Full Moon Encounters A True Story About The Failed US War Against Illegal Drugs And Its Impact On My Personal And Professional Life by James C. Harwood Turner Maxwell Books Free Publishing Free Books Free Literature Free Writers Turner Maxwell Books are an independent co-operative of new writers, committed to publishing inspirational literature. Turner Maxwell Books has over one hundred writers, producing original stories not seen in any other bookshop, Turner Maxwell Books has established itself as a successful and viable publisher. This achievement lies in its innovative and daring approach to establish a shorter supply chain that is simply focused on the requirements of the reader.

Full Moon Encounters

A True Story About The Failed US War Against Illegal Drugs And Its Impact On My Personal And Professional Life

by
James C. Harwood

Part 1:
First Exposure

I was born 5 March 1956 in Wichita, Kansas. My father died in May 1968 at age 50 when I was age 12, or so we believed. My mother died in 1993 at age 70. My stepfather, a good man, died at age 83 in 2000. I have one sister, 8 years older than me, living in England. I am single, straight, and have no children.

* * *

I believe my sister became exposed to illegal drugs, mainly marijuana, soon after she began attending Wichita State University in 1966. She was 18 then, and I was 10. I was not aware of it until after I turned age 12, when she was age 20, after the apparent death of our father. After 2 years of college, my sister went on a trip to tour Europe with other students and friends. She liked England the most, and planned to return after college to live there. After returning, she and a female friend rented an apartment together in Wichita near a neighborhood park. I believe it was late in August 1968, when she showed me the apartment, just before classes continued at WSU. Upon entry, we discovered her roommate friend had been using a water bong to smoke marijuana.

It was the first time I heard the question referred to me, “Is he cool?” Meaning, can I be trusted to not be a snitch? I had no idea as to what they were talking about. I'd never even heard of marijuana, until that day. Although the “cool” question was put to my sister, the answer I gave became my policy.

It satisfied the young lady, who raised the question, and everyone like her who I crossed paths with since then and asked the same question. “I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own home, as long as it does not harm me and you don't force it on me.” I have always believed in something similar to the Castle Doctrine for home defense, that in my home I am the law and I am king. The old saying is, “A man's home is his castle.”

* * *

During the 1968 to 1969 school year, my first year at Wichita Coleman Junior High School, one of the cheerleaders was poisoned by a rival cheerleader. Sounds like the stuff of movies, but is true. I'll refer to the victim as Susan L. I never heard the name of the rival cheerleader, who obtained LSD from her older brother, and sneaked it into a cup of coke being drank by Susan L in the cafeteria of the school.

The school, police, doctors, Susan L's parents, and the local news media then put out the story that Susan L had died from an overdose of LSD. It was a blatant lie, which I would find out about when I'd cross paths with Susan L in a bar many years later. I'll tell that bizarre story in another part of this article.

* * *

There were a few other odd experiences I had while attending Coleman Junior High School, known today as a Middle School thanks to the politically correct people.

It was the first time I was in school with black students. They were ok. No trouble with them. There was a half-black half-white kid, who tried to impress black students by slamming white students into their lockers. I had a gut feeling the black kids didn't like him and were not impressed by him. He was my same size. When he tried to shove me into my locker, I grabbed his right arm and swung him into the lockers so hard it nearly knocked him unconscious, as he was running full speed into me. A few black students standing nearby simply gave me a smile and an odd kind of salute, and then they went on to their classes. Since they didn't come to his aid, that one hostile student never again bothered anyone. I thought he vice-principal would give me swats, but he praised me and said I was acting in self defense.

They did have corporal punishment back then. The law was that they had to give two warnings first, and then use swats with a wood paddle as a last resort. However, the 7th grade English teacher said on the first day, “I'm giving everyone their two warnings now in advance, so if you act up or break my rules you will find yourself out in the hall getting swats with my paddle.” She managed to give swats every day to at least one of the students in the class, but she never got me.

One of the students boldly asked the English teacher, “Why do you carry the paddle in your purse, instead of keeping it in your desk? Do you take it home to use on your children?” It was a short wood paddle, small enough to fit into her average size purse.

“I don't have any children.” the English teacher answered, “I use it on my husband.” The answer impressed the class, because her husband had visited the class one day. He was a police detective, and he was twice her size!

