Almost all of my friends were either surfers or fishermen. Everyone on the beach became a close knit family of like-minded water oriented individuals who witnessed the commitment of one another in heavy situations within the ocean. This lifestyle created an intense degree of credibility amongst our select few. Our small group of surfers and fishermen began to trust one another in all kinds of situations, from school and family life to catching barrels and scoring chicks. As ganja was introduced into our scene, the bond that we had fostered for years on the beach intensified in all aspects of our young lives.
At the time, good pot was hard to find in our little beach town. Most of the reefer that was readily available was low-quality Mexican dirt-weed. The stuff hardly resembled what we have come to think of as bud today. It was dark brown, dry as sand, full of seeds and almost always so compressed that it was difficult to break the actual bud away from the stem of the cannabis plant. The existence of seeds in the bud was so prevalent that joints became somewhat explosive at times. As a joint was passed around our group it wasn’t uncommon for some unlucky soul to be confronted with a heated seed exploding out of the joint, burning a hole in the nearest piece of clothing that happened to be in the way of the falling ember.
As I got older, a job became a necessity for a young High School student. I was beginning to realize that free time, hanging around the beach and looking for my next “lid” was starting to leave a bit of a hole in my pocket. I knew that a bunch of friends of mine had found jobs at the local “Holiday Inn” as busboys and I followed their lead, quickly fitting in with all the young kids around my age working in the dining room.
One of the waiters that I befriended in the restaurant was Scott Wood. Scott was older than me, and was recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He had moved down south and had picked up a job at the restaurant with some of his fellow graduates as a way to live the beach life and pick-up tourist chicks.
As I worked more and more at the Holiday Inn, I got to know a bunch of Scott’s friends and eventually met Scott’s younger brother Terry, who was working with me as a busboy. Terry was about my age, and fit right in with me and my friends around the beach. Even though he wasn’t a surfer or a fisherman, he was one of us. When he displayed numerous acts of loyalty through experiences with pot, he was quickly accepted into our circle of “heads”. When we surfed, Terry would spend his time focusing on the girls on the beach, doing his best to scare up company for the evening’s activities.
With the arrival of Scott and Terry Wood came a welcome and unexpected addition to the pot scene in our small community. Before Terry, I had never seen hashish before. I didn’t even know it existed. But somehow, Terry always had a fresh stream of good hash on hand to expand our minds.
One afternoon, when the surf was flat and my personal stash was running low, I decided to go see if Terry had any good smoke, or perhaps hash on hand. Since his place was a good distance away from my house on the beach, I drove into Terry’s to scare up a little adventure. Pulling up to Terry’s, I was reminded of my days living away from the beach. The home was a one level, old-style design, complete with a yard full of overgrown, unkempt sandspurs, which inevitably found their way onto my jeans and into the soft parts of my feet.
My hand knocked heavy on the door as I waited for someone to answer. “Hey Skip, how’s it going man. Good to see ya.” Terry welcomed me as he ushered me quickly inside.
The house was full of dark, thick smoke as I entered. It was such a pleasant smell for me as I realized that good reefer was close at hand. In the living room, a small collective of guys and girls sat around a large hookah pipe. The space was sparsely decorated save a few mattresses lying about randomly. Within no time, Scott recognized me and hurried me over to his side.
“How’s it going Skip?” Scott asked. “Man have I got a treat for you.” Scott’s face lit up as he cleared an area for me to sit down.
As I took a seat on the floor, I watched Scott reach into a small burlap bag and pull out a small brick. The pancake was about four by six inches and about an inch thick, the color of dark mocha. Casually, Scott broke off a small portion of the hash, removing the cap from the top of the hookah and packing it full with fragments from the brick. Next thing I knew, I was handed one tentacle of the octopus-like hookah arm and the hashish was exposed to someone’s lighter. Immediately, I began inhaling from the hookah’s tentacle as sweet, potent smoke filled my lungs and sent me into an instantaneous state of hashish induced bliss.
Needless to say, I started spending more and more time at Terry’s place. Between the good hash, pretty girls and competitive games of spades on the living room floor, the flop house was a teenager’s after school and work paradise. When the surf was flat or we weren’t out in our boats, it was almost a guarantee that I would be found at Terry and Scott’s place. As hanging out with Terry increased in frequency, I began to recognize some familiar patterns. One of the guys that regularly lived at the house was always gone in a rotating pattern. They would disappear for a few weeks and then return, only to have a fresh stash of hashish to share with everyone. In my mind, I figured that the guys were driving back home to Pennsylvania, getting hashish from some mystery man, and then driving back down south.
One particular afternoon, Terry and I were rummaging around Scott’s room looking for some smoke when I came across a bizarre photograph. As I looked closer at the details of the picture, I realized that they were of Scott. It was hard at first to recognize that it was Terry’s brother, as he was dressed in a long, vibrantly colored robe. In the background, distinct mountainous terrain carried on to the edges of the photo, mingling with the clouds in the upper altitudes. Near Scott, a mule stood with its packs stuffed to the brim and a man whose skin looked more weather-beaten than the donkey’s leather stirrups. Scott was standing with smile from ear to ear, his arms laden with the same flat, rectangular pancakes of hashish that I had come to know and love from visiting with the brothers.
