anything to anybody. It was so clear how stupid that was, I was almost embarrassed about it. I knew after that first joint that this was something I didn’t want to run out of.
Of course, I worked in New Mexico at the time and I didn’t have access to it that much, but when I got back to El Paso and started smoking more and more, I’d go over to Juarez by myself at night. I’d just drive to the bridge, walk over, and ask a cabbie for some pot. Then I’d put a few joints in my pocket and walk back across the bridge.
Usually I’d wait until I saw a little crowd, like four or five guys that were partying. I’d just kind of get in with them and act like I belonged, and the next thing you know, the inspectors were waving us through. They weren’t really looking for pot in those days—they were more worried about people sneaking into the country and illegally mowing your lawn.
Just a few miles west of downtown El Paso, hard by the Rio Grande, stood the University of Texas at El Paso—a little school that did all it could to be taken seriously. UTEP was a stepchild, franchised in the mid-sixties by the mega-rich University of Texas system. Though it tried with all its might to attain the lofty status of its namesake, its only claim to fame so far had been the 1966 NCAA National Basketball Championship, for which the school would receive far more derision than acclaim.
Texas Western College, as it was known in 1966, had won the title starting five black players versus an all-white University of Kentucky team coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp. It was an historic event that galvanized a city and forever altered college basketball. But poor little UTEP couldn’t win for losing. They were pilloried by the national press for renting their players, some of whom they labeled as felons and none of whom, they noted, had ever seen the inside of a classroom.
It wasn’t true, of course. Several members of the team would settle in El Paso and be embraced by the community. All of them would graduate. None of them had ever been to prison. But as Coach Don Haskins would sadly reflect, “If I had known what the reaction was going to be, I’d just as soon have finished second.”
UTEP was mostly a commuter school, though a surprising number of out-of-town students were beginning to enroll. There were only two reasons to go there: the tuition was low and the standards of admission even lower. If you could spell SAT, you were UTEP material, and if you were good for the tuition, they’d probably spot you the S and the T. It was a fledgling university in a remote outpost just west of the middle of nowhere. Everyone with a high-school diploma was gratefully accepted, Jack Stricklin included.
In the ’60s, all males were required to register for the draft immediately following their eighteenth birthday. A college deferment was the preferred antidote to the national smash-and-grab that was wasting the better part of a generation in Vietnam. Colleges like UTEP were brimming with students like Jack Stricklin, seeking only shelter from the draft and a good party.
While just about every college experience is punctuated by distraction, higher education in El Paso included the gaudy temptation of Cd. Juarez. It was lost on no one that activities deemed illegal on one side of the border could be made legal simply by crossing a bridge. You could drive your car across and leave a few pesos for a local street gang to watch it, or you could park on the U.S. side and walk over. Either way, you immediately found yourself on The Strip, a half-mile midway of cheap trinkets and bawdy seduction, pulsing to the music of sin and the aroma of tacos al carbon.
Street vendors hawked their wares. Urchins ran to stopped cars to clean their windows with dirty rags. Pimps roamed the brightly lit sidewalks offering all manner of sexual congress with their virgin sisters. Criers stood in the doorways, urging you to step inside and sample the prohibited pleasures. It was the improbable harmony of mariachi and rock ‘n roll. And it was irresistible.
At legendary bars like Fred’s and the Kentucky Club, fifty cents would get you a mixed drink, thirty-five cents a draft beer. Food was plentiful, cheap, and tasty. And temptation resided on every block. Friday night was boys’ night, as the bars and strip joints pulsed to the rhythm of raging hormones. Saturday was date night when the more sophisticated clubs and restaurants played host to awkward young couples desperately seeking to paint a picture of enlightened maturity.
To many of the locals, El Paso and Juarez were not so much viewed as sister cities, but as a single wide-open territory called la frontera. Yes, there were bridges and checkpoints. But the inspections were cursory with traffic flowing freely in both directions. And then, of course, there was the river—the mighty Rio Grande, a trickle of mud that did nothing to discourage the free flow of migrants and contraband that had fueled the area economy for more than a hundred years.
Though it had always been available, marijuana was slow to get a foothold among El Paso kids. Like our parents, alcohol was the drug of choice. Underage drinking in Juarez, though certainly not condoned by anyone in authority, was perfectly legal. I may have been a bit on the free-spirited side, but the idea of breaking the law and winding up in prison was something I never would have believed possible. But the war in Vietnam changed all that.
They grew some really good weed over there, a small portion of which managed to find its way back to the States courtesy of the postage-free largesse of Uncle Sam. Vietnamese reefer became a highly coveted commodity and a rare treat for those lucky enough to be on the receiving end. But to the troops on the ground, it was much more than a good high. It was blessed relief from the leech-sucking boredom of continuous crotch-rot, terminal trench foot, and the constant anxiety that any moment could erupt into a lethal firefight.
Vietnam was the last American war fought by conscripts. These were not hardened troops serving in selfless dedication to their country, though many career soldiers fought and died bravely in the effort. Vietnam was a war waged in large part by a diverse collection of unwilling recruits dedicated mainly to their own survival and that of their closest comrades.
Mellow troops might not be happy troops, but as long as the pot flowed freely, the grumbling and dissention were kept to a manageable level. Many of the officers and senior enlisted were willing to look the other way. Some actually encouraged its use. A soldier could function under the influence of pot, some could even excel. A drunken rifleman, however, was good to no one. Of course, Army brass would eventually crack down on cannabis. But that would only lead to a higher incidence of heroin abuse.
The Vietnam War probably did more to kindle the proliferation of marijuana than any other single event. Ironically, marijuana may have played an equally significant role in bringing an end to the war. The first time I ever tasted the divine mellow was with a good buddy who had just returned. “Try it,” he told me. “It’ll take the edge off.” As horrified as I was at the prospects of breaking the law, I was even more terrified of backing down in front of my peers. So I gave it a toke and promptly discovered there was order in the universe after all. It was like a stranger had rented out my brain and rearranged the furniture. All of a sudden, time was no longer bouncing off in random directions, but passing gently in an orderly progression.
“Where has this been? Why have they been telling lies about it? And what the fuck else have they been lying about? You got another one of those?”
To this day, I remember the calm and clarity that came over me in a single deep breath. I can still picture the wallpaper that magically became so interesting. It’s an odd thing about potheads. They can hardly remember to zip their fly, but ask them about the first time they ever smoked pot, and you’ll get a story told in Technicolor.
JACK STRICKLIN
The
