It was back around '76 or '75... One of those years unless it was '77 then it was neither of them years but nevermind that
'cause it don't much matter now, does it???
I was livin' in this, ahhhhh, big house in east Richmond with a bunch of stoners who I had known going back years and Christmas was a'comin... But before we can get into all that I gotta introduce my housemates to ya'... Billy D was a truck driver, one fine harp (harmonica) player, quite intellectual considerin' he had never taken a college course and was always reading history books... Why??? I donno seein' as all them peoples was dead... Then there was Stoner Bo who wasn't quite as intellectual... Might of fact, he flunked outta college during freshman orientation... Speaking' of flunkin' out of college during freshman orientation there was JD... He flunked outta college while fillin' out the application for college... I mean, he was a serious stoner...
And there was me... Considerably older and workin' to save the world as a social worker by day but just another stoner at night...
And of course, there were always them womenz hangin' around doing womenz things like askin', "Are we going to get a Christmas tree?'...
"Well, sho nuff, we are gonna get one... Right, boyz?"...
"What's a Christmas tree?"
"Screw that... What's Christmas, man?" ...
You know, the usual stoner answers...
Billy D was driving atruck for a paper company that made big rolls of paper and his bossman said that we could go out to his farm and cut any tree we wanted so that was the plan...
So, seein' as I had the largest car other than an old Volkswagen, a '66 Falcon 2 door, we grabbed the directions that Billy D had gotten from his boss, piled the womenzfolk into the Falcon, saw 'n rope in the trunk, and headed out into the country to get a tree....
20 miles and couple joints later we arrived at what we thought was Billy D's boss's farm, piled out, found a fairly nice white pine, cut it down with the saw from the trunk and were into the proccess of tying it to the roof of the Falcon when 3 Henrico County police cars pulled up, lights a'flashin and siren a'blazin'
"Ahhhh, what's up, officer?'...
Well, as long as I have lived I don't think that when you ask a cop, "Ahhhh, what's up, officer?" that your gonna get the answer you were hoping for and this turned out to be the case, as well...
Best I could figure after gettin' handcuffed was that Billy D got something wrong in the directions... Hmmm??? Did I say that we was kinda intellectual??? Well, not that night, he wasn't... He was just another handcuffed stoner and we were all off to the Henrico County jail for trespassin' and tree stealin' and just being dumbass stoners with the wrong directions... Maybe they didn't like my car, too, I dunno... It was painting with a brush but I thought it looked okay, especially at night... Not too many drips and, hey, I didn't paint over the headlights...
So we all got booked for trespassin' and tree stealin'... Fortunately, for us, the magistrate either had a son who was a stoner or a next door neighbors kid who was a stoner and he believed our story and didn't charge any of us with any felonies and seein' as Bo's parents were upstanding citizens we were all released on personal recognizance... BTW, I never understood that stuff at all... I mean, most folks been around enough mirrors in their lives to recognize themselves, right???
And seein' as God looks after fools, stoners, drunks and kids we had plenty of Devine coverage that night'cause the cops even gave us a ride to the impound lot where we had to fork over $35 towing fee to get my hand-painted Falcon on the free side of the chain-link fence... Also in the category of Devine coverage the cops never looked under the driver's seat where we had left our stash bag...
So, what to do???
"Screw it, let's go back and get the tree..."
It was about midnight and we were back in my hand-painted Falcon, smoking herb with the AM radio a'blarin' country Christmas songs on our way back to the scene of the crime to get that tree... Stoners ain't really the wisest of the lot, ya'll, but that Devine coverage held up long enough for us to stop on the side of the road, open the hood as if we were having car trouble while Billy D jumped the fence, snagged the tree, threw it over the fence, got the somabich tied down and off we went to the tune of "I Saw Grandma Makin' it with a Reindeer" 'er something like that...
About 2 in the mornin' we get back home with the tree and the next day being Saturday so no one had to work 'er nothin' we got up bright and early, you know, about the crack of noon and brought the tree in and rigged it up inside a washtub with a couple of cinderblocks to hold it upright... We didn't really have any ornaments so we made stuff outta empty beer cans and stuff and it looked, ahhhhhh, ok to us...
Over the Christmas season friends stopped over and added things to it and by Christmas it was one heck of a stoned out Christmas tree... I mean, Righteous!!! It was a lovely Christmas... Someone got a new Outlaws LP and we played it between Dead stuff, stayed stoned up pretty good the entire day and that's all I remember specifically about that Christmas other than the tree, of course...
New Years Eve came and the tree continued to get more and more decorated by us and our friends... Only trouble was that it had dropped about half - okay, more than half - of its needles but that didn't seem to bother any of us much at all...
January 15th came and it was court day and so we all dressed up in $10 Salvation Army suits we had bought so that we would look like updstanding citizens and we all had to testify as to what happened and how sorry we were about breaking the law and how we had seen the errors of our ways and taken up helping old ladies cross the street and were each given a $25 fine with $37 in court costs... Court costs??? Hey, why do we pay our taxes, anyway... Ain't that like double jeopardy 'er something leagelese like that???
But we didn't go to jail and we was all good and broke from all that money goin' into Boss Hog's peepot but it was over and so what are ya' gonna do??? Yep!!! Invite all our friends over to listen to the Outlaws and Dead and smoke a lot of pot... It was one of them cold-ass nights that Richmond gets in the middle of January and we had us a big-ass wood stove in the living room with a big-ass fire in it... Speakin' of "Big-ass" it also had a big-ass crack in the side but it didn't much as long as it as it was a roarin' and a roarin' it was doin'...
This guy from Southside always had this weed he called "Skunk" and he had brought a bag of that "skunk" and I'll be the first to tell ya'll that everyone was pretty messed up on that skunk stuff...
'Bout midnight on that cold-ass January 15th night the dried out Christmas tree and a spark from the big-ass woodstove somehow got introduced and it was love at first sight... Sho nuff' was 'cause before anyone could actually comprehend what was occurring before them, let alone get their stoned asses off the couch, that tree seriously burned up... I mean, gone burned up... Gone, gone, gone burned up!!!!
After a chorus of "Far out, mans" one of the womenz went into the kitchen, filled up a cook pot with water and threw it on what little fire was left burnin' on the trunk of the burned up christmas tree while the rest of us rouned up fans, opened windows and doors, to get the bad smoke out and after half an hour we was all back to listenin' to the Outlaws and the Dead, smokin' that skunk and having some good laughs aabout everything... Kinda made us forget that $25 plus $37 in court fees for the rest of the night...
Now a days, I don't smoke no skunk and steal no trees and one might attribute that to that night but it ain't so... Just can't find any skunk no more...
So have yourself a Merry Christmas and don't put your Christmas tree next to your woodstoves, ya' hear???
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