Pot Luck

While in Virginia Beach recently to celebrate my Mom's birthday, she suggested we go to a new event she had recently learned about: a backyard concert. This was only the third week of this recently-launched event, which is much more elaborate than it sounds. People show up with their lawn chairs, bring food to share, BTOB, and are rewarded with some amazing musical acts. It's a really nice evening and the homeowner/host/lead musician is a former neighbor of ours who has numerous musical awards, did a stint in Nashville chasing his musical dreams, and now coordinates this event to bring other talented musicians together on Saturday nights.

When my Mom asked if I remembered this neighbor, I had to share that I did...but just vaguely. He is six years older, so when he lived across the street, he was a cool high school kid and my sister and I were still elementary schoolers, so we were not contemporaries. However, I did vividly remember the aftermath of a party he had. It was a rager and the next day, we found two small pot pipes among the discarded beer cans and other party debris in our front yard. 

Rather than throw these away, I washed them and included them as game tokens in a school project I was working on about avoiding drug usage. As I recall, the game board was a giant hypodermic needle fashioned out of blue poster board and I was excited that the pot pipe game tokens added a touch of realism to my 4th grade health project. 

On the day my project was due, I trotted off to school and happily presented the project to my class in front of my fourth grade teacher. 

One would think this resulted in a call home, a visit to the Principal's office, or at the very least, questions about why those were in my possession. But, alas, these were Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Not only was this completely accepted, I also received a A+ on my project. 

Game tokins'

Brutalism