“I like smoke and lightnin’
Heavy metal thunder
Racing with the wind
And the feeling that I’m under”
Lyrics: Born to Be Wild, Steppenwolf
The feeling of night air rushing by and the glare of the headlights and taillights from the cars in the lanes behind and beside her was exhilarating. Diana was in the bed of a big pickup truck with her back resting against the cab watching the world rush by in reverse. It was exciting and also felt a bit dangerous but she was happy and unafraid.
She could feel the thrumming truck engine underneath her and warmth coming from her boyfriend and her good friend sitting on either side of her where their legs touched. There was a plaid, wool blanket tucked in over their lower bodies for warmth and they were in high spirits.
Periodically, one of the guys would pull the blanket up over all three of their heads and then tuck it in behind them, against the side of the cab, to hold it in place. Then he’d pull out the bong, fill up the bowl and struggle to light it and smoke a hit under the blanket without catching his hair or the blanket on fire. Then he’d pass the bong over…
She smoked a bit and then opted out. She felt good enough already. The guys continued to smoke and then pull the blanket back down when they were finished.
The back window on the truck cab slid open and the driver’s girlfriend’s face appeared and she said, “We want some too!” They loaded the bong and passed it up front with the lighter for the 3 passengers riding up front to enjoy.
They were traveling north on the I-5 freeway from San Diego to Ontario, about a 2 hour drive. All had tickets to a huge concert event that promised to be rather epic. Diana had a feeling it might be one of those peak life experiences that you, “tell the grandkids about,” decades later. She’d been to quite a few concerts in the 2 years since leaving home. This was something she would have never been allowed to do when she was still living at home. Her parents did not bar her from purchasing rock albums or listening to rock music on the radio but going to a concert was another matter.
Reflecting on this gave her a satisfied feeling as she enjoyed her happy, cannabis buzz and thought of the concert ticket in the back pocket of her jeans. She also thought about her friend sitting beside her…not her boyfriend, but her friend, Jim. Jim was the bindery manager at the print shop she worked at. That’s how they had met. After she started working there they quickly became friends and later, she also became friends with some of the other guys in the print shop too. After becoming friends they regularly met up for fun and partying on the weekends and sometimes in the evenings after work. They all regularly shared a joint out in the alley behind the print shop at break times, too.
Over the months, Diana grew fond of Jim and started feeling very attracted to him. He treated her with respect at work and became a kind of mentor for her. He was intelligent, irreverent, unpredictable, honorable and funny as all hell. Like her, he believed in working hard and playing hard, too. Yes, they all took drugs, recreationally, but they were also physically fit and otherwise took their health and wellness rather seriously.
Problem was, she already had a boyfriend. She did not believe in being unfaithful nor did she believe her friend Jim would have, either. But conveniently, she and her boyfriend and Jim became good buddies and they pretty much went everywhere together and she resolved herself to being happy with that arrangement.
But she both loved it and hated it. And she was not brave enough to tell Jim she was attracted to him. She was also afraid of what would happen if she said something to him and he did not feel the same about her. And what if he did feel the same as she did? Either way, it could really muck up a good friendship if it all went sideways.
Diana was sure she felt his attraction too but was happy for him when he started dating her next door neighbor, a newly divorced friend of hers. And for a while Jim and Sherry were content and the threesome became a foursome and life went on…
Still, Diana found herself in a kind of unrequited, unspoken love-triangle and satisfied herself with simply being with her boyfriend yet having the constant company of a man she thought that she’d much rather be with.
Gosh, they even went to the local nude beach together, regularly, but that’s a tale for another time…
When they finally arrived at the Ontario Speedway everyone grabbed their backpacks and sleeping bags and coolers and headed over to the growing crowd lining up at the gates. The gates had not opened yet so there was some time spent standing around, waiting, sharing some more smokes and a few in their group of 6 decided to drop acid and offered her a hit. “No thanks, not this time,” she declined thinking of the potential nightmare of hallucinating while trying to find her way through a sea of people to use the port-a-potties. (When you are 19 you worry about these sorts of things.)
Besides, this epic event would not require an altered state to make it any better. It promised to be pretty over-the-top all by itself.
Right before the gates opened everyone in the crowd picked their things up off the ground and started crowding forward and a crush started to form. They were penned in between two fences and there was nowhere to get away. Diana started to feel panicked. Her male friends noticed and forced their way over to her to help. They formed a protective ring around her and pushed back on the crowd giving her some room to breathe. Still, it was a very intense few minutes and at that time she noticed a young man she’d seen earlier. His eyes were glazed and he seemed very out-of-it. Then he started convulsing.
