Smoking Pot

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It was almost time for me to leave the parking lot at the end of a busy Sunday in August. A car with a license plate indicating a person with a disability was in the vehicle had pulled in, and I walked over to move the bucket my co-worker and I had been using to reserve a parking space for just that reason.

As I stood there, bucket in hand, waiting for the car to make the loop, a pickup truck stopped next to me. The woman in the passenger seat leaned her head out to the open window.

We just wanted to let you know…she began.

I looked at her expectantly.

When we were on the trail…There were some kids, young adults…she quickly corrected herself. They were smoking pot.

They shouldn’t be smoking out there, I said, not even mentioning the pot. The woman in the truck seemed a little startled that I wasn’t upset about what the kids young adults were smoking.

I care exactly zero that people were indulging in marijuana. I do care that they were smoking on the trail. They should not have been smoking anything on the trail. The whole area was under a strict fire ban, and folks were only supposed to smoke (cigarettes or whatever) in a closed vehicle.

But what did this woman think I was able to do? As I told her, the Forest Service is in charge of the trail side of the highway, and the company I work for is in charge of the parking lot side of the road. I have no authority to enforce anything on the trail side of the road. (Any power of enforcement I have in the parking lot is tenuous at best.)

Even if I did cross the highway and assume authority, how would I know when I found the pot smoking kids young adults? Would I just say Were y’all smoking weed? Were y’all smoking weed? to every group of kids young adults I encountered on the path? I doubt anyone would have admitted to it even if they had been smoking pot out there.

Besides, there’s a mile and a quarter of trail and two possible official trail entrances/exits (as well as multiple off-trail ways to enter and exit). I could have walked the trail loop for hours and never encountered the people the woman had (allegedly) seen smoking pot. The smokers could have been halfway home while I was still searching for them.

Before the truck left the parking lot, the woman told me the pot smokers were the ones with the loud music. I spent the rest of my time at work waiting for people with loud music to exit the trail, but it didn’t happen before I left.

I just hope those potheads were being super careful.

About Blaize Sun

My name is Blaize Sun. Maybe that's the name my family gave me; maybe it's not. In any case, that's the name I'm using here and now. I've been a rubber tramp for nearly a decade.I like to see places I've never seen before, and I like to visit the places I love again and again. For most of my years on the road, my primary residence was my van. For almost half of the time I was a van dweller, I was going it alone. Now I have a little travel trailer parked in a small RV park in a small desert town. I also have a minivan to travel in. When it gets too hot for me in my desert, I get in my minivan and move up in elevation to find cooler temperatures or I house sit in town in a place with air conditioning I was a work camper in a remote National Forest recreation area on a mountain for four seasons. I was a camp host and parking lot attendant for two seasons and wrote a book about my experiences called Confessions of a Work Camper: Tales from the Woods. During the last two seasons as a work camper on that mountain, I was a clerk in a campground store. I'm also a house and pet sitter, and I pick up odd jobs when I can. I'm primarily a writer, but I also create beautiful little collages; hand make hemp jewelry and warm, colorful winter hats; and use my creative and artistic skills to decorate my life and brighten the lives of others. My goal (for my writing and my life) is to be real. I don't like fake, and I don't want to share fake. I want to share my authentic thoughts and feelings. I want to give others space and permission to share their authentic selves. Sometimes I think the best way to support others is to leave them alone and allow them to be. I am more than just a rubber tramp artist. I'm fat. I'm funny. I'm flawed. I try to be kind. I'm often grouchy. I am awed by the stars in the dark desert night. I hope my writing moves people. If my writing makes someone laugh or cry or feel angry or happy or troubled or comforted, I have done my job. If my writing makes someone think and question and try a little harder, I've done my job. If my writing opens a door for someone, changes a life, I have done my job well. I hope you enjoy my blog posts, my word and pictures, the work I've done to express myself in a way others will understand. I hope you appreciate the time and energy I put into each post. I hope you will click the like button each time you like what you have read. I hope you will share posts with the people in your life. I hope you'll leave a comment and share your authentic self with me and this blog's other readers. Thank you for reading.  A writer without readers is very sad indeed.

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