“Hey Terry,” I asked, “What are these pictures all about?” Fully aware of what the picture detailed but curious as to an explanation.
“Let me see that...” Terry responded, as he grabbed the picture from my hand. “Oh yeah, that’s Scott in Morocco, and those are Kilos of Hash.” Terry told me, quickly as a matter of fact.
I was freaked out. My mind started to race, and I realized what was happening in the small house with the group of new friends I had made.
“So, that’s how you guys always have such good smoke around?!?!” I queried Terry with an excited grin. His response was a bit cautious, but as he looked up at me he admitted what I had already pieced together in my mind.
“Yeah, that’s it man. My brother and his friends go over there and come back with great hash. But don’t open your mouth about it man. It’s a pretty sweet deal but damn risky.”
“Holy Shit!” I exclaimed, as I continued to add the equation together. This is unbelievable! Everything was revolving around the ability for these guys to make a run to Morocco, come home, sell some hash and then enjoy their lives until the next run was planned.
Standing there that day, I never could have guessed that only two years from that date, I would be smoking hash in Morocco and only a short eight years later I would be loading my own boats with tons of hash out of the same Rif Mountains that I had seen that day (but that’s another story)…
I continued spending time with Terry and when I saw Scott, I treated him with a new sense of awe. After seeing the pictures that day and piecing together the gig that he had orchestrated, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the ingenuity and flat out courage of this early smuggler.
One afternoon when all my commitments were clear and I hadn’t seen Terry or Scott around the beach or at work in a while, I decided to head over to their house to enjoy some hash. When I arrived at their place, something seemed a bit unusual. The door was a bit ajar as I walked up the front steps of the porch, and as I cruised into the normally raucous living room, only the core members of the home were present. The house was cleaner than I had ever remembered it, and the large hookah pipe was absent from its normal position in the center of the room.
Terry recognized my presence and walked over to me immediately.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked him as he approached.
“Hey, Skip, come outside with me for a minute will you man?” Terry asked me, clutching me by the arm and leading me outside toward the back. Just looking at Terry, I knew instinctively that something was off tilt. His eyes were a bit shrunken back into his head and he looked as though he hadn’t slept in months. Walking into the bright southern sun that afternoon, I waited patiently as Terry explained the situation that was unfolding.
“Scott is late coming home from Morocco man.” Terry told me with consternation.
“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise. “He probably just got caught up on the continent Terry…you know how he can’t get enough of those European chicks.” I joked, trying desperately to enliven the vibration.
“No,” Terry shot back. “These guys are always on schedule as far as their hash runs. He was supposed to be back from Morocco late last week and everyone is freaked out man.” Terry explained with extreme alarm and pain on his face. I could tell that the situation was serious and didn’t want to downplay the severity of what was happening.
“I don’t know what to say Terry.” I told him, all the while clutching him on the shoulder.
“Yeah, I know man. It’s really a bum trip.” Terry told me as he sat down on the small back porch. “His buddy is going to leave tomorrow to try and find Scott somewhere in Morocco. Hopefully he can figure something out.”
After the conversation, it was obvious that the day’s events weren’t going to lead to any hash induced adventures. The older guys in the house were absorbed in talks about how to proceed with finding out the whereabouts of Scott, while Terry and I took off to the beach with me acting as a bit of a leaning post for Terry’s shaken psyche.
Scott never returned from that trip to Morocco and to this day I am unsure whatever became of him. I never really heard, nor did I ask. The subject was totally off-limits, for obvious reasons. The other older guys from the University of Pennsylvania eventually left to head back up North, leaving Terry to fend for himself in our small beach town. Terry and I remained friends for some time, but we grew apart as I got closer to my High School graduation.
As Terry and I grew distant, our paths took us in two separate directions. My adventures in the next couple of years led me across the European continent before bringing me back to the beach where a simple twist of fate would lead me deeper into the pot trade.
Terry, on the other hand, started hanging more and more with the fishermen who for years had been some of my closer friends. As I finished High School and traveled around Europe, the fishermen and Terry began expanding the possibilities of ganja importation. Eventually, Terry and my old buddies began doing bigger and bigger loads of fresh Jamaican Ganja.
As the years passed and I became more and more involved in the ganja trade, my own personal level of secrecy caused a disconnection from many old friends, including Terry. I lost track of what Terry was doing as I became more and more consumed with my own “gigs” and the partners that I worked with on various loads.
One day a few years later, word started spreading around the community that a group of smuggler’s load had been busted. People on the beach started buzzing about the bust, as it was, at that time, the largest marijuana importation seizure ever made in the U.S. It wasn’t until the newspaper article came out on the “Steinhatchee 7” that I realized how deeply ingrained Terry and a bunch of my other friends had become in the pot game.
Luckily for me, by that time I had moved on from Jamaican Ganja and was establishing my Santa Marta Connection.
