Here is a little story in honor of the holiday. It may seem like a very long time ago to the kids, but most of my life, simply possessing any amount of our favorite plant was a crime. In some places it would get you 15-20. But we did it anyhow.
And, in my family, “we” included my mother, Mary. In fact, she had been smoking gange longer than any of us. She started in the 1940s when she was making the scene in Greenwich Village. She had a secret connection in the city and would go in every couple of months and score.
By the end of the 1970s she had 86 acres of mountain land at the edge of what was becoming the Emerald Triangle—Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt Counties in Northern California.
Mary had a very green thumb and plenty of room for a ramshackle garden with no obvious order. She lived in what had once been a very large army tent that she had slowly covered over with her own style of carpentry. And, she had dug 368 holes and put in a nice grow.
For nearly a decade she grew the plants and the daughters sold the product. It wasn’t as fancy or scientific as it is now. But she had a real talent and she loved the plant. So the quality was first rate. We never had to buy it for ourselves. We would call her and say we were out of produce and she would fill a yogurt container with killer green buds. This was back when the cup sized yogurt had a real lid, not the tear off foil kind.
Things went well and we all prospered. Until 1989. It was late September and a good portion of the crop was in, dried, and stashed under the porch. Suddenly, two Sonoma County Sheriffs appeared at the gate. Busted.
My mother grew up when cars were still a novelty. She lived through a depression and a world war. She felt safe on top of a mountain with one rough road in. She had no clue about surveillance from the air.
The best pot lawyer in the area was duly hired. Everything went on hold. They said she had 190 plants, but it was really 368. They did not believe she dug all those holes, but she did. Under the house was about 50 pounds that they never found.
It took 11 months to get to the point of bringing in the evidence. Five big trash bags of weed, still not at all stale. It was a day in mid-August, and the courtroom was hot and stuffy. The heat caused the fumes from all that weed to fill the air. When that portion of the days docket was complete and we all got up to leave the courtroom a group of a dozen prisoners in orange jumpsuits stood up and gave her a round of applause.
Luckily it was the beginning of the push for medical pot legalization. There were no financial books or proof of sales. There was a scale, but the lawyer argued that every farmer wants to know their yield. He also argued, successfully, that it was just an odd hobby, nothing more.
She was also 68 years old and afflicted with the emphysema. They didn’t really want her that badly, maybe because she proved not to be such low hanging fruit as they first imagined. They gave her five months with a bracelet and five years probation.
It took a year to sell it all from under the porch. Mary lived another 11 years but never grew weed again.
Now we can buy it on every corner. The quality is controlled. It is both a medicine and a simple pleasure. For everything that has gotten worse in the last 35 years, being able to use and enjoy this naturally growing gift of nature is one good thing. Happy 4-20 to all who celebrate! If you think of it, take a toke in honor of Mary A., she was a true original.
I well remember! Beautiful story!
Thanks!
Mother Mary was indeed an original. I missed this chapter of her life. Now in my late 70s I have never met the like of her again. What a gal!