RICHARD NIXON MADE ME TAKE DRUGS!

My Dad was cool until he voted for Nixon in '68.  His decision to support the military-industrial complex was the catalyst for a series of family events that he would eventually regret.  If Dad had supported McCarthy, or even Humphrey, I might have remained his sycophant, his Mini Me. It took me two years to get even with him.

Dad supported our blended family with the salary and benefits he earned as a reporter.  A hot-headed idealist, he started-out covering city politics for either The St. Pete Times, or the Tampa Tribune.  He would work out of one news room until an editorial argument launched his sensibility back across the Bayway.  The other paper would always take him back.  He ricocheted for several years; his stauch and stubborn nature was legendary.  Most people admired him, especially his tight circle of colleagues. Often, at their weekly poker games, the gathered reporters would trade unpublishable gossip and debate political ideas.  Few within his circle supported the war in Vietnam.  Or Richard Nixon.

Mom, a quiet Kennedy Democrat, supported Humphrey.  She was confused by Dad's choice, and even though she became pregnant that year, I suspect her condition may have been the result of her own political strategy.  I was only thirteen, but I understood that a vote for Nixon was a vote against the youth culture.  The Chicago Riots proved to me that the government was determined to oppress personal freedom.  If Mom's political instincts could remain loyal to her working-class roots, what the hell was Dad thinking? 

Shortly after Nixon's victory, Dad moved us up to Tallahassee where he would cover state politics.  Even though it was a big career move for him, it was a cultural crisis for the rest of the growing family. Florida's capitol city was positively bucolic compared to the sprawling suburbs of Tampa Bay.  My Leon County classmates seemed dull--more interested in letter sweaters and Bass loafers than Joan Baez and love beads. Maybe I was just jealous and lonely, but something told me that these kids were destined to become mediocre conformists.

I stayed on the outside, looking in, with no apparent support.  My Mom focused on preparing for the new baby, and didn't seem concerned about my social standing.  My sister arrived the same day of the moon landing.  Dad's new assignment elevated his reputation, and he savored the prestige that came with his responsibility.  He assauged his Nixonian guilt by pursuing stories about state corruption and Governor Kirk's cabinet.  I tuned into the anti-war activities reported on the nightly news, and eventually found alliances with other outsiders.   

Too young to enjoy a carefree hippie lifestyle, my new friends and I entered 9th grade in the non-conformist uniform of our hippie heroes.  Peace signs and Captain America signified our allegiances.  On weekends we would wander FSU's campus and listen to Radical Jack organize demonstrations.  We distributed political pamphlets we didn't understand.  We started smoking Kool cigarettes because they were supposed to be revolutionary.  We chanted the Fish Cheer like a counter-culture pep squad, and wondered where the flowers had gone.  Drugs were around, but we weren't courageous enough to try any. Yet.

The political climate of the country continued to deteriorate until May 4, 1970.  Kent State's massacre confirmed that the youth culture scared the crap out of the status quo, and that Nixon and his henchman would do whatever possible to eliminate revolutionary voices.  I wore a black arm band to mourn the death of the students, to grieve my generation's vanishing hope, and to show my Dad how misguided his support for Nixon had been.  I began to think about drugs, and knew it wouldn't be long before I acquiesced.

That summer, while on vacation back to the beaches of Tampa Bay, I met a boy.  He told me he was the drummer for the Velvet Underground, and I chose to believe him.  He understood how oppressed I was by my establishment family, and convinced me to runaway to LA via a ride we would meet on Clearwater Beach.  He knew I was only fifteen, and I knew he was much older.  I also had a hunch that he was more interested in my maidenhead than my liberty, but I was willing to gamble.

We hitchhiked to meet our ride.  Clearwater Beach was so full of happy hippies it was like a festival of misfits who, when collected, formed a perfect union.  We circulated.  I had no money, and neither did my new friend, but cash seemed irrelevent to the scene.  When our ride failed to materialize, we arranged to crash at the home of two congenial freaks who had an empty couch.

Trying not to appear concerned about the sleeping arrangements, I observed that a couch was better than the beach.  Before they turned-in, our hosts turned us onto to a hit of sunshine.  That's right--LSD.  Acid was my gateway drug to marijuana.  I still marvel at how wreckless I was that night--a neophyte user. A virgin.  I accepted the offering.  My would-be drummer companion fell asleep (whew!) and I stayed awake all evening listening to Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow play over and over and over and . . . .

The next morning, still trailing, unblemished but hungry, we returned to the beach.  I floated over to the sunshiny pier, and thought I saw my Dad.  I wasn't sure and wondered if I was hallucinating again.  It was Dad whose broken heart I had just permanantly etched on his brow.  He was able to control his quivering lip long enough to order me into the stationwagon.  My ersatz musician took-off running.  Dad let him go.

I found marijuana shortly afterward.  The first toke was taken in LaFayette Park where I had gathered with my outsider friends.  I never really enjoyed pot's effect.  It dulled my senses and made my head feel  like a boulder, but I enjoyed the community of tokers, and the high spirits of those who seemed to understand my discontent.  I adored the forgiving faces of friends who didn't judge me the same way that I judged my Dad. 

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I remember the shame I felt when I discovered that the Velvet Underground's drummer was not a guy named Paul, but a woman named Mo.  To this day I have no idea how many people think I was a young lesbian because I used to claim that I had indeed run away with Cage's favorite percussionist. 

My Dad would eventually discover marijuana, too.  He grew his own after he moved up to DC.  I could never share a joint with him-as much as I loved him, it simply didn't seem like a good idea to get high with the same man who used to flush my stash down the the toilet.