Taliban USA
South End Greenworks finally opened its doors. They’ve pretty much avoided the radar and the microscope since they bought the old cinderblock building that sat vacant for years after Shari’s Style Shoppe closed up when Shari retired and moved to her Nevada trailer court retirement villa. Since then it’s grown a nice patina of green mold. You’d think they’d have had a Grand Opening, throw open the doors to all the smokers and tokers who’ve been buying marijuana for years illegally. When Prohibition ended — hoo boy! — the celebrations rang to the rooftops and the liquor flowed like glacier melt. And lasted for days. It was an undeclared National Holiday.
Maybe we’re just accustomed to being miscreants and scofflaws down here, but I didn’t see much hoopla the day they opened their windowless doors. Only a discrete sign in a barred window timidly declaring they were OPEN. The End of an Era and it went out with a whimper, not a bang. A few folks stood across the highway with cameras. Two Toke Tom waved and smiled and said ‘cheese’. I think he thought they were reporters for the Stanwoodopolis Gazette chronicling the momentous event, but Tom was maybe overdosed on the ‘edibles’. The so-called press sure wasn’t going to help publicize this affair even if it might sniff of newsworthiness. No sir. The South End String Band played a tongue-firmly-in-cheek Strange Grange Ganja Gig a few weeks earlier to fundraise for the South End Grange, something they do most every year. The papers, every one from Skagit Valley to Everett, refused even to list the concert on their events calendar. Oh my. So much for that left wing bias. Even legal, the sheer mention of the drug that apparently can’t be spoken scares the ink off these folks.
No, the photographers wanted mug shots of the citizens brazen enough to enter the Greenworks. By god, if the government won’t label these folks criminals, they sure would. Paste those shots on Facebook instead of the Post Office. Maybe call these infidels out if they show their shameless faces at the Little Chapel in the Ravine. Shame them and blame them and defame them!!
Sure, I thought about photographing them photographing my pals, then running their sorry mugs on the Skeeter blogspot, but I was worried they’d go North Korean on me, hack my e-mail, threaten to blow up my shack. All I can say is I sure am sorry we’re overseas fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We could use some help down here on the South End.
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