Craig's Fire

In the 1960′s counterculture the term “dosed” came to mean being fed a mind altering drug against your will and/or without your knowledge. It was most often used to describe doses of LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) which were administered by slipping it into food and drink.

In popular culture, the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, a book by Tom Wolfe, details the adventures of a crazy caravan driving throughout the country and dosing large numbers of people at concerts and other “get togethers”. Although this meets one definition of dosing, the more feared variety would be to be fed LSD at a time and place where it was completely unexpected…and therein lies my tale.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in my stories, my wild times started early and ended early in life. By the time I was 20 years old, hard work and family became my “recreational” drug. I learned the trade of carpentry and remodeling and was able to embark upon making a decent living.

At age 25 I was living north of Philadelphia with my wife and two children and working full time on remodeling projects. My friend and I landed a job with an old friend who had moved nearby. This fella, who I will call Andy, had been one of the popular crowd in our high school and had been a local “dealer”, selling mostly pot and other recreational drugs. However, this was 8 years later and I had not been in touch with him since that time.

The project at Andy’s house was going well. It was mid-winter and we were happy to be working inside, as a deep blanket of snow covered the ground outside. We arrived early in the morning and Andy directed us to the days work. As he was leaving for the day, we placed our bagged lunches into the refrigerator. Andy told us to make ourselves at home and and to feel free to eat or drink anything in the kitchen.

Lunch time arrived and I sat down with my brown bag, and remembering Andy’s offer concerning the refrigerator, I helped myself to a tall glass of the orange juice. As the astute reader might be able to guess, that orange juice contained more than oranges! It turns out that Andy was still a drug dealer and that he and his friends were having “fun” with each other by dosing them with pure liquid LSD. Since Andy and his friends had built up a tolerance to this compound, they were using large quantities of it in the juice – the equivalent of 1 dose per oz. of the OJ. My tall glass was at least 10 oz, which meant that I chugged enough to send as many as a dozen folks flying! But I digress – at the time I drank this OJ, I knew nothing about the contents!

My first inkling that something was wrong was when I ate the banana included with my lunch. I felt it going down to my stomach in a very strange manner! My stomach also felt a bit queasy. Obviously, this concerned me, because I was a very young and healthy gent and there is no reason such a feeling should come over me mid-day with no causation. I started to feel even stranger and so decided to head outside to get some fresh air.

(note – this story is still being worked on, but I decided to publish the beginning just to see if people are interested!)….

Once outside, the strange feeling came on stronger and stronger. I still had absolutely no idea what was happening, but it was nowhere near normal existence! I noticed that the bark of a large old tree contained thousands of colors and textures, not something I would usually discern in my day to day life. The day was cold, but the sun was shining and some of the snow was melting, resulting in small rivulets running down the driveway and road in front of the house. The running of water downhill brought to my mind a vision – of massive pollution! You see, we lived in the Delaware Valley, which was also called the “Industrial Valley” due to the massive amount of industry, mining and other such activities. I was working in Bucks Country, an area north of Philadelphia, but which is still far downstream (down the Delaware and other Rivers) from many of the industrials centers such as Easton, Allentown, Bethlehem, etc.

My vision followed this water all the way up to the factories. I traced all the water back to it’s source and imagined how very polluted it must be by the time it got to this driveway – let alone to the sea. Again, this was not something that I would have considered in a normal state of mind.

At this point, I felt as if I was entering a “bad place”, that being a state of mind which was confused and negative. My digestive system felt strange, so I sat on a toilet in the house for a short while. The toilet was located downstairs and had a very loud heating boiler in it….the noise is really the only memory I have of that short period.

Andy’s girlfriend finally arrived home and must have figured out what happened to me. I was in an extremely confused state, but probably somewhat glad to know I had not gone crazy without cause. She agreed to drive me home, since I was obviously in no condition to do anything.

During the drive home, the car radio was on and the news was being reported. It sounded 100% different than it ever had before – they weren’t reporting any news or facts, but rather it sounded like comedy……all full of “someone said this MIGHT happen IF that was going to happen”. One story after another – even the weather report – was full of such spineless speculation and guessing. I was hearing it as it truly was – complete bullshit! This was decades before larger segments of the population came to the same realization about mainstream news!

I was deposited at home and, in many ways, that was when the actual trip started. The full effects of it were to end up lasting 6 weeks or so….

More to come…bookmark this!