Memoirs of an Ex Hippie

One evening during that idyllic summer of 1968, seven of us were out on the property just hanging out by the lake and smoking grass. Harl had just arrived from Atlanta so it was kind of a welcome home party for him. He had brought some "window pane" acid (LSD on small silica chips), which at the time was considered some of the purest available. With the drug being illegal, you never knew anymore what you were taking. Much of the LSD was being cut with speed, which often gave the trip an anxious edge.
"Hey, Harl," I said as we passed a joint, "Let's try some of that acid you brought up. Anybody want to try some? It's pure window pane."
With no more thought than you might give to someone asking you if you wanted a beer, almost everyone said yes. The setting was perfect- a beautiful evening out at the "A" frames where no one would bother us all night. The set was good- we all knew and liked each other and most of us had been on several trips and knew what to expect.
We hung out by the lake waiting for the acid to come on and soon were alternating between the mellowness of the pot and the rush of the oncoming LSD. It was now a pitch dark moonless night. All of a sudden someone said, "Hey, let's go up to Starpoint and get some food so we'll have something to eat when we come down." Starpoint was a little gas station and grocery store half way into Chapel hill on a country road. We had been stopping there for the last 3 years since we moved out to the first "A" frame. The owners and employees had seen us go from clean cut college kids to longhaired hippies. Though they remained polite, the transition had definitely put a distance between us.
By now we were all of one mind, a common occurrence on psychedelics. This means that its almost as if everyone you are tripping with is having the same thoughts at the same time. So if someone makes a statement or a suggestion, it instantly ripples through the "group mind," implanting each person with the same thought. As soon as the idea of going to Starpoint was offered up, the group mind seized it. Without any more comments, we all eagerly got up and piled into Harl's VW van (dubbed "The Creepy Crawler" because it wouldn't go over 50) and off we drove.
The 10 minute drive up was fun, full of laughter and singing to a Rolling Stones tape Harl started to play at full volume. We pulled into Starpoint, and all stumbled out like a scene from a Keystone Cops movie. However, the music had ended too abruptly and the lights outside the gas station were much too bright. Up until now we had only been dealing with ourselves and the natural setting of the lake. Entering the "real world" of gas pumps, road traffic, bright lights, and advertising signs, was a hard and rude awakening. The setting had changed and even before we entered the store everyone was starting to feel a little weird. Things got worse quickly once we entered. The store was brightly lit with loud country music blaring from a tinny radio. The seven of us filled the store and the owner and his employee eyed us suspiciously. No one was saying a word. Instantly, fear filled the group mind. We were all just walking around the store with our heads down. By now we are so deep into LSD-induced paranoia that most of us had forgotten what we were even doing in the store. We were just wandering around like lost sheep waiting for some shepherd to lead us back to the safety of our home.
Finally, I heard Brian say from the other side of the store, "Everybody get something to eat." It was like magic. The group mind instantly got it. That's what we're here to do-get something to eat. That's how we can get out of here-by getting something to eat. So everyone just started picking things off the shelf, with no rhyme or reason to their shopping or even to what they might like to eat. After about 3 or 4 minutes of this, we started gathering by the register and unloaded all the food out of our arms and onto the counter. The owner and his teenage employee were now totally weirded out. No one was saying a word. We all just stood there looking at all this food as everyone came to the counter and dumped their load. And it was weird stuff too-like pork rinds, mayonnaise, bologna, Twinkies, spam, saltines, Vienna sausage, corn starch- things you would never eat but there they were. And on the top of the pile, like some symbol of our absurdity, was a jar of full of pickled pig's feet, floating in some obscene pink jell.
As we waited for everyone to finish shopping, the vibes were getting really, really strange. We just stood, silently, looking at this huge mound of food, hoping that we could flee soon. We knew that we had only one means of escape, getting the food, but no one seemed sure what the next step was. We were just standing there waiting. The paranoia is growing by the minute, filling the store, like a scene from "The Blob."
The owner started neatly stacking the food from our disheveled little piles. Everyone was getting more and more uptight by the second and finally Harl, in an effort to break the mounting tension, blurted out, "How open you late?," which sounded just right to the rest of us. "How open you late?" a perfectly reasonable question. The owner stared at him, and realizing no correction was coming, grunts, "Eleven," which we all took in with the smug satisfaction that we were finally pulling it together.
