relatives in high places
Calgary. The funeral home on Centre Street. A cold Halloween evening. Family and friends gather for commemorative coffee and cookies after a prayer service. Although the guests are sad, they're also happy to be talking to folks they haven't seen in many a long year.
A young woman walks up to a very handsome, tall and solidly-built silver-haired fellow with sparkly blue eyes.
| Young Woman: | Uncle Stan! How was your trip from BC? You must be exhausted. Thank you so much for coming, I know it really means alot to Grampa. |
| Uncle Stan: | Oh, it was nothing. |
| YW: | And especially after you just got back from that trip to Las Vegas. |
| US: | [Eyes twinkling merrily] Well, that was alot of fun. You know I'm retired, I've got my pension, and I just decided that I want to spend my money while I can. We've been to casinos in, let's see, Las Vegas, two in Vancouver, a couple in Alberta, then we also went on that bus tour down to the States...Three hundred bucks for three days including food, and then we got a fifty dollar voucher for the casino, and free meals for two nights. Not bad. |
| YW: | That sounds amazing. Hey, you and Aunt Mary are living in Nelson now, right? I read this long article in Rolling Stone magazine, like, it was their feature article, about how Nelson is the...[searches for the right word, one that her 80-year-old Uncle will be most familiar with]...marijuana capital of Canada. The article was saying how this American kid who was, like, 19 made millions of dollars bringing marijuana from Nelson down to the US through the forest. |
| US: | We don't call it marijuana. |
| YW: | You don't? |
| US: | Nah, we call it a cash crop. |
| YW: | [Smiling; very impressed] Ahh, I see. |
| US: | [Warming to the topic] Cash crop, or "BC Bud". It's actually the best around. |
| YW: | Is that right? |
| US: | One day I was getting groceries, and I came out of the store. This young kid ahead of me had dropped this [puts hands up and makes a ziploc-bag sealing motion] baggie. The wind blew it up against the side of my car. The kid had already left the parking lot, so I reached down for the bag and it was full of BC Bud. I took it home and told Mary that we oughta smoke it. |
| YW: | And? |
| US: | Ah, she made me flush it down the toilet. Maybe another time. |
[Balzac-18-November-2005]
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