Why I Dont do drugs — Part 1 — My Uncle

When I was in grade 12, I had some friends throw a blanket party for me. Does anyone know what a blanket party is? If you go to boarding school, you would know. Well, hopefully you wouldn't know. A blanket party is when they throw a blanket over your head and hit you with things. And usually it's not done in fun. Usually it's done because you've done something that has offended them and they don't want you to know who they are as they punish you for whatever you've done. And what I had done, in American terminology, I had narced. In Australianism, I had dogged. I had information. I had inside information that a friend of mine who had never drank alcohol in his life, his roommate, who was notorious for drinking all the time, had a huge shipment of stuff that had come in. And they were going to have a massive party on Saturday night. And I was going to be away. And for some reason, well, I'll explain the reason to you in a little bit, but I really, really, because I was gone that weekend, I just felt all weekend long I was just churning inside. And my mother could tell. She said, "Dave, what's wrong?" And I said, "Well, I know that Scott is going to be drinking this weekend for the first time because he said he likes Dave and his friends and he just might try some stuff." And I said, "I just, I feel so—" and I didn't know the word, but it was responsible. "I feel like I should do something to stop Scott." And she said, "Well, you need to call the dean and tell him." So I finally got up the courage and I called the dean and I said, "Look, do not tell them where this information came from. Just act like it was completely a random mistake that you found it. I'll tell you where the stuff is. It's in Dave's closet. Just go and just do a room search. Search the whole dorm and you'll just find it." But instead, the dean stormed up the stairs. He went straight into Dave's room. He bashed the door open. He went over and first of all he said, "Give me the alcohol!" Dave goes, "What alcohol?" He goes, "You know, the alcohol in your closet." And he says, "What alcohol? I don't have any alcohol. I don't know what you're talking about." And so he goes and opens the closet, and there's the briefcase just like I told him. And Dave's brother had been up just a couple days before and brought whiskey and vodka and a few things that was inside of this briefcase. And the dean just pulls it out and says, "Unlock this." And he said, "It's not mine, it's my brother's. He just left it here for the weekend. He's gonna pick it up next week on his way through." He said, "Unlock it, Dave Edgren." He said, "I don't have the combination. It's not mine. It's my brother's." He said, "What's in here?" He said, "I don't know. It's my brother's." And he had a really good alibi. And so he's just sitting there, and finally the dean just decides, "Fine. I'll show you what's in here." And I don't know, this guy, not the brightest. And he takes the briefcase and he smashes it against the wall. Just slams it. And it starts to, of course, shatter and oozes booze. Down out of it. And he goes, "So what's that?" Dave Edgren goes, "I don't know. It's my brother's. Smells like whiskey." And he says, "Well, that's what it is." And anyway, then for some reason he dragged it all the way down to his office, leaving the trail behind him. And so when I got back, they knew that Scott was the only one in their party that was new, and Scott was the only one who wouldn't talk to anyone outside of the group to try to impress them or just get their information, like what do they think or whatever. And so when I was walking down the hall to go take my shower the first morning that I was back, and all I had around me was a towel, I got halfway down the hall and Dave's door— Scott's door as well— but Dave, his door flew open. He said, "Edgren, stop." And I stopped. He said, "Just go back to your room." So I said, "Okay." So I went back to my room and he walked down to the end of the hall And he looked and he said, "No, guys, I told you it's not happening." And then I heard them arguing back and forth with him. And he said, "I told you it's not happening. Go. Now. No." And he came back and I know there were other people because I heard their voices. And when he came back he said, "Um, did you have a good weekend?