Finally, the owner started to ring up the food, one item at a time. There had to be 60 or 80 items. The register seemed to be developing a little rhythm, almost like a song. Caching, caching, caching, caching, caching. His employee was putting everything in bags and it seemed like he's in the rhythm too. We're all standing there in silence, becoming more and more transfixed by their actions, and more and more relaxed by the rhythmic "cachinging" of the register. After awhile, several of us started softly swaying to its tempo. The paranoia was easing.
Finally at the end of what seemed like a century, he finished. "That'll be $62.70 please," he declared, staring at the three large bags on the counter.
His words just seemed to float out into space, somewhere over our heads, but really didn't register with anyone. It just kind of mingled with the country music. We just stood there as if he had said nothing, looking blankly at this large man who had just made what seemed to us to be a totally indecipherable statement. Fourteen dilated pupils stared back at him in totally confused silence, longing for a clearer translation. A few people started to mumble quietly "$62.70 PLEASE" as if repeating the last phrase might lead to its translation. By now he is becoming somewhat anxious to get his money and have this crazy scene be over so he can get back to chewing his tobacco and listening to his radio.
"That will be $62.70 PLEASE!," he repeated, and with that we all instantly "got it." He wanted money. Of course. He wasn't playing us a song on the cash register and singing a closing verse. He was adding up the money we owed him. He wanted to get paid. What could be clearer. The group mind had once again found the truth (even a blind pig finds a root every now and then). He gives us food-we give him money. Yes! that was it. That's what you do. Simple, people do it everyday. And with that, we all started to pull money out of our pockets and place it in seven little stacks in front of him. Now we're getting it together! Yes! We're on our way.
"Who's paying for what?," the owner asked, exasperation oozing from his voice, covering us like thick molasses, sending us immediately back into the psychedelic confusion from which we had just been liberated.

You can almost feel and hear and taste his frustration in the question. Once again a wave of paranoia, more intense than the one before, swept over the group mind. Again his question did not register and no one answered. Again several people began to quietly repeat the question to themselves, trying to understand it by dissecting each word. "Who's paying for what? Who's paying for what?" they repeated, trying to figure out what it meant. But it seemed terribly complicated, almost cryptic. We are all just stood there looking at these seven dirty little piles of money. No one could even look at him. He had turned into threatening black hole, ready to suck us in if we even looked him in the eye. The tinny country music was blaring into our consciousness "I'm just an Oakie from Miskokie." The paranoia was rising. We knew we were really blowing it. We had to get out of there. But how?
Just then a car pulled into the gas pumps and rolled over the bell wire on the ground that alerts the store clerk a car is at the pumps. The bell in the store gave out two loud "RINGGG, RINGGG" directly over our heads. Its effect was alarming, almost frightening. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT???" , the group mind is thinking, its paranoia instantly notching up to new heights. Brian quickly turned to look at me, his eyes wide with panic, his pupils fully dilated and I knew just what he's thinking-RUN!!
At that moment we both bolted towards the door, with the other five in full pursuit behind us, all seven of us trying to push through the one opening door, falling all over each other, like someone had just started shooting at us.
Once in the parking lot, we scrambled towards the Creepy Crawler, our refuge, our getaway car. We were in a full run by then, throwing open the doors, piling in, slamming and locking every door. Once inside people started screaming at Harley "START THE VAN!," "GET AWAY-QUICK!," "DON'T LET THEM CATCH US!." It was total chaos in the van and once Harley started the van the Rolling Stones started blaring again, adding to the cacophony. Fear and paranoia were running wild. "WE MUST GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE THEY GET US!" was the group mind's only thought.
Harley finally got the van going and headed across the parking lot. Now the Creepy Crawler was slow when it was empty, but put seven people in it and its barely going to move from a dead start. So even though everyone inside the van was screaming and yelling and moving at 100 miles per hour, the van was creeping across the parking lot at about 10. As we got even with the glass front door, we looked inside and there were the owner and his employee, blinking, still standing behind the counter, with the bags of food and seven piles of money in front of them, looking like they've just had their minds blown-which they had.
By the time we pulled out on the road, the realization that we were not being pursued started to settle in. Everyone stopped shouting and Harley shut off the tape. An eerie silence settled over the van. The silence, along with our snail-like speed created an aura of peace and safety. Finally Jane said, "What did we just do?" at which time everyone busted into hysterical laughter realizing how crazy the last 10 minutes had been. It was several years before we patronized Starpoint again.
by Robert Roskind