At the beach?

A brisk morning walk as the weather is changing usually brightens my mood. On this morning strolling along through my neighborhood in Houston’s Third Ward, I spy the place my mother lived in 40 or more years ago. And there is the spot at the curb where my car was broken into when I came to see her. Same tree still providing shade – and, at night, cover for “shady” endeavors.

Sheesh! That was 42 years ago, but it really does seem like yesterday. It’s funny that, as I’ve aged, I experience something like time compressibility that seems to shrink my perception of it. It was probably in my forties when I started seeing WWII as something that was recent, as opposed to just a period in history. Maintaining chronological order is not difficult because I have landmarks in my timeline, but things that happened seventeen years ago and things that happened six years ago seem almost equidistant from the present.

And another memory bubbles up. Several years ago, a companion and I took an Amtrak from LA to Seattle, a beautiful ride right along the coast. Before we left LA, we wandered around Venice and Santa Monica. As we were strolling along the beach, we caught a smell. We both grew up in Texas, so we knew skunk when we smelled it. But skunk at the beach? That seemed odd.

Later, we mentioned it to our Uber driver. He laughed at the Boomers and explained it was skunk weed—marijuana.

In retrospect, the fact that we had to ask was funny enough.

Oddly enough, since then I've begun noticing it almost every day. I live in a small development of 13 townhomes, which gets regular visits from Amazon delivery drivers traveling with skunks, apparently. I get it - driving deliveries can become monotonous; after all, I did it for a couple of years, driving deliveries for a few florists in Houston. While not condoning driving and burning skunks, I certainly understand its appeal to some.

Speaking of that substance, my brother recently called to mind a study that was done when I was at UT in Austin, in 1977. It was an attempt to determine the effects of social dosages of alcohol and marijuana on perceptual motor task performance, and it was inconclusive. but what stuck with me was the equivalence they used: three Coors beers equaled eight “puffs” of marijuana. That certainly dates the experiment.

That period involved driving for a living as well. A very short time later, driving a cab at night in Austin in the ‘70s seemed a world removed from the life I found myself in just after graduating. Suddenly it was haircuts, jacket and tie, and boozy evenings at the pubs, trying to chat up women and other misadventures. At first, a jammingly good time.

But life got complicated and work became my center of gravity (and, I guess, time and space). There were still fun things along the way, but somehow, suddenly, I find myself retired.

And all it all seems like just yesterday.