Camping in a RV park with its own private storm shelter made me wonder why anyone called Oklahoma City home.  Of course, I live in the Cascadia Subduction Zone.  It’s a land of formed by earthquake and volcanic eruptions. We trust fate to allow our survival and enjoy mountains, forests, valleys, and the most scenic coast in North America.

I left Oklahoma City for Little Rock, Arkansas, 360 miles away and a full day’s drive.

I passed through multiple Indian reservations.  Oklahoma and Arkansas was once Indian Territory, the western terminus of many trails of tears.  I knew about Muskogee and Cherokee people from Alabama, but signs identified reservations from tribes from all over North America.  Most of the land assigned to them was taken In 1889 when Congress amended the Indian Appropriation Act and opened more than two million acres of Indian territory for the Oklahoma Land Rush.  In our relentles ‘manifest destiny,’ we spread our nation from sea to shining sea.

I was hungry for breakfast and stopped at an Indian casino for an ‘All You Can Eat’ buffet. I never told an American Indian how grateful I am for their casino buffets.  Las Vegas may have pioneered chumming for players with cheap food, but Native Americans expanded the concept and scattered reservation casinos nationwide.  This breakfast stop boasted it was the largest Indian casino in the nation, a big stone-and-glass building in the morning’s drizzling rain.  Cars were sparse.  It was still early.

I like talking to indigenous people.  A First Nation elder in British Columbia explained tribal fishing rights and practices while I vacationed on Vancouver Island. He told me how to can salmon for the winter. The Navajo owner of the Arizona trading post spoke to me about his tribe’s animosity toward Kit Carson. I shared a fishing charter with a Klamath and Modoc couple off the Oregon coast. They were park rangers in Yellowstone National Park. During the Treaty Days celebration at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon, I discussed jewelry making with native artisan.

Most gamining establishment are of similar design.  Interior lighting illuminated players on stools.  They intently pressed slot machine buttons in a rhythmic tattoo.  These early morning degenerate gamblers hammer the ‘Bet the Max Amount’ button hoping numbers spin their way. All the machines are programmed for players to lose. It is written, confessed, and proven, but despite their delusion that winning is the goal, gamblers delight in the adrenaline rush of placing a bet.  Buffet meals don’t build large casinos, and winners don’t pay the bills.  All those opportunities for gaming success must be passed on the way to food or bathrooms.  I’ve dropped my hundreds on the way to a meal.  I had money to play but wanted to be in Little Rock before dark. I asked directions from a mini-skirted waitress. She directed me to the restaurant in the back of the casino.  My desire was to eat more than I could digest, and breakfast was my favorite meal, Waffle House my favorite diner. This place had every morning food except my mess hall favorite, creamed hamburger on toast.  Most of the men sitting at tables eating bacon and eggs, drinking coffee were costumed in denim bib overalls, sport shirts, and black lace shoes. I could not figure what convention they were attending.  I ate, paid, left for Arkansas at 75 miles per hour.

I was wide awake, fully fed, and digesting slowly. I drove through green forests. I imagined Oklahoma would be dry, flat, studded with pig farms and cattle ranches.  Cowboys must live beyond the tree-lined interstate.

Legal gambling flourished mostly in Nevada until Indian tribes asserted their sovereign right to spread reservation casinos nationwide. Norfolk would be an ideal location. Surely eastern tribes will establish a reservation there on which to build one.  Tidewater harbors the Atlantic Fleet. NATO is there. Shipbuilders, dry docks, container cargo, triple-dip retirees, sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines, civilians, and tourists—it’s a prime location with an economy nourished by the government.  I never flourished in Norfolk. I gave it a shot but hated grade school, flunked college, turned on, dropped out, and moved on. I returned, educated and sober, a family man with goals, worked menial jobs for low pay. I only prospered after I left Norfolk, moved to Oregon, sold securities, studied markets, speculated and learned portfolio management.  When I retired, I said I intended to smoke pot, listen to blues, and drink wine—all legal in Oregon.  My wealth, howver, came without youth and health enough to enjoy such dissipation. Without desire to spend, wealth became dollars to count at night rather than sheep.

Windshield time and classic rock music brought memories of Mike and me when we were hippies.  If our counterculture ever had a pulse in Norfolk, it beat in Ghent, the city’s 19th-century subdivision. Ghent bordered the Elizabeth River, a tidal stream that drained into the Chesapeake Bay and then into the Atlantic Ocean.  It was once a wetland with cattails and shellfish.  Marine life spawned in its brackish mud.   The place reeked of Virginia history.  Wetlands were drained; subdivisions were built, and city effluents were flushed into rivers and bay. It was a few feet above sea level and flooded every year.   Tidal rivers created Norfolk’s economy.  They provided safe anchorage for maritime commerce. Before Norfolk, England’s London Company founded Jamestown in 1607. African slaves docked in 1619. Their colonial lives had issues.   Early settlers depended on ships to carry produce—mostly tobacco—from the Virginia colony to England.  However, sailing across the Atlantic to return laden with goods to a largely uncharted coast was dangerous business. Hazardous work and meager wages turned crews into pirates, a lucrative and pleasurable vocation, until they were caught, hanged, and buried beneath coastal waterlines.

