There are a myriad of things i'm gonna miss about living in San Francisco. This is truly a city with many indulgences to, well, indulge in. We even have the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence here. One of my favorite indulgences is enjoying a puff of Green Goodness as i walk past the police station. Seriously.
i have come to enjoy doing this once in awhile. But not for the reasons i think most would. Sure, there's a little bit of an adolescent tingle... Like i'm getting away with something... "Tee hee. i'm smoking dope while i'm walking past the front door to the police station..." But that's not the part i'm gonna miss the most.
My primary joy in this experience comes from a satisfaction level... Satisfaction that SF is a relatively just and outrageously cool place to be. That it's actually OK to do this here. That this city and its police aren't gonna hassle somebody for harmlessly partaking of some Mother Nature. i truly think they get it. They get that somebody puffing a spleef ain't the one causing a lot of problems for society. How many places can you say that about?
But i don't push it. i'm not a big smoker, first of all. More of a one-hitter guy. i do it discreetly. It's not like i take a toke, then open the door and share the exhale with everybody in the lobby. And i don't go inside and offer to share a bud with the Duty Officer. Not even on holidays. It's just one of my personal tributes to living in San Francisco.
The cop shop is half a block from my house. i walk past it at least fifteen or twenty times a week. Sometimes a lot more than that. i probably average this indulgence once or twice a month. And only for the last year or so. i barely smoked at all for ten or eleven years before that.
i remember walking toward home one day awhile back... Ambling up the street by the mortuary. i put a piece of green in the tip of my one-hitter and started to light it. My eyes saw the police building and i had a rational thought... "What the hell are you doing?" But that passed. Up in smoke, as they say.
i thought about it some. And here's the conclusion i came to...
Discrimination against individuals or groups based on race, sexual orientation, religion, gender, and type of work they do, is morally wrong. i'm an inclusive guy. i don't have any qualms about taking a toke when i walk past a church or a mortuary. (For the record: Out of respect for society, i do NOT partake when kids or groups of non-partying peeps are present.) Why should i discriminate against the cops? That would be morally wrong in my book. So i don't.
There are no police stations on Gilligan's Island North. In honor of the Hog Farmers, we will probably have Please Stations or the like. But that's not the same thing. Once i leave SF, i'm sincerely gonna miss the freedom of burning a leaf as i walk past the cop shop. But i'll try to make up for that in the next two weeks... :-))
This bud's for you, San Francisco... Thank you for being such a diverse and tolerant city!
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