Newsgroups: alt.slack

Subject: How I spent my summer vacation.

From: jheikkFrom jheikkil@highlander.cbnet.ns.ca Mon Aug 31 08:01:28 1998

il@highlander.cbnet.ns.ca (saint bubba of the avocados)

Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 15:01:28 GMT

far be it that x-day should come and go and the luck plane tilt

DRASTICALLY in the other direction of your humble narrator for having

the gall to miss such festivities as those i missed in sherman, NY.

the cosmic fist of SQUAT <which is the diametrically opposing field of

energy agains SLACK> decided to rain blows upon my balding head. early

this summer, through no fault but my very own stoopiditify, and on a

mercy voyage into the united states for the sanity and salinity of a

fellow yeti, the dudley doowrights, the long and johdpur clad arm of

the law descended upon me like one of them killer hunks o space rock

so bandied about on the big screen this summer.

myself and an aged friend of mine decided to take an old ford one ton

on the road and hit the west coast, then slowly meander across the

continence towards home. which was all fine in and of itself, for

certain, except that when we reached quebec i was informed i could not

cross the border into the fine capitalist state of l'americhe because

i had helped <al beit unwittingly> a certain local officer of the slaw

fall into the historic st. peter's canal round about x-day whilst i

was fishing for mackerel <which is whole tale in itself> and unitl i

actually was exonerated by the courts in this fair and furry land, i

couldnt LEAVE it, *ESPECIALLY* because im not a full fledged card

carrying CITIZEN on canada yet. so, stupid me, i decide to continue

west and enter the states through a nice rural counrty lane somewhere

in the middle of the prairie provinces. i SHOULD have known that NHGH

was conspiring his dread evil jaundiced ways against me in that coffee

shop in eastern manitoba when the trucker with the POLKADOTTED rig

nearly drove into my vintage vehicle...i SHOULD have realized that

things were about to fecally hit the whirring blades when the goateed

gas attendant in buttfuck, saskatchewan gave the thumbs up sign after

inhaling the fumes of my "cargo". this AFTER he had spilled a few

dollars in gas onthe ground before filling my tank, and inundating us

all with methan fumes. but OF COURSE NOT, i was a dumbfuque in the

most highly esteemed manner..i CARRIED ON. approximately ten

kilometers from the US border, a friendly RCMP officer flashed his

lights at me from out of nowhere, and resignedly, i stopped the truck.

"you got a burnt out taillight there folks" constable crewcut informed

me as he approached the truck.

i thanked the officer and informed him id get it looked at first thing

in the morning. my fellow travelling companion, who had lived in

saskatchewan for many of his formatve years <and had written a few

children's novels about it, which are still read by disparaging

teenages in the canadian educative system> thnaked the officer, and

then recognized the surname from his home town of many moons past. F,

my companion, got out of the truck to pee, and commented to the

officer a few minutes about growing up in the middle of the wind swept

prairies. constable crewcut was quite nice to F, UNTIL the wind

shifted that LITTLE BIT WRONG and his nostrils flared from the wafting

aroma of F's and my cargo.

"whats under the tarpulin, sirs?"

"coffee beans" i replied, and handed over the shipping manifest that F

had arranged for his beans from his greenhouse coffee plants.

"dont smell like coffee beans" the cop says

he clambered onto the truck and poked around a bit, uncovering several

burlap bags full of coffee beans, then a few burlap bags that WERENT

filled with coffee beans. constable crewcut's face changed rapidly

from humouring an old man and an aging hippie into that of the

RIGHTEOUS LAWMAN. out comes the pocket knife before either F or myself

could protest and suddenly, an array of sticky marijuana was revealed

to the all knowing eye of the MagLite.

"sorta coffee is THIS?" he queried, not needing much of an answer.

its amazing, the trained reflex cops have. its not a fight or flight

mechanism, its the "beat them senseless with a billy club or pull the

service revolver on the criminals" response. cstb. crewcut chose the

latter. with the barrel of a glock pointing at my already

untrustworthy heart, i was asked to step out of the car. it was going

ofn dusk and the cop was clearly piqued, clearly nervous. a routine

stop to tell smeone of vehicular problems landed him a DRUG CARTEL.

both F and myself were hancuffed and depsited in the back of the

cruiser. crewcut gets on the horn and informs "Mary" that he just made

a monster bust and was bringing in the "perps". by this point i wasnt

too concerned anymore, i reckoned id be extradited out of the country

within hours, sent back to the hellhole of eire and that would be the

end of it. <not that this didnt concern me, it just seemed a likely

progression of events that i would have no power in changing> we were

released on bail a few days later, after a concerned judge who had

grown up READING F's books decided that there was some sort of

mistake, set a low bail because we obviously WERENT dangerous, and

sent us on our way with a few motnhs until plea date, back there in

estavan saskatchewan. i lost all the dope, natuarally, and the truck.

so i get home, step off the plane waiting for immigration canada to

hobble over and arrest my skinny ass, but all that happened was my

wife waiting there with a big coffee and a sticky joint waiting for

me. i gathered up my luggage and went home to try and figger a way out

of this morass.

the next day, F calls me up and tells me that because i made no bones

about the fact the weed was mine, all charges against him were

dropped, which was excellent considering F is almost 80 now, and the

charges would have probably destroyed his reputation for beig a NICE

OLD GUY and furthermore get his Order of Canada status revoked. i was

pleased as punch for F and told him that i was thinking of challenging

the charges against me with a constitutional argument even though i

wasnt actually a full fledged citizen yet, emerely a landed immigrant.