Ghent came after pirates, independence, and Civil War.  Built before cars, the gentry had carriage houses attached to substantial brick homes. The Elizabeth River flowed nearby. Times were good, and an upper class prospered. Tall hedgerows and wrought iron fencing lined the blocks and separated homes. Brick facades were shaded by old oaks. Less than a hundred years later, urban decay invaded the cityscape.  The old 19th-century homes became skeleton remnants.  Large enough to be chopped into apartments, they housed low-rent hippies. Gas lights were rewired for electricity. Folk music played in clubs. Neon signs advertised pizza and beer. Mike and I had friends who lived there, and when we visited, we looked as if we belonged. We frequented its end-of-the-road shops and taverns, walked its sidewalks, and found street-side parking wherever legal. Ghent was decrepit at night, and I loved the place.

On Saturday mornings, Mike and I went downtown to meet friends. We were part of a long-haired crowd that floated from “Frankie’s Got It” record shop to Orange Julius, the Leather Shop, and a Head Shop that sold incense and rolling papers. We lounged on the concrete steps of a vacant hotel called ‘The Dead Pigeon’ named for a carcass once found there. Department stores with elevators, restaurants, and blue-plate specials were extinct. We worked weekdays to enjoy a Saturday night high. I had a car to roam the town in search of acid and pot.  Scarcity was sometimes an issue. We weren’t addicts, but we wanted a psychedelic high.  The price for our recreation was modest. Acid cost $5 a hit, pot $20 a lid, and hashish $10 a gram. Hash took us higher than marijuana.  The pot we smoked popped seeds that burned holes in our jeans and shirts.  LSD was our chosen high. Trips started 30 or 45 minutes after ingestion, rose pleasurably, peaked to an intensity, and lasted until early morning. An alcohol buzz was unacceptable to Mike. He didn’t drink, and driving drunkenly was hazardous.

To satisfy our supply needs, we became drug dealers. Selling dope made sense. We’d cover costs, make a few bucks, and solve the problem of scarcity. As a bonus, drug dealers were important, and our tribal status would escalate.  Mike made a deal for 100 hits of acid for $200. Our drug source was a friend he made after being expelled.  I knew the guy from high school. We were in the same home room but never had a conversation. He never stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.  He sat at his desk while the rest of us stood for the ritual recitation, and that took balls in a Navy town. I didn’t ask him why he sat because I didn’t care. In my Hawaiian elementary school, a  fifth grade girl classmate never crossed her heart or recited the pledge but she always stood with the class and told me it her behavior was obedience to her faith.

The source for our drug buy lived in Alexandria, outside DC so Mike and I split costs and drove four hours north.  We arrived mid afternoon, knocked on his door, and he invited us to crash for the night.  That afternoon, we passed a hash pipe with a one-eyed Vietnam veteran, a high school hippie, two juvenile runaway girls, and a woman who said “Don’t worry, I’m packing” when members of the Pagan Motorcycle Club visited looking for dope visited.  Her carrying a gun worried me more than a couple of bikers wanting to get high. I knew one of them from an Ocean View beer bar. I didn’t think he was a threat. Maybe life in Alexandria was different. Norfolk was a backwater community by Northern Virginia standards.  While in a circle passing the pipe, the wounded veteran’s facial muscles relaxed, and his glass eye dropped in his lap. It was far-out weird, and I think he did it on purpose.

That night, we ate massive doses of LSD. Sitting again in a circle on the floor, each of us was given a pill of acid.   A glass of water was passed between us. The host, our source, doubled his dose and drank twice. Curious about the strength, I asked about the dosage. He said we imbibed an experimental batch from the University of New Mexico, about a thousand micrograms. That was a lot. 250 micrograms was a full dose. Mike and I sometimes shared half a pill. That night, I ingested four times a full dose.  I don’t know if what he said was true but I watched him take twice my amount. I reasoned if he held himself together, I’d be fine. I had a bad cold and drank a large bottle of cough syrup.

Mike and I went with our host that night for a walk. It was a winter, and we were without overcoats. A police cruiser pulled beside us. The officer left the car and asked, “What are you guys doing tonight?” I had no answer and did not speak. He asked for our identifications. Mike and I complied. Our host did not. He told the cop, “I think it is silly to carry around a piece of paper with my name on it.” The policeman allowed us to continue our walk.

