way, using their well-paid influential lobbyists to get them huge overpriced government contracts.
He expressed how it was a giant game, explaining that these big defense contractors’ wheel and deal with just about all of the greedy politicians who are neatly tucked away in their secret rolodex files. . .TB would say after the payouts are done, ‘The politicians would now be a holdin’, or let’s just say owin’ big time favors to their rich spoiled donor class’.
The reality of it all, was it was legal to do and this handing out of big money went into these politician’s future election campaign war chests, or more like campaign donations is what they called it, and guess what, they still do. Yeah sure, no problem, wink-wink!

In that past time of life when TB and Johnny were my teachers, and now more than ever in this day and present age after everything is said and done, it is unbendingly clear to me everybody in the den of the political world one way or another becomes an opportunists, who tries their loftiest best to get what they want, and the end result is the lowly tax payers (YOU AND ME), pay for it all. GEE, such a deal, Ya Think!

That one special Marijuana night time picnic we took together, started our never ending well over a quarter of a century of conversations about all the unscrupulous games coming out of Washington D.C. It became a regular gabfest on all sorts of subjects, never dwelling on one thing or another too much, but the subject matters were always fast paced, cool to learn about and some off the wall and wide open. The key for us over all the years, was we never had heated debates or arguments but rather productive, educating and very worthwhile conversations. .
Well so back at the ranch, I guess truth be told that by the time T dropped me off at my hotel, I was totally spent. My legs felt like there was nothing left in them from all the mountain and jungle like climbing and walking we did, but my wild energized buddy wanted me to get cleaned up and go with him and party at the disco’s late into the night, but I was wiped out so I had to tell him, ‘No man, no thanks’. He understood so we made plans to meet the next day after my fish collecting work was all done. .
What a time we shared thinking back on it all. I know TB was a wild adventurous dude at heart, and yes, I might as well say a bit unabashedly reckless at times too, but always with well thought out plans made first.
For me, well I was beginning a new life and it just felt right, and most importantly I was feeling alive again, with a happy vibe inside and feeling lucky to be right where I was. . .

Before practically crawling into bed, I took a long refreshing shower but most of it was sitting on the Mexican tile floor under the semi-hot cleansing comforting running water. I just sat there going over in my mind everything that happened and we did in the last eight action packed hours. . .What a great night and one heck of an unusual well planned out picnic by my big buddy! And you know, as much as I never should have participated in that dangerous night out, I wouldn’t change one decision making direction of my thinking, and as crazy as this might sound too, I’d do it all over again too!!!
Less than a week later T and I were sitting around a burning camp fire up along a quiet and quaint mountain hidden ridge he had hung out before, smoking some of the weed we snipped in our night raid. I remember we rolled a good half dozen fat joints, but we didn’t need but one the whole night, but we liked fresh hits, so we spoiled ourselves with all the others. And talking about being wild, well we had some full on laughing fun rushes of throwing handfuls of our weed into the fire, and all the while getting into talking about some serious political things going on in the states. .
Sure we were having a great time buzzing along, come on, who’s kidding who but we also were all over the Nixon-Watergate hearings going on in D.C. and that’s when I first opened up to TB about my first-hand up close experiences regarding the infamous Watergate burglary. .
Here it was, 1973 and we were two lucky guys just doing our thing in a world far away from America. . .I remember TB saying, ‘Life is good, no complaints’, but I was worried for him because of his dangerous work he was heavily involved in, but at that moment in time together, I couldn’t disagree, we were living it up and life really was good. .

OH, and that sixty or so pound duffel bag I estimated, well it eventually dried out and weighed at the most twenty-five pounds, and without all the twigs and branches, even much less than that. But one thing for certain, was that that seedless weed was kick ass and easily passed the taste bud quality test, with flying colors.

Just Wild Times, what Else can We Say!