420 Day in Wyoming feels a lot like Wednesday

Happy 420 Day. 

Stoners in Boulder, Colo., used to treat this day as a smoke-filled holiday, known for one of the biggest 420 fests in the U.S. Legalization arrived via the voters in 2012. There now are hundreds of  marijuana dispensaries in the first state to start selling legal recreational weed. 

Wyoming, on the other hand, well, Wyoming is Wyoming. It will be the last state to approve it. Meanwhile, liquor rules the land. Prohibition (1920-1933) was a joke in this state while the temperance types in Colorado got an early start by prohibiting booze in 1916. Ah, Colorado, our sober southern neighbor.

Bootleggers abounded in WYO border towns for thirsty Coloradoans, Utahans, Nebraskans, Dakotans, Montanans, and Idahoans. Moonshine was an export commodity long before fireworks and fresh-faced UW grads. You can visit museums around the state that feature well-preserved stills from the 1930s. Museum volunteers lecture school groups on the bad old days when everyone was stewed to the gills with illicit hooch. Look how far we’ve come! Wyoming has a huge alcohol abuse problem. It also had the second-highest number of teen drug arrests in 2016, topped only by neighbor South Dakota and a bit more than neighbor Nebraska. Here’s a recent headline from the Cowboy State Daily: “Fentanyl Deaths in Wyoming Increasing; Federal, State Officials Worried.” 

My drugs of choice these days tend to be heavy on the Zs: Prozac, Zyrtec, Mirtazapine, Zestril. This is what happens when you have depression, get carted away with a heart attack, and sneeze your head off from May through October. These meds are prescribed liberally by physicians and pharmacists. Drug company reps hand out free samples. They need to be used with care as they carry a list of side effects (some alarming) listed on the three-page printout you get with each prescription. Oxycontin and Fentanyl carry similar warnings which nobody reads.

I’m pleased that the medical establishment gives us info so we can make decisions about what to take and what to jettison. No such lists were issued with the recreation drugs of the 60s and 70s. Our parents knew nothing nor did any adult we depended on for advice which we readily ignored. I was thinking about this the other day. KUWR’s Wyoming Sounds’ Throwback Thursday featured Grady Kirkpatrick playing songs on the forbidden list issued by an Illinois state law enforcement agency in 1971. The songs allegedly encouraged the use of illegal drugs. They included PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON (Peter, Paul, and Mary), HI-DE-HO (Blood, Sweat, and Tears) AND LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS (Beatles). 

The list was probably inspired by Nixon’s War on Drugs. "Puff" was targeted due to the fact that marijuana cigarettes needed to be puffed in 1971 (no edibles or ganja-infused beer). Too many puffs and you saw magic dragons. Lucy was obviously an abbreviation for LSD which, if you had the good stuff, you would definitely see magic dragons, sea nymphs, and Jesus. I have it on good authority that some frat boys saw our savior after imbibing too much Purple Jesus punch, a once-popular grain alcohol/Hawaiian Punch mixture.

I don’t get why “Hi-De-Ho” is on the banned list. Some lyrics:

Hi de ho

Hi de hi

Gonna get me a piece of the sky

Gonna get me some of that old sweet roll

Singing hi de hi de hi de hi de hooooo.

I looked up the song, originally sung by Dusty Springfield. I don’t see the drug references. Sure, some druggies may be reaching for a piece of sky. And stoners might satisfy a craving with sweet rolls such as the frisbee-sized concoctions served at Johnson’s Corner truck stop in Colorado. But it’s a stretch.

Hi-De-Ho was a phrase used liberally by Cab Calloway. He may have smoked weed as musicians seemed to like their drugs in the Roaring 20s and the Pretty Exciting but Impoverished 30s. The police noted that hip musicians tended to be African-American and their music was enjoyed mostly by jitterbugging minorities. Go to YouTube and watch jitterbugging clips. You could be stoned making those moves but I have my doubts. The fast-paced dance featured jittery music and lots of throwing around partners’ bodies. One false move and your date could end up a bleeding and broken thing on the bandstand.

The dances I remember from high school were not complicated but needed a bit of sobriety to carry off. The dances I remember from 1970s rock concerts were as groovy and free-flowing as a 20-minute Grateful Dead jam.

Hi-De-Ho.