Dianne got in a car wreck so we had to move back to my parents home (who had moved to Lakeland, Florida) to live while she recovered. We than moved to a duplex in North Miami, where we had a pet white rabbit named Rabbit, and a black dog named Shanti. I had a tree trimming business with David Tobias (Norland Class of 69) called “The Tree People” and I also sold Shaklee natural organic products. We also worked on an underground paper called “The Rainbow Bridge” which featured articles on organic gardening, yoga, health foods, communes, pop festivals, and other articles the hippie generation was involved in. Our income was meager and we struggled as a young couple to make ends meet.
Commentary by Bruce-1972 – The hippie movement was an enormous catalyst for change in literally every aspect of society and the various social changes it started continued to grow and expand rapidly throughout our world for the next decade and more. One of those changes was the rapidly growing use of recreational drugs – including marijuana in the largest segment of the population the post war baby boomers. This demand continued to grow at a meteoric rate which created such a demand that no matter how much marijuana my fellow outlaws and myself acquired – we never had close to enough to fill the demand. We could literally sell any amount of marijuana we had on hand with no trouble at all.
While I was struggling to earn an income for my new wife and soon to be son, Jeff Tuckband (Norland Class of 69) asked if he could stash a bale of marijuana at my home that he brought down form Gainesville, Florida where he was attending college. He said he’d pay me $500 and if I could sell any of the pot I could charge $10.00 more a pound and make even more money. The second time he did this David Tobias (Norland Class of 69) and I sold the entire 50 pounds ourselves and the start of a big time marijuana business began. I was soon not struggling with finances any longer, as one bale turned into as many as we could get. The demand for marijuana at this time was huge as the hippie movement was in full swing by now.