Harvest Party

It’s 1995 and I’ve recently graduated from UCSC with a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in American Literature. I have no ambition for my career and I’m taking temp jobs in the tech realm to just figure out what I want to do with my life. All I know is that I do not want to teach. 

I’m dating a biker from Clear Lake who visits his father in Redwood City every week. He brings me weed from his crop up north, I share with him my beach buds from Santa Cruz when we see each other at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. We spend the whole summer seeing great concerts together and getting to know one another. Eventually he invites me on a camping trip up north. 

I witnessed more marijuana flower that weekend than I’d ever seen and will likely ever see again in my lifetime. We’d been invited to a Harvest Party. Not just any small-h harvest party. This one had at least a dozen growers from the region bringing and showcasing their best crop. In the garage of this 5 bedroom house up in the middle of the woods, a ping-pong table, sans net, had mounds of trimmed flower, in distinct piles, covering the table. In giant hefty trash bags, others waited to pour some of their wares onto the table. It had a semi-competitive air to it, although no trophies or ribbons or official judging occurred. 

At the BBQ pit, roasting a whole pig, was a bone skinny woman with armpit hair that reached near her elbows. On the swing set were several kids of elementary school age, surrounded by at least 3 dogs, a dozen chickens, a cat here or there, and I think there may have even been goats on the property. It was remarkable to me how many neighborhood folk were there, a seventh grade school teacher, the local grocery store clerk. Regular people, they all knew each other. I was the girlfriend from The City. 

Prop 215 had not yet hit our ballots, but we talked openly about legalizing. Most growers were conflicted about the issue. Now that California has, in 2020, both legalized recreational and medicinal use, I think I have a different point of view than I did back then. As a regular buyer from a legal dispensary, (these days, they’ll even deliver!) I get the feeling the growers are getting shafted. And whoever is in the packaging business, aren’t they making a mint? At the rate the packing is filling our landfills, they must be. How sustainable is that? In this year where I turn 50, I somehow wonder if, when I’m 80, I’m gonna look back and wish we’d never legalized.