Chapters 3 & 4 Homegrown A ride in snow

Chapter 3 & 4 word count 1050

1977: Found Uncle John's Homegrown
A ride in his four-wheel drive

Five pounds of marijuana, at least. I stumbled on Mountain Man's stash. I wasn't hunting for it. I didn’t even know he had a stash of fresh, homegrown marijuana.
Can I back up a bit? The story starts like this.
Grandma and Grandpa's farm Is in the middle of everything. From the barn loft, you can see it all. Technically The barn was like four stories. The Loft was at the top. There was a big window. We could also see through the cracks between the boards. From there, we could see most of what was going on around us. Grandma and Grandpa's farm house was right there; across the highway was Andy's and Chris's house too. Looking to one side, we could see Uncle Willie and Uncle Glenn's gas station. From the back, you can see Uncle John's and even my house.
That was one of my favorite places. When I began to sneak around and smoke cigarettes and pot, It really was about my favorite place. You could see everything, and no one ever knew you were there. I doubt that the cigarette smoke or even the pot smoke was noticeable. There were bales of hay to sit on. I mean, that was pretty comfortable compared to some of our other places. Smoking while sitting in a barn full of hay? Safety first, we always said.
Lots of times, we would climb up into the barn loft to smoke. It was awesome; you could see everything all around. Nobody ever knew we were up there.
One day, I climbed up there to smoke a cigarette. I noticed something unusual was hidden behind some bales of hay. A big canvas covered with drying green plants. I began to study it. Lit a few leaves To see its smell, just to confirm what I thought it was.
Eureka ! It was wacky weed, aka Devil Weed, pot, and homegrown Mary Jane More than I had ever seen.
Excited, I ran up to Grandpa. In a frantic search for a baggy, An empty loaf bread bag was all I could find. I filled it up with weed. A bread bag stuffed full of pots Excitedly, I ran over to Drew's house and showed him the bag of weed.
He didn't believe me at first. He wanted to know where I got it from. We went up to the barn loft, checked it out, and studied it. We concluded it had to be Uncle Jon's.
He was the youngest of eight and a farmer. We had heard rumors that maybe he smoked the wacky tobacky. He never imagined that he would grow it. I didn’t even have a clue you could grow it. Not here in no-where Virginia.
It turns out that it was good. Homegrown is the best around. We smoked it like it was going out of style. Still a little green At first, we turned our friends on to some too. It was sort of hard to come by for a 14-year-old in the mid-70s. Before we realized it, we had put a good dent in our uncle’s stash. Started to get so comfortable that it was always there.
My girlfriend, Debbie, was having a birthday party. I guess Drew and I were about the main Potheads. In 9th grade. Some of our classmates who wanted to try it were looking forward to smoking it at Debbie's party.
Even had some sold. At least we thought so. D It was gone. Who got our s***? Right before the party too.
Later, it was confirmed that Uncle Jon had finally missed it. He figured it was us and pretty much knew we had started partying and must’ve found his stash. He has never let me forget, either. He says Leon was his partner for that growth. Leon still doesn't believe that someone got into it; he thinks Jon screwed him.
Well, for Debbie’s party we did have plenty of great old big roaches that had finally dried out and smoked well. We could not fill the orders we had.

Chapter four

Later that winter, it snowed a lot, like it did back then. Naturally, we were out of school a lot. School might have been open for about 2 or 3 days in January and February combined. When it snowed, Drew and I would celebrate and try to get some weed and beer. One time we were sitting at Grandpa's barn watching it snow, and here comes Uncle Jon driving by.
He stopped and said, “Git in.” There’s nothing like family; Uncle Jon, for example, always has some kind of angle or something up his sleeve. We were tickled that he let us ride in the snow and party with him and a couple of his buddies. He had just recently bought that four-wheel drive truck, and this was the biggest snow yet for the season; it snowed over a foot. John was drinking homemade moonshine. He kept saying, “This truck is still under warranty, and that salesman told me that I could not get this truck stuck; it's four-wheel drive; it’s impossible." Needless to say, he put it to the test. We rode up the mountain. Where was the snow deepest? I got on the Parkway, which closes when it snows.
John would drive that truck off the road. Find the worst snow drifts to drive through. We went through every ditch, gully, and field in our path. Hey, you drove off the road more than on it. There were 5 of us passengers. Well, he did give, and that truck stuck over and over. Until the five of us could push it out. We pushed till the sun came up. We got snow, mud, and dirt all over us. At one point, he managed to bury the truck in a deep culvert. We pushed and lifted until only one wheel was on the ground. I just knew the truck was going to roll. Uncle Jon would take another drink of moonshine. Start yahooing, then give it ****. We pushed and rocked from one wheel to the other and finally got it out.
Words to the wise: when riding in deep snow, it's a good idea to have extra people for pushing.