I ran away from home at the age of 14.  My father had put me on restriction for the summer, the whole summer, and I wasn’t about to have any part of that.  I had already experimented with numerous “light” drugs, and drinking was something that we (those that I looked up to) did.  Alcohol was abundant.  A friend and I hitch-hiked to the rail yards and hopped a freight train over the mountain pass to a town about 200 miles away.  That summer I lived in an old horse trailer and picked cherries for money.  Back then,I thought life was great.  Today I still relish in those events, and they’re numerous.  I’d work days and then nights we would find someone to buy us beer or good ole Thunderbird wine. Throughout that summer I dabbled in mescaline and mushrooms, with sporadic periods of qualudes and valium.  I remember the revelation I felt from the psychedelics and the relaxation of the downers.  Whatever I was taking, whatever I drank, I knew I enjoyed it better than being straight.  It seemed as if Iwas always the last one to crash, the last to quit drinking, and I usually started back up before the workday was over.   Still, I functioned.  There were a lot of “keggers” in that period and partying was something that we lived for and did hard.  I experienced a few juvenile detention stints and some arrests before my sixteenth birthday.  At 16 I received my first DUI (or DWI, depending where you lay your hat), the first of around...eight, throughout the US and Europe.  At the time, I had temporarily moved back home.  I got busted drinking under age.  I was 16,  the drinking age was 18.  It was in a bar in Idaho, I remember some elements of a fight and someone loosing their thumb.  Word of wisdom, never attempt to grab a knife away from someone in a fight, especially by the blade.  Later that night we were picked up by the local police and I went to jail for a few days.  They did that back then, put people in jail under age.  From jail I was sent back to Seattle. Some time later I borrowed my fathers van, drank a fifth of booze and totalled his vehicle.  First DUI, age 16, alcohol level, .032. There’s a pattern here, trust me.

    In the 70’s and early 80’s we loved to camp and party.  When I say party, I mean drinking, lots of booze and a lot of drugs.  There was the regular stuff, pot and hash, beer and whiskey, and then there was also -everything else.  There was nothing i wouldn’t try, except for sniffing gas and such. I guess, at the time, it was beneath me.  Heroin was OK, speed was everywhere, PCP by the ounces, cocaine popped up strong in the ate 70’s and someone was always breaking into a pharmacy.  Pharmaceutical burglars kept us well supplied with a smorgasbord of those pretty little pills, percodan, percocet, valium, diloda, qualudes, Tuinol, I believe you get the picture.  Something else that there was a lot of was beautiful women (better yet girls, anywhere from 16 to 22).  They loved their drugs and (temporarily) loved the guys dealing them. So, as I said, it was one big party.  We had huge barbeques and camp outs, many of the camp outs with over fifty of us, partying, huge bonfires and lots of girl friends. We lived for it, we lived for the suntan and the weekend.  We lived for the dope and for the women that wanted our dope.  Life seemed good back then, despite the jails and arrests. Despite the fights and uncertainties.  I always knew I could get high, find a party and dance and sing and swim, find some lady to spend the night with and get up in the morning and do it all over again.  There are many more stories, like when the courts gave me the choice between the Army or prison (they did that back then).  There was the trip to Canada, smuggling hash over the border in a spare tire.  There was also concerts and beach parties, tackle football games and our yearly caravan to Winthrop Washington.  All in all, they were the best of times that eventually lead to the worst imaginable real-life nightmares imaginable.  Care to continue on?