The Hashish Trail - Chapter Two - Tarashia

My search for God must have begun as soon as I was born, for I have no conscious memory of it ever beginning. My dad was a hell fire and brimstone kind of preacher. He didn’t just decide one day to pick the ministry for a career – God called him. One day he was a drinking, gambling sawmill worker, the next he was looking for a place to preach the gospel. He even quit drinking and smoking cigarettes overnight. My dad wasn’t a half-way kind of guy. When he decided to repent of his wicked ways and follow God’s call, he jumped right into that crimson fountain and got himself redeemed. Shortly after that he and my mom moved with my sister and me to the west coast of Vancouver Island to a place called Esperanza Inlet. There was a hospital there staffed by people like Dad & Mom who wanted to work for God in serving humankind. Dad & Mom had come out to British Columbia from Saskatchewan, and now found themselves in the Graveyard of the Pacific with no experience of the ocean. Dad drove the school boat and Mom cooked, cleaned and did child care for the staff of the hospital.
We moved about every two years as I grew up. At five years of age I had my first personal encounter with God. From there on I sort of coasted. I was a good kid – active in Mom & Dad’s church, even a leader to some extent. But when I left home and was away from the structure of our family life, I sort of went nuts. I had so much freedom! I couldn’t believe how much fun I could have. Well, being my daddy’s type of personality, I jumped right in and never really had a good visit with God until I decided to search for that in India.
As I began to traverse the work-a-day world I knew there had to be more excitement and fun somewhere – I figured I had to be in the wrong place. Well, after a few moves and changes of province, I ended up in Vancouver. And that’s when I met Gidonia. I was working for a shipping company as secretary to the Manager, and Gidonia worked for the same company as a bookkeeper. She seemed to be having so much fun, and I decided to find out why. We started going for drinks at the Devonshire Hotel after work. One night we bumped into a friend, Paul, who said he had some hashish. “Aha”, I thought, “here’s my chance.” Off we went to his apartment for a smoke. I spent the next couple of hours laughing – mostly at what a huge cosmic joke life is - and yet how fabulously beautiful it is when seen through marijuana-high eyes. My mind began to come alive and a deeply locked part of me began to open. Now people might still not realize it, but that herb has some wonderful properties, and contrary to what some would have us believe, addiction isn’t one of them.
It’s important to understand what a huge step it was for me to smoke marijuana, especially in 1967 and with my background. It was definitely up there with the rebellion heavies. So I was a little nervous, but a few days later Gidonia invited me to her place and we spent an hour in the coat closet smoking joints – it was a way to get the maximum kick from the weed. I was initiated.
In the few months following my induction I got to know Vosharnia and Adonia, and the four of us began to do some socializing. All of us were looking for a change of pace and lifestyle. We decided that Gidonia and I would go to Europe in September of that year (1969), and that Vosharnia and Adonia would meet us in Spain on New Year’s Eve. And so we began our journey.