The Alexandria trip made me reflect on the importance of my mental stability. It was not a good trip.  The bottle of cough syrup kept me sedated through some bad thoughts. At one point, I thought I was dead, prostrate on a highway, and powerless to the point of apathy.  We left town the next morning to return to Norfolk. The Sunday drive was quiet.  On the way home, chemical residues flushed from my system, and I thought about quitting acid.

Back home, we wrapped each pill in foil and put them into a refrigerator to stay fresh for the next weekend.  Mike kept them until the following Saturday night. We gathered Scott and Carter to help and invaded a church-sponsored coffee house.  Naturally, the four of us dropped acid before we arrived.  We were ambivalent about losing our souls and had no regard for for the delusions of parents who thought their children were safe in a church coffee house.  It catered to those too young to drink, but we weren’t selling them booze.

We entered the three-story church.  From the entrance, we passed a small chapel on the right and ascended instuitionally wide stairs that led to the coffee  house.  On our way up, we met a girl going down. She was in the middle of a psychotic moment.  Talking fearfully to herself, her right arm was crooked upward to the side as if she were guiding an invisible friend.  No one walked beside her.  Like Elwood Dowd in ‘Harvey,’  she guided a phantom that only she could see.
Our friend Rudy followed her.  We asked him what was happening.  He said the girl ate ‘blue dome’ acid then freaked out during a seance using an Ouija board to conjure spirits. Between acid, seance, and a ghostly visit, she lost her mind.

Ouija boards, seances and LSD should be experienced separately. As she escorted her bad trip outside, I hoped she crashed safely. Our acid was potent.

The coffee shop was a dimly lit room that doubled as the church fellowship hall. It had a kitchen, a counter, tables, and chairs. Familiar faces flowed in and out. We fronted doses to Scott and Carter at $4. They sold them for $5. They made a buck, tripped for free, and we cleared a couple of bucks. Our cost was $2. We didn’t give up work, but it was fun to spread psychedelia. Scott and Carter bumped us for resupply, and it didn’t take long to sell out.

Mike and I sat at a table. His chair was against the wall, and I faced him with my back to the room. With all of our acid sold, our pockets were full of crumpled bills, and we emptied them into a pile. My trip was at a peak moment. I saw the money. It had to be counted, and I stood up to flee. Mike pulled me back and said, “Sit down and maintain.” I sat down. ‘Maintain’ meant stop acting psychotic and exhibit proper behavior.

The business of selling dope is simple. That night we covered costs, made a few bucks, and had acid left for more weekends. Dope was an easy sell. It had consumer demand like no other product I ever peddled. I sold greeting cards, newspapers, and candy—that was before leaving high school. I sold advertising, floor tiles, wallpaper, paint, roofing shingles, windows, and siding—before financial securities created the wealth I needed to quit selling.

There were many hilariously good trips.  We loved the colorful shapes, patterns, and insights that flashed incessantly into our brains. Our fingers trailed colors, and sensual pleasures surged. Turned on and tuned in, we tripped once or twice a week. Dope was an easy sell, but I ate my profits, and degeneracy ensued. I mixed alcohol, amphetamine, cannabis, and opium in increasing doses while I searched for the ultimate high.

In Little Rock, I camped in a city-owned RV park on the banks of the Arkansas River. Two ladies ran the park. Their dogs, small enough to fit in handbags, shared their office. It took a GPS device to find it.  I arrived late afternoon and backed into an overflow slot in time for evening rain.  William Clinton’s Presidential Library was accessible by a a short walk across a footbridge to the opposite riverbank. Papers and momentos significant to his presidency reside there for scholars and fans. I had time but no interest. Rather than explore, I set up a tripod, dodged the rain, and took pictures of myself on the banks of the Arkansas River.  Long-distance drives are the best part of western travel, and I only booked an overnight. However, the city owned park is an urban getaway in the capital city.  It’s tucked into shaded privacy on a knoll above the Arkansas River riverbank. The young couple in the trailer next to me had bicycles.  Every prime river front slot was taken by large motor coaches. I was slotted into an overflow suitable only for small trailers,  stayed hooked and didn’t venture into town.  Most of what I knew about Little Rock was taught to me in seventh-grade civics class. I was familiar with Brown v. Board of Education and Governor Orval Faubus who mobilized the Arkansas National Guard to block high school integration.  President Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and sent the 101st Airborne to enforce federal integration laws.  I’ve been away from the South for decades. Years have passed; society evolved, and memories faded.  Southern history is often judged by people unschooled in southern protocols and behavior.  Locals are right to be wary and my Oregon license plates identified me as an alien.

Oregon is a place I will not leave.  That night I treated myself by sipping bourbon from a pint and listening to blues.  I lounged on my dinette bed covered by  sleeping bags.  I was far from home, sleeping soft and warm.   Wherever I parked was a destination resort.  The rain lasted until morning.