At 17, in the fall of 1970 I enrolled at the University of Idaho, to study I have no idea what. I was assigned a dorm room in Willis Sweet Hall in the Theophilus Tower. At eleven stories, it was the tallest building in the state of Idaho at the time. It was a brand new coed dorm. That is not as exciting as it sounds, the men had the bottom six floors and the women occupied the top five. However, the experiment must have failed because it was changed to an all-female dormitory in 1982. I probably share some responsibility for that change.
My roommate was Mike Craner from Saint Maries, Idaho. Mike was at the UofI on scholarship to wrestle. I was a walk-on baseball player. I made the team and played fall ball until academically disqualified after first semester grades were revealed. But that is another blog in itself. Mike and I immediately became close friends (which is not always the case with roomies). We were both very straight-laced and naïve. The whole campus was heavily involved in drug and alcohol consumption. We held out for a while, but soon decided we wanted to experiment.
We had a suite-mate who was a Native American from the Coeurd'Alene Indian reservation in Plummer, Idaho. He told us about peyote buttons. His tribe used them in ceremonies and was his drug of choice. The drawback was that they tasted horrible and made you sick. That was not appealing to first-time drug users. He said that we could get it in another form. It was called brown “organic” mescaline. It was ground up into capsules, thereby eliminating the nasty taste issue and resulting gag reflex. The word organic was a bit deceiving, because most poisons and addictive drugs are also organic. But, it still appealed to us. And I was an avid reader of Carlos Castenada. Unfortunately, the experience I relate here is much less spiritual than those recounted in his books.
Often, on the weekends, Mike and I would hitchhike to either St Maries or Kellogg. It was a lot shorter trip to St Maries, but often harder to get a ride, as Kellogg is on Interstate 90 and St Maries is out in the boonies. In those days, hitchhiking was a perfectly legitimate mode of travel (particularly for college freshmen, who had no car). Once home, we would have access to a parent’s car, which would give us access to girls. College guys returning to either small town was nearly as much of a draw to high school girls as a car radio to Amish girls. Even a guy as physically unappealing as I could get some play. On campus, we had to compete with guys with money, looks, and cars.
So we bought two hits of mescaline each and set out Friday night for whichever of our home towns we could catch a ride to. They were both basically in the same direction, at least initially. As soon as we put our thumbs out on the shoulder of Highway 95, we each swallowed a capsule. We were giddy with anticipation, as we had heard accounts of the incredible hallucinogenic effect of this wonder-drug. Traffic was light and no ride was immediately acquired. In addition, after 15 minutes (probably 5) we were getting no symphony of color from our mescaline. We had been swindled out of our ten dollars (things were cheap in 1970). Impatiently, I took the second capsule. Big mistake. Mike wisely decided to wait and see.
Within a few minutes we were both experiencing our first trip. It was a very cold night but I was comfortable since the sky was now on fire. I told Mike that I would stop the next car with my mind. I concentrated mightily. Coincidentally, the next car did pick us up. We were both pretty impressed by my psychokinetic abilities. The ride only carried us as far as Potlatch (less than 20 miles). That was a shame as I could actually see the music coming from the radio of the pastor and his wife that had picked us up. At that point, Led Zeppelin and Perry Como sounded the exact same to me. I could rock out to anything. Elevator music would sound like Hendrix.
We got another ride fairly quickly (though my estimation of time was severely flawed. It could have been five minutes or twenty four hours.) If you are still reading, bear with me. This post is much longer than my normal blog, but it is my 200th.
We often met interesting people hitchhiking. But this particular night we thumbed two rides that were among the most memorable. A guy picked us up in a Volkswagen Beetle that had an arrow sticking out of the driver’s side door. He explained to us that he and his wife had an argument and she came after him with her hunting bow. I know, you are thinking that this was a hallucination. The drug affected my perceptions but did not create alternate realities. His car glowed and had an aura around it but the arrow was indeed there.
As the night continued, the intensity of my trip increased. I could feel my heart beat at a furious pace and hear the blood rushing through my veins. Every sound was magnified, colors enhanced, and it was my impression that everyone we met could tell we were high. I could see the knowing look in their eyes.
Our final ride into St Maries was with two very drunk guys in a Cadillac. The driver spent much of the drive turned around talking to us. It seemed he was driving about the speed of the Starship Enterprise just before it accelerates into Warp Factor 5 (he may have been driving 35) and his inattention terrified me. The hard rock was cranked up but I could understand every word they spoke because comic strip balloons provided closed-captioning for the reality impaired. They offered us beers, which we took out of courtesy, but beer would have no affect on me that night. We stopped for the drunk guys to pee and I am not certain whether I did or not. I think some electricity and fire bolts shot out of me, but that is all I am sure of. I am certain that it would have been impossible for me to have sex on mescaline. I could not feel anything in that region of my body whatsoever. I have heard a woman describe a saddle block procedure and I am pretty certain I was similarly anesthetized. I was fairly sure my genitalia were still attached, but I could not have sworn to it in a court of law. The juice freaks (that is what we called them in those days) dropped us safely off at Mike’s house and sometime that weekend we went to sleep. Mike drifted off about 10 hours before I did (or it could have been 30 minutes). I listened to the same LP for several hours, playing over and over and watched the television test pattern, never tiring of it. This is a test pattern. Yes, in those days television actually terminated their broadcast at midnight.
People not viewing it while amped up from a double dose of Organic Mescaline might have become bored with it. Not me. I watched it like it was a feature film about indians.
Mike and I both left school after that year. We partied ourselves out of academia. He stayed local, got married, and took over his dad’s logging operation and I got married and joined the Air Force. He was the best man at my wedding. I have lost track of him over the years, so I hope he gets a chance to read this. I know it would bring back some memories. The important thing is that I did not have any lasting effects from this experience. The important thing is that I didn't have any lasting effects from this experience. The important
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