Category: Blog

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First Time? (Paulie)

Pauls First Time

How an outrageous high school party turned into Paul’s first time blazing.

Where I grew up, alcohol was introduced before weed. I remember being 14, a freshman in high
school, looking up to my older brother. There was really nothing else besides my friends from
my condo. All my other friendships came and went based on juvenile bragging rights. Growing
up searching for purpose. Trying to fit in where I didn’t belong. I think that’s why a lot of people
find the community. We don’t realize that our sense of want is clouded by our sense of purpose
and service.

My first year of high school was right after my brother’s team won the first state football title in
years. The keg party was week one. But I would be surprised to learn that the way home
cruise was where the real team formed. A couple of misfit friends from my brother’s childhood
skateboard crew. They definitely got into the party based on Sam’s recognition. That’s how it
felt at these pre-alcoholism gatherings, based on who or what was cool at the moment. But
when we cruised out of there, that’s when I remember laughing, smiling and of course…Bumping Wu-Tang…

Adrenaline running through us from the booze, I remember my brother’s friend Kyle stuck his
head out the window with a holler. He soon realized the blunt had fallen from his ear. Needless
to say we were all devastated. We scoured the suburban streets trying to find the one beacon
of normalcy from the night. A session to gather and laugh and forget the chaos of kids jumping
fully clothed into hot tubs and girls dancing on tabletops. As Nas’s Illmatic popped into the six
CD changer we headed to our house, our mom was always cool. Into the basement we
waddled…hammered. Sam’s other friend, Mikey, pulled out a bowl..Yes, a bowl. A classic
smoking method passed down from the Grateful Dead to Cheech And Chong. We stepped
outside to take a couple of puffs under the condo deck. I remember the taste more than ever. I
don’t know if it was the butane from the lighter or the brown herb running down from dealer to
dealer…But the smell of burning plants and the taste of herbal ash is what I remember.

I used to have a bunk bed in the basement. I was on the top & Mikey laid on the bottom bunk.
He says to me…”how do you feel?”

I honestly didn’t feel anything…Besides a connection to the brewing subculture. A way to
escape the chaos of the laid-out path. I soon would end up getting high. Honestly in similar
situations. But that’s a story for another time. Weed & the community will always be the way to
step away from it all. No matter where you grew up..

This story was written without the use of any artificial intelligence

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First Time? (Tommy)

First Time

A nostalgic story of Tommy’s first time blazing ever.


I remember the first time I ever smoked weed so clearly, it feels like it could have
happened 5 minutes ago. I received a knock on the door, it was an afternoon in the summer
going into my sophomore year of high school, 2007. Two of my best friends from the condo
were standing there with these goofy grins. We had talked about blazing all summer and the
moment had finally arrived. I was famously straight-edge until I got into high school, but
succumbed to partying early freshman year. However, up to that moment, I was the only one in
the crew to not have blazed. Friggz asked if I had a pen, so I excitedly ran downstairs and
grabbed a basic blue bic pen. I hadn’t a clue what he was going to do with it. We walked across
the street from the condo to the park. Friggz sipping on a blue gatorade. We walked through the
softball fields to the back of the park.


Squam, standing 6’2” going into his freshman year of high school like a beacon of
mischief, Friggz, and myself ducked into an opening in the woods. As we stood in this pit,
Friggz, out of nowhere, started stabbing the gatorade bottle with a pen. I was like, “whoa dude!
chill”. He said, “just watch dude.” He continued on with his tinkering. Dissembling the pen so
that just a tube was left. He stuck it into one of the holes he punched. He whipped out a piece of
tin foil, made a cone-like shape and poked a couple of small holes into the bottom of it before
stuffing it into the pen tube. He then took out a water bottle and poured water into this
contraption he had built. It was time. He pulled out a very tiny zip-lock bag. I’ll never forget it
because it had ghosts all around it, the dime bag. Potentially the most infamous symbol of
legacy weed culture, next to the gatorade bong that Friggz had just built. He surgically started
breaking up the weed over the tin foil bowl, careful not to drop a single flake. The potent smell of
skunk permeated the air. This was definitely some chronic.


Friggz, as builder of the bong and bearer of the weed, used the also infamous “crack”
lighter to set flame to the green substance preciously placed inside the foil. His finger holding
another hole he had stabbed into the bottle, the weed caught flame, and he inhaled sharply. But
before blowing it out, he took his Yankee hat off his head and placed it in front of his face. He
blew the hit into his hat and held it there for several seconds. Breathing in and out like he was
Darth Vader, he began to cough. There was something so magical about the moment. We
asked Friggz what was up with the Yankee hat, he said, “I don’t know but I think it gets you more
blazed”. Squam was up next, he replicated all of the moves perfectly, although his face didn’t fit
in the hat, he still blew into it and let it fester nonetheless. Friggz repacked the bowl to give me
fresh greens. He handed me the gatorade bottle, I was oddly calm and present. My thumb
struck down on the crack lighter and I tried bringing it to the bowl, burning my thumb in the
process, but to no avail. I tried a couple more times. Nothing. Friggz grabbed the lighter. I held
the carb, he lit the bowl and I pulled hard. I heard a slight crackle. I traded the bong for the
Yankee hat and blew into it. To this day, I can still see the sunlight coming through the holes of
the hat as the smoke swirled around. I didn’t cough. I removed the hat from my face, Friggz
breaks the silence “did it work?” I responded, “I think so?”. We stood in the pit for a few
moments longer and had some chuckles before reappearing from the woods. I remember
feeling something as we walked through the field again.I thought I was high, but when you have
to think about it, you’re not. Most likely what I experienced was a placebo effect or the
deadening of brain cells from inhaling burnt plastic and aluminum. I was yet another victim of
not getting high the first time. I wouldn’t try smoking weed again until October. And that is when
my cannabis career would truly begin…


This story was written without the use of any artificial intelligence (remember when we didn’t have to disclaim that?)