She’d wanted to help him but had no idea what to do nor could she maneuver over to him in the crush, anyway. Fortunately one friend in their group was a lifeguard with first aid training. Rolf was a pretty big guy and he squeezed his way over to the young man through the bodies. There was not a lot even he could do except to ask people to push back so the man was not in the crush and to wait until the seizure was over to help him re-orient himself. That and hopefully to help him find his group of friends.
Turns out the guy had epilepsy and he’d taken LSD…not a great combination. He was okay and his friends turned up and she saw them continue on into the concert a little later as if nothing had happened.
The gates finally were opened and Diana’s friends made sure she did not get trampled again in the stampede while everyone was rushing to claim the best spots near the stage. They managed to find a location that was close, but not too close, to the stage and were so happy to finally put down their blankets and sleeping bags and sit and smoke a bedtime joint. Some of her friends continued on, quietly partying, tripping on LSD, and drinking for several more hours. But Diana was completely pooped so she crawled into her sleeping bag, fell fast asleep and slept like the dead all night long.
Diana was the first one in the group to wake up the next morning. She sat up, still wrapped in her sleeping bag, and quietly took in the whole, amazing scene. The entire infield of the speedway was FULL of sleeping bodies with very little room in between them. It was a solid sea of people. As she watched, random heads started popping up as others awakened and the crowd started to animate. It was fascinating to behold and she was glad she chose not to get hammered or trip the night before.
She just wanted to drink it all in and remember every detail.
Just about that time “Dust in the Wind” started playing over the concert loudspeakers, the sky was turning a beautiful shade of blue, and the day promised to be glorious. Diana was completely enraptured.
Others in her group started to wake up, too. It was not long before the first morning wake-and-bake joint was being passed around and someone even pulled a beer out of the cooler and popped it open. One by one they had to navigate their way to the port-a-potties which turned out to be a 20-30 minute journey through the bodies and blankets to wait in line for another 20-30 minutes. (Why did they never have enough potties at these events?) Finding her way back was another interesting, navigational exercise.
After that, Diana decided she would not be drinking much beer that day!
A little while later the recorded music that had been playing stopped and an announcer came onto the stage and introduced the event and the first band started playing their set. The energy in the crowd started to peak and the party started in earnest. The air over the massive crowd became peppered with tossed frisbees and beachballs and powerhitters and a light, fragrant haze of cannabis smoke formed.
During Bob Welch’s set, a very coked-out-looking Stevie Nicks joined him on stage and sang and danced and played the tambourine wildly. The crowd ate this up, Stevie Nicks being one of the unannounced “surprise” guests of the day. What Diana was really anticipating was seeing Santana play. They were her favorite band followed by Heart and Aerosmith but even one of her less favorite artists, Ted Nugent, put on a great show during his set.
The day became a bit of an overwhelming haze of pot, music and noise and the hour long treks to the port-a-potties were wearing her out. She drank and ate lightly out of the ice chest from the snacks and water they brought along and slathered on a lot more sunblock. Much of the crowd had moved and was standing and dancing in the area right in front of the stage. She had kind of had enough of the crushing crowd at that point and was happy to hang back on her group’s beach blankets where most of the audience was still seated. The day was coming to a close, the sun setting and the biggest concert headliners were starting their sets with Aerosmith scheduled to perform last accompanied by a laser light show (all the rage at the time).
Aerosmith was amazing and did not disappoint but someone in their group noticed a lot of people in the crowd starting to pack up and leave. Since they did not wish to fight through a massive exit crowd, they chose to pack up and made their way out to the parking lot, admiring the light show and music along the way. Everyone in the group was either tired, coming down from LSD, hung over, or sunburned and all were eager to get back home, again. They loaded their coolers, bags and blankets back into the back of the truck and headed south to San Diego.
Diana was so glad that they had all day Sunday to recover before she had to be at work again on Monday. She was wiped out. The guys beside her in the back of the truck smoked a few hits off of the bong under the blanket. She smiled at them but did not have much to say…it was pretty hard to hear anyway, over the roar of the freeway. She reviewed the day a bit, in her head, and felt rather amazed at the events that she had witnessed. She let her body go limp, supported between her boyfriend and her friend, and fell asleep until they arrived home.
Little did she realize, then, that her whole life was about to take another gigantic turn. She’d temporarily leave the world of pot and drugs and concerts, of her own volition, throw caution to the wind, listen to her intuition and surrender to fate. Just one year later she would give birth and become a mother. She would walk into that experience with both eyes wide open and just take a deep breath knowing that she was destined to raise a child on her own.
It brings back similar memories. Good memories.