Then one day, I was doing an errand for another teacher, to deliver a packet of papers to some other teacher. I had to go down the hallway past the English class. Across from that classroom was the Home Economics classroom, and the teacher from that class was out in the hallway with the English teacher. Some teachers didn't like to give swats, so they had other teachers do that for them. A female student from the Home Economics class was out in the hallway, bent over, skirt up, and about to be paddled. Then as I approached, I could see that the English teacher, while holding the paddle in her right hand, had her left hand in the panties of the girl to be paddled. Apparently the teacher was engaging is some kind of sexual abuse.

“You get the hell out of here right now!” the English teacher shouted at me.

As I turned to go the other way, the Home Economics teacher asked the English teacher, “Do you know him? Is he a rat? Is he going to snitch?”

I heard her answer, “Not if he wants to live.”

Kinky Sex 101. Isn't the public education school system wonderful? I never did get any swats during those bizarre school years. I believe, if schools were to have corporal punishment today, then it should be part of a justice system with an impartial adult judge or jury of students, so that individual teachers cannot abuse the system for their own personal twisted interests.

* * *

My sister graduated from WSU in 1970. Then she moved to England, got a job and a place to live. She eventually met a young doctor and got married. They had a daughter in 1979. After they got divorced a few years ago, my sister continued her education and then became a world-traveling archaeologist.

* * *

I graduated from Wichita High School Southeast in May 1974. I would have graduated with a 4.0 grade point average – an A student during my senior year.

However, even though I scored an A on the final exam of the English class, my English teacher saw it would result in me graduating with a 4.0, and his reaction was, “You are not a 4.0 student, so I am giving you a final grade of B to stop you from graduating with a 4.0.” There was nothing I could do about it, no one to appeal to. He further said, “If you had a father, you might be better.”

I didn't understand that, and said, “My father died when I was 12, but I have a stepfather who is a good man. What has that got to do with my grade?”

He refused to answer. Eventually, I'd get the answer from another source.

Anyway, I graduated with a 3.7 grade point average. In a way, the English teacher was right. I was just an average student, if considering all of the subjects I had taken over the years. During my senior year, I got up to a 4.0 by dropping the subjects I was not good at, and keeping the subjects I was good at. I had enough credits built up that I almost could have graduated a semester early. When I realized that, I saw how I could bump up my GPA. Then the English teacher saw what I was doing and cut me down for it.

* * *

I don't recall what year I took Algebra II. I wasn't good at Algebra at all, and I hated the Algebra classes. I barely passed Algebra I. I did ok in Geometry. I liked Trigonometry, but I didn't get a good grade in it. I was very good at basic math. I do remember when the so-called “New Math” was introduced to the school system. I'd been doing fairly well in math until that happened. I recall the Algebra II teacher spent all of her time with the A and B students, and ignored the C and D students who needed her help the most. School was like that. Most teachers didn't like average and below average students. Guess it was because student failure reflected teacher failure. Rightfully so. All most of them did was to hand out assignments and to grade tests.

Then one day I had an amazing victory over all of the good students and the Algebra II teacher. She had given the class a complicated problem to work on. At first, I didn't bother to try to solve it. I figured I had no chance, especially if I were to use the taught formula method. One by one, student would raise their hands, get called on, and give their answers. None got it right.

The teacher would say, “That answer is too high.” Or she would say, “That answer is too low.”

I realized the correct answer is somewhere between the too-high answers and the too-low answers, all of which I wrote down as the other students gave the wrong answers. Then by narrowing it down like that, I figured the midway number between the two closest answers of the one too high and the one too low. I put up my hand.

The teacher said, “Put you hand down James. You don't have the answer.

I said the answer anyway.

“What? Say that again.” she requested.

I did.

“Oh my God. He got it right.” she confirmed.

Several students jumped out of their chairs and asked, “How did you do that?” They were looking at me with considerable contempt. One asked the teacher and everyone else, “How can the dumbest kid in the class get it right, and not us?”

“Good question.” the teacher agreed, and then said to me, “Go to the chalkboard and show us how you did it.”

I replied, “I don't need to do that. It is not that complicated. I can describe it.”

“He cheated.” One of the students claimed.

“How could I have cheated?” I replied. “I simply used old math to figure the average to get the most likely answer that was not too high and not too low. It was in fact all of your wrong answers that led me to the right answer.”

That really angered them. I concluded, “That is the way it is done in real life. When you get out in the real world, most of you are not going to use the formula you tried to learn today. You will solve problems the old way, just like I did. You will find the correct answer somewhere between the wrong one to the left and the wrong one to the right.”

