authors under the influence

[David Casseres]

On 10/17/06, Will Layman <WillLayman at comcast.net> wrote:
> Kind of NP here, but I just gotta say:
>
> As a high school teacher, I've seen plenty of knucklehead kids --
> mostly boys but not exclusively -- piss away their adolescence
> telling me how they can stop toking "the friendly herb" whenever they
> want, but, like, . . . yeah, man.  Not that that's any worse than the
> kids who drink or whatever, but JEST plays for me for that reason,
> maybe.  Also knew kids who smoked dope without harm too.  But the
> acid test (hee hee) is that I'd rather my own kids were reading books
> or listening to music than toking up in their rooms.  Easy enough to
> romanticize one's own use back in the day, but my own feeling is that
> "the useful substance" is actually of pretty limited use to 15 year-
> olds who should really be practicing their Strats or something . . .

I'm inclined to think so too.  After all, I never even saw the stuff
until I was 25 or so.  But that's a point Wallace might have made and
didn't.