Wet Paint

Keeping with the spirit of the times (mid-60s-early 70s), I wanted my surroundings to be more colorful.  My sister had just died in a car accident - she was 16, I was 17 - and we had shared the bedroom. The walls were a mess, though I needed to cover more than just the walls.  I had an assortment of paints, acrylic and oils, and decided to just cover the walls with designs. 

 

Unfortunately, I ran out of linseed oil, and so used salad oil, instead (necessity being the Mother, and all that), to thin my oil paints.  Those parts of the walls that I used the salad-oiled paint on never did dry, so when my friends visited and rested back on the walls, they always came away with a design.

Being the cool hippies that we were, my buds and I were always looking for tokes.  But none of us had much money, so there were times when we couldn't purchase the stuff.  During one of these times, my friend Chaz and I wondered if catnip might do the trick, so rolled some catnip joints, and puffed away.  It didn't taste too bad, but an hour later, we both got the runs (big time!), so we decided that it wasn't worth it.  My cat Clancy loved the smoke, though. 

My friend Chaz and I had some wild adventures back in the day.  It was the mid-late 1960s.  Even when we were in grade school, we'd cut out, and hitch-hike to San Francisco.  We often hung out at 710 Ashbury, a couple of times we even sat with with Ron McKernan ("Pigpen" of the Dead).  Chaz was one of my gay friends - though that was never spoken about. Instead, I was his "date",  as I was for my other gay bestie, Bill Keach. Someone called me a "fag hag", and my last name was Hagler...so I was a 'fag-Hagler'.  Back then, I thought I could change Chaz' mind, so one day when we were up on the roof of some building in S.F. - about 12 stories up - I kissed Chaz. He was totally grossed-out, and told me "Debbie - if you do that again, I am going to jump off this roof!"  I left him alone after that, and learned a lesson there. This was in 1966. 

 Chaz and I could also be seen panhandling on Haight Street. Years later, I got a glimpse of us on a KPIX (local t.v.. news special) about the 60s, me in my peacoat and navy pants, yakking away, Chaz's wild hair flying around in the breeze.  We marched a few marches against the war, one down Stanyan Street that I remember the most, on account of its irony.

We carried our home-made "Make Love Not War" signs, a peaceful march up to the point when two guys in the front of the line had an ideological difference of opinion.  It grew ugly when they started to violently swing at each other with their "Make Love Not War" signs.  One girl behind me cried out: "Oh, bad vibes, Melissa! Let's split, this is too heavy a scene!", and I couldn't help laughing.   Political consciousness takes time to evolve.