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "Make any phone calls?" And I said, "Mm, maybe." He said, Yeah, well, you got us in a lot of trouble, and those guys were not happy. And I'm not happy either, but I respect you. And so I told them not to throw a blanket party for you. And I'd seen other people after a blanket party, bruised, and sometimes things got broken. And I knew why he said, "I respect you." And it's the weirdest thing, but one time I was in the gym, and I was working out, and I saw somebody's foot outside the workout door, out the back door of the gym. And so I went out around there, And there was Dave, and he was smoking a cigarette. And we weren't allowed to smoke on campus, it was an Adventist school. And he said, "Do you want one?" He pulled out another one. I said, "No, no, I don't smoke." He goes, "That's cool, no worries." And from that one experience of me saying, "No thanks, I don't smoke," he decided, and he told me later, that he respected me because I said what I believed. And I did what I believed, and I just said, "No thanks, I don't smoke." And I wasn't influenced to join him. Well, the reason why I felt so responsible, and the reason why I have such a strong aversion to alcohol is because the family, all drugs. It's because of the family I grew up in. When I was a little kid, I can remember on Thanksgiving going to my grandparents' house, and my uncle, he was probably 17, 18 years old, and he had his own little caravan behind the house. And we got a big turkey that was there for Thanksgiving, and my uncle was about 6'4", and he had a whole turkey as well out in his caravan, and he was eating it before Thanksgiving dinner just to get warmed up, he said. But as he was sitting there ripping off pieces of chicken, and we were just— or turkey— and we were just eating pieces of turkey and talking and stuff, He said, "Oh, I'll be right back." And so he left. And I don't know why, maybe because I was a 10-year-old, I just started going through all the drawers in his desk and through the drawers in his bedside table. And in the second drawer down, I found a bunch of dry green leaves. What's that? Why would he— that's like, he just got a bunch of leaves from outside and put them in his drawer. That's silly. And so when he came back in, I said, "Earl, what's that stuff?" And he said, You gotta love Earl, he just goes, "I'll show ya." And so, he gets out a piece of paper, and he lays this piece of paper out, and he takes some of the leaves, and he crunches them up, puts them in the paper there, rolls it up, rolls the ends, puts it in his mouth, lights it, goes, "It's marijuana." And I said, "What's marijuana?" He said, "Well, it's like cigarettes, only it makes you feel better than cigarettes do." And I said, "Oh." He said, "Well, you can't have any of this, and don't you dare tell your mother that I've got this in here, because she'll—" She'll kill me. So now you know what marijuana is, so I've taught you something, but don't you smoke marijuana. I said, okay. Now my Uncle Earl, he was a lot of fun to be with because he was always out there, always doing crazy things. And he had in his garage, next to his caravan, he had a collection of road signs. And the way that he got these road signs is in America we don't have the metal— they probably do now, but the posts that the signs are on are all wooden. 4x2s, and rather than the metal poles. And when he would get completely stoned off of his face, he would get in the back of someone else's 4x4, in the back of their ute, and he would stand there like he was surfing. And they'd get going about 30 miles an hour, which is about 55, 60 kilometers an hour. And when they would get close to a signpost, he would jump out and hip and shoulder the sign and snap it off. And then he would pick it up, and he didn't feel the pain or anything because he was No? And he would pick up the sign and he'd put it in the back and he'd be like, "Ooh, a U-turn! Cool, I don't have a U-turn!" And put that in his car. And so he had this collection of road signs. And this is just kind of the mentality I grew up watching. And I really respect my mom for taking me into this environment. She would always tell me, "Now, you ask lots of questions after you've been to Grandpa and Grandma's house and after you've, you know, been around Uncle Earl and the other uncles and make sure you ask lots of questions from Mommy, because I can tell you if anything's different. I'll tell you what it is. And so anyway, one time when I was walking around the place, and Earl also liked to get a couple of dogs, and he liked to— this is really bad, but he would— he learned this from squirrels. If the dogs chase the squirrels, they'll run up the tree, and then he could shoot the squirrels with a BB gun or a shotgun or whatever, and they'll fall out of the tree, and then the dogs will finish them off. Well, he would also take people's kittens that they didn't want and do the same thing. So Earl was not— he's fun, he's really fun, but drugs messed up his mind. He wasn't only on pot, he did a whole gamut of things. And Earl, to this day, his brain is not like your brain. It used to be, but he's had a bit too much chemicals going on in there. So I'm walking around the property, my grandpa