the fellow yeti of whom this weed would have helped sent an email to

me that was waiting when i got home, giving me a couple of numbers to

call to help arrange my legal defense. i talked to a few folks that

day and then resolved to sit on my ass a few more days and let

everything sort of PERMEATE around me so that i could think straight

again. i called up a friend of mine who is involved in the local

provincial government as an elected official and babbled about my

quandry for a bit...he said hed look into it, call you back in a week

or so sort of thing and hung up.

i did yard work. the gladiolas came up nice and all my newly planted

rose bushes came up and flowered, except for one which must have been

shocked in the nursery, but damn it if it isnt comingup a bit now with

a rosehip bud thing starting on the terminal end. thank Ghobbs too,

'cause its a rilly nice crimson one. my white roses came up and lost

their bloom afer a mere 48 hours which sort of sucked. the lilac

bushes i had planted last fall came up in all the right spots finally,

but failed to throw a single flower.

got me some new critters too. my mating pair of bronze turkeys threw

off a bjnch of aigs that i had incubated myowndamnself and i had

oddles of little birds following me around the yard. i managed to save

a great blue heron after it had hit a power line above the driveway,

who tamed down and hangs out in the lakeshore now, pecking at minnows

and running for the guts of the fish i pull out of the trout pond.

oddly enough, he wont go ater the ones IN the pond itself...

suspended my stoned and dr. dootlittle-esque existence to enter my

plea in saskatchewan. told the courts the whole not guilty thing, that

i would be seeking representation in helping me challenge the

constitutionality of the marijuana laws and was given a date for early

next spring for a PRE-trial. fair enough.

i went back home and meandered about my yard a bunch, dug new flower

beds and puttered. my governmental friend had found me a good lawyer

who was willing to take the case just to stir up shit, and that it

wouldnt cost me a dime. i liked him right away, this lawyer, which is

probably a damning thing to say, and surely im off to the 33rd circle

of dantean hell for admitting that SOME lawyers can be pretty cool

folks. anyhow, i let everything be, i wasnt going to sweat my ass off

over the charges, the worst they could do to me was deport me off to

ireland again, and my wife and kids were all prepared to make the trip

back with me, selling off everything here if need be. so why fucking

worry about it, right??

well, fuck if things didnt start going GOOD after that. i WALLOWED in

slack all summer, got myself TWO cabins that were in fairly good

condition, for NOTHING, just the time to jack the fuckers up and move

em to my property. my peacocks got themselves a new home. i pulled the

planks off the second cabin and put milled half logs on the outside of

it, making myself a nice country kitschish <i DARE you to pronouce

that> work shop. nearly electrocuted myself running power to it.

on my travels through the back woods of cape breton i came across an

old farm house, abandoned, but CHOCK FULL O GOODIES. i called up

around to see who owned the place and finally got in contact with the

grandson of the deceased owner of the place in pensacola. turns out i

was able to buy the property for a scream, he didnt care much, and 10k

extra in his pocket was fine enough. of course i DOWNPLAYED the

condition of the place, and of the land <which although overgrown and

in serious need of a week whacker was quite nice, with a plethora of

wild flowers>. got the key via hammer and old rusty padlock and

enetered the place only to find RELICS. the stuff downstairs was rat

eated, or moth eaten or interdimensional boogeyman eaten, but the

ATTIC....there amoungst the mess, amoung the thick old records and the

grammaphone, there amoungst the old Life magazines from the 30s and

40s...there was THE PIPE. sitting alone in a single holed stand with

attached humidor...inside the humidor, a tin of unopened smoking

tobacco...giggling with glee i opened the tin, stale as HELL. thinking

what the fuck, that my lungs werent THAT all important, i packed a

bowl, wiped off decasdes of accumulated dust, and lit up. i nearly

choked to death, and as i lay gagging on the floor, my wife laughing

at me, i espy an advertisement in one of the old magazines..theres

dobbs, sitting inan easy chair, feet up, in slippers, silly grin,

llittle bit of gray in the hair but OBVIOUSLY just from one of his

STAGES of trying to look more sophisticated to the vacuum cleaner

buying crowd. what the pipe had to do with the offered electrolux i

FEAR TO ASK. it wasnt an epiphiny. you cant HAVE an epiphiny when

you're wiggling on the floor with tears coming from yor eyes and your

chest seizing up..well..ok, mebbe you CAN, but *I* didnt.

we loaded up the antiques and went home, poring through everything all

night and placing the well loved knick knacks up on OUR windowsills. i

smoked several joints and read the old life magazines <which have ads

featuring our unlucky saviour savant that i WILL scan and post to

a.b.s. as soon as i get myself a scanner.> so anyhow, next day i go

into the carriage house of this new property and find an old model t

frame, in expectedly rusty condition. i sat in the the mouldy seat,

smoking yesterdays found pipe <with FRESH tobacco this time> and

relaxed. i feel this THING around my feet and look down. there living

in the old car was a cat. nice black cat, old and scruffy and

intimately friendly. seems the old lady of the house had left the cat

behind a few years back when she kicked the bucket and miss mew was

looking for milk and treats and a lap. i picked the flearidden critter

up let it settle into my lap and smoked a joint. everything was

hunky-fucking-dory. i got home to a hysterical wife. the rcmp had come

by in the afternoon and requested my company. she figgered the worst.

so did i. i called my lawyer who called the crown prosecution who

called somebody else before calling my lawyer back who called me to

inform me that the crown prosecution in saskatchewan had dropped the

case citing "no clear evidence" and "improper search and siezure". the

cops merely wanted me to arrange to have my truck hauled back to nova

scotia or sold as it was now festering in the impound lot of some

nameless prairie city.

i just got home from picking it up <with all the coffee beans still

inside the back, but NONE of the dope, go figger> and am presently

stoned and happy and slightly overdosing on caffiene. so, how the fuck

was YOUR summer??