My First Foray Into Independent Publishing

Don't be too harsh. It was the 70's after all, man.

Yes, I was a pothead. A doper, if you will. Sometimes referred to as a "fiend" for short. Hey, who wasn't?

You've seen Dazed and Confused, I presume? Well, that shit was pretty accurate. There were different social groups, but by my senior year, I ran with the 'heads.

In some ways I have no regrets. What's the use? It was fun and I have a wealth of great memories. On the other hand, I wish I had taken things a wee bit more seriously.

I was a reader, of course. I always have been. I also had aspirations of being a writer. My eye was set on journalism. In a way, I achieved that goal. I am, after all, a columnist at Cemetery Dance Magazine. But I didn't become a newspaper reporter as I dreamed about. All that partying does not often lead to lofty positions in the working world. I am a machinist, and I consider myself lucky to be one.

We were rebellious, of course. We rejected the values and attitudes of our parents, and although most of us ended up right where they were as far as work and debt are concerned, maybe all that peace and love crap (as well as the poetry of rock and roll music) made us a little better. Some of us, anyway.

And we hated school. What a drag, man. It seriously cramped our party lifestyle.

One day a good friend of mine and I were in some woods, getting high and talking. We talked about everything imaginable. We had this idea: Let's start an underground newspaper and distribute it at the school. I'm not entirely sure whose idea it was, but I am thinking that I was a major proponent of it. I do know that I came up with the title. Poetry in motion, my friends. Our little endeavor was called...

THE HIGH'S COOL PRESS

Kinda has a ring to it, doesn't it?

I also remember well that the other guy did most of the work in getting it printed up.

We gathered some like-minded friends, made up phony names for ourselves in hopes that we wouldn't get caught, and started writing some stuff. We had a couple of cartoonists, and a handful of would-be journalists.

We handed them out in clandestine stealth. The cover price was a whopping quarter. No small amount of greenage in the 1979 economy.

People liked it. We made our investment money back. And we were never caught. The faulty and staff were outraged, and tried to find the guilty parties. No one narked us out.

Our upstart publication had a long three-issue run. Which was two more than I figured would ever get made.

Not long ago, some old friends and I got together for pizza and pitchers of beer. High school pals. We had some laughs, looked back at our triumphs and embarrassments, and promised each other that we would get back together. Real soon.

It hasn't happened yet, and I guess it never will. People go their separate ways. But one of the guys who was at the reunion was my old High's Cool partner. He came up to me after everyone else was gone and handed me a folder. It contained all three issues of The High's Cool Press.

I look back at it now with nothing less than astonishment. We actually did it. Some of it is pretty bad, and I blush a little bit, but for the most part I saw passionate work by some pretty smart teenagers. I got a chuckle and a few tears as I read them.

And now my party days are long past. I gave up the incessant dope smoking decades ago. I continued to drink for a long, long time, but it has been months since I have had a drop. I couldn't get high if I wanted to. I get screened at my job. Even if it becomes legal in my state, and it no longer matters to my job, I probably won't do it. You've got to grow up sometime. Well, some of us do.