IN MEMORY OF JOANNE MacDONNELL 1937-2004

JOANNE TELLS ALL!
Political future dashed by confession?

Now They Can Call Her:  REEFER GRANDMA

By JOANNE MACDONNELL
of TheColumnists.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the final column from the late Joanne MacDonnell, first presented in 2002. She was too ill to continue her work here. She died Sunday, Aug. 8, 2004.

When I was in high school in the 1950s, marijuana was a scary word. Most of us didn’t even know what it looked like.

It wasn’t until years later, when my younger brother started smoking it, that it entered my life.

At his urging–he was an aficionado–I smoked a "joint" with him in our parents’ family room.

It didn’t do much for me, except for the fact that I was smokmg this stuff in my father’s house--and my brother and I really bonded.

The second time I smoked marijuana was again with my brother.

My father joined us this time.

My father was living with me following a stroke and the diagnosis of inoperable cancer. He needed a medicinal dose of marijuana.

So, the three of us sat around the kitchen table, stared at the fish in the aquarium and shared a joint. . .

It was our last happy time together.

"Kaf-kaf-kaf! Just say No!"

At left, Joanne's first reaction to smoking marijuana. At right, her outlook now?

"Don't Bogart that joint, my friend!"

What brings me to these fond recollections of marijuana, you might ask?

Well, my grandson has now discovered it.

In fact, he was apprehended by the campus police for smoking it on the third day of school this year--his junior year. He was promptly suspended.

I know this doesn’t sound very grandnotherly, but I told him the next tume he felt the urge to smoke "pot," to just bring it here and we would do it together–behind locked doors.

Hopefully the third time is the charm.

©2002 by Joanne MacDonnell. The cartoons are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.

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