R
Rabbi
Guest
Reporting from Garberville, Calif. — A woman drove into the Humboldt County hills to earn some money trimming the leaves from marijuana buds.
At a cabin, the grower who'd hired her set out mounds of pot. The woman and a friend chatted as they trimmed. Suddenly, an armed man barged in. He accused the grower of stealing his pot.
The invader grabbed some of the grower's cash, handed it to the women and ordered them out. They careened down the road in their truck to the foot of the mountain.
What should they do?
"We should forget it," the woman told her friend, "not think about it, and sure as hell not talk about it. We spent this weekend out in Bear Harbor."
A week later, a girl stopped by the woman's regular job to return the purse she'd left in the hills and to deliver a message: We know where to find you.
Four months later, the woman saw a missing-person poster at a supermarket. On it was a picture of the grower who'd hired her.
This story is fiction but it could have happened — and probably has. It was among a series of tales that began appearing on a mysterious blog two years ago, short stories about life in the secretive marijuana-growing world of Northern California.
The author used the name SoHumBorn (for southern Humboldt-born), and for three months the stories mesmerized the pot growers of southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties.
In the mountains of SoHumBorn's world, bodies were buried like secrets. Mothers dressed their children for school while federal drug agents surrounded the house. Growers' posses dispensed frontier justice.
The author knew the specialty coffee that pot growers drink — Signature Coffee from Redway in southern Humboldt — and knew that growers take supplies of it when they travel, certain they'll find nothing as good anywhere else.
Her stories — for many assumed that only a woman would dare be so open about the pot world — exposed a still-wild and clandestine California in a manner reminiscent of the way John Cheever lifted the veil over 1950s East Coast suburbia.
"Part of what makes our community really close-knit is a sense of having to come together to protect our way of life," said Shannon Bridges, a southern Humboldt resident and avid reader of SoHumBorn's blog posts. "She was the first to write about it from the inside in such a public way."
Couples argued over the stories. Chat rooms buzzed.
Then one day in February 2009, the blog vanished like the grower in SoHumBorn's story. Readers were bereft. A rumor spread that angry growers had figured out who she was and ordered her to shut up.
Unsparing honesty
SoHumBorn's stories gathered power from their unsparing honesty about weed life, its giddy freedom, its compromises and disaffections.
In the late 1960s and '70s, hippies arrived in the lumber-depleted mountains of southern Humboldt County, searching for an alternative to mainstream America that was natural and honest.
Then came marijuana. At first, the hippies grew it for their own use. As its price rose relentlessly, they became entrepreneurs and outlaws. They proved surprisingly square. Pot money allowed them to create self-reliant villages. They had Little League and quilting bees and volunteer fire departments.
Two more pages at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pot-blogger-20101117,0,654137.story
At a cabin, the grower who'd hired her set out mounds of pot. The woman and a friend chatted as they trimmed. Suddenly, an armed man barged in. He accused the grower of stealing his pot.
The invader grabbed some of the grower's cash, handed it to the women and ordered them out. They careened down the road in their truck to the foot of the mountain.
What should they do?
"We should forget it," the woman told her friend, "not think about it, and sure as hell not talk about it. We spent this weekend out in Bear Harbor."
A week later, a girl stopped by the woman's regular job to return the purse she'd left in the hills and to deliver a message: We know where to find you.
Four months later, the woman saw a missing-person poster at a supermarket. On it was a picture of the grower who'd hired her.
This story is fiction but it could have happened — and probably has. It was among a series of tales that began appearing on a mysterious blog two years ago, short stories about life in the secretive marijuana-growing world of Northern California.
The author used the name SoHumBorn (for southern Humboldt-born), and for three months the stories mesmerized the pot growers of southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties.
In the mountains of SoHumBorn's world, bodies were buried like secrets. Mothers dressed their children for school while federal drug agents surrounded the house. Growers' posses dispensed frontier justice.
The author knew the specialty coffee that pot growers drink — Signature Coffee from Redway in southern Humboldt — and knew that growers take supplies of it when they travel, certain they'll find nothing as good anywhere else.
Her stories — for many assumed that only a woman would dare be so open about the pot world — exposed a still-wild and clandestine California in a manner reminiscent of the way John Cheever lifted the veil over 1950s East Coast suburbia.
"Part of what makes our community really close-knit is a sense of having to come together to protect our way of life," said Shannon Bridges, a southern Humboldt resident and avid reader of SoHumBorn's blog posts. "She was the first to write about it from the inside in such a public way."
Couples argued over the stories. Chat rooms buzzed.
Then one day in February 2009, the blog vanished like the grower in SoHumBorn's story. Readers were bereft. A rumor spread that angry growers had figured out who she was and ordered her to shut up.
Unsparing honesty
SoHumBorn's stories gathered power from their unsparing honesty about weed life, its giddy freedom, its compromises and disaffections.
In the late 1960s and '70s, hippies arrived in the lumber-depleted mountains of southern Humboldt County, searching for an alternative to mainstream America that was natural and honest.
Then came marijuana. At first, the hippies grew it for their own use. As its price rose relentlessly, they became entrepreneurs and outlaws. They proved surprisingly square. Pot money allowed them to create self-reliant villages. They had Little League and quilting bees and volunteer fire departments.
Two more pages at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pot-blogger-20101117,0,654137.story