To this day, I use basic old math every day. I've never had a use for the new math and any of the Algebra they tried to teach me. I figured out how to get the right answers, but I never really understood Algebra or how it could be used in real life. I believe such higher math should be taught only to college students who need it for a specific future profession that will actually require it.

* * *

During high school, after I turned age 16 on 5 March 1972, my part time job after school and all day Saturdays, full time during summer months, was repairing – retipping cue sticks, reconditioning pool tables – putting new felt on slates and rails, and some simple repairs on pinball games and juke boxes while cleaning them.

I got the job as result of living next door to the boss – Ronnie, who tried to be like a big brother to me after my father died. He also got me into a new side interest activity, as we both joined BSA Motorcycle Explore Post 770. I started out on a Suzuki 90, eventually grew enough to handle a Suzuki 400 – which was street legal as well as designed for trail riding and hill climbing. During 1974, it was a Suzuki 125, which I'd ride to school and then to work after school during nice weather. I'd carry an extra helmet, and during my senior year would take girls out to lunch, who liked to ride on the back and liked to be seen riding on the back with me. On one hand, I was not a jock. On the other hand, I was not a nerd, even though I was president of the chess club for one semester. I was just a middle-of-the-road average guy with moderate views – not too far left and not too far right. Although I was nothing like the motorcycle riding “Fonz” character on the Happy Days TV show, my new image as result of riding a motorcycle to school put a permanent end to school bullies trying to bother me for my small size. Also, the physical labor of the after school job significantly increased my physical strength.

By the way, I never saw any indication of illegal drugs use while I attended Wichita High School Southeast, a good clean safe school.

* * *

The summer of 1974 was the best time in my life, and there has not been a better time since then, overall. I was working 48 hours per week, paid overtime for Saturdays.

I had my first apartment, having moved out of the hose belonging to my stepfather and mother. I got used furniture at Bud Palmer Auction. I bought a TV at a small appliance store. My home stereo system was a high school graduation present from my mother and stepfather.

I paid off the bank loan on my motorcycle. My stepfather had given me a very old and very used VW for my 16th birthday, which frequently broke down. While he and my mother were in England visiting my sister, I got a bank loan and bought a much better Toyota Corona only 2 years old. If all the cars I've owned, it was the best. It never broke down. Even so, I nearly got kicked out of the family since it was a foreign-made car instead of an American-made car. In it, I had my first sexual experience with a new girlfriend while at a drive-inn movie on the night of Thursday 4 July 1974 – it was a very good Independence Day holiday and weekend.

I had everything I wanted. I was happy. I wanted everything to stay that way.

I didn't want to go on to college and major in architecture, as previously planned, mainly because 2 hours of drafting work gave me severe headaches, even with new special eye glasses for reading and drawing.

I wasn't interested in any other subjects. Instead, I wanted to continue full time in my job, and get on-the-job training in electro-mechanical repair work for the amusement games and vending machines. I became a strong believer in apprenticeship. Even so, my employer – Ronnie – talked me into trying college, just basic courses, for at least a year before making a final decision on that.

* * *

I attended Wichita State University for one semester. It did not start well.

My advisor broke three appointments with me before the start of classes during August 1974. On the third appointment, she saw me walking down the hall toward her office as she was out in the hall. She ran into her office, closed the door, locked it, and refused to answer when I knocked. So I never got to see her before the first day of classes. She later claimed it was because she had to give priority to junior and senior students who needed to see her, so she didn't have time for me.

Consequently, I was not prepared for one class in particular. On the first day of a history class, the instructor – Lindquist – walked in and asked all the students to turn in the assignment for the first 6 chapters of the textbook. They all did. I knew nothing about the assignment, which was to have been given to me by my advisor. So I got an F on the first day, and it really angered me.

I asked one of the other students out in the hallway “I didn't know about the assignment. How did you find out about it?”

He answered “If you have to ask then you don't need to know.” The snot then walked away.

Another student heard that, and she told me “Your advisor should have given you the assignment.”

I said “That's crazy. How can they have an assignment before the first day of class? It's just not fair. And my advisor has so far broken three appointments with me.”

* * *

The rest of the semester was worse. I eventually concluded that college is a giant exercise in butt kissing, which I wasn't very good at.

The professors did not teach anything. While I read books and took tests, all they did was hand out assignments and pretend to grade tests.

The real reason why the advisor refused to see me and continued to break appointments would be discovered soon after I transferred to KSU.