“It’s an entry drug,” my friend says when I tell her that my son wants to join the frisbee team.
“I know, right?” I say. “That worries me.”
To my son, I say, “Great. Just don’t become one of those stoners who says ‘dude’ all the time.”
Can I say that? It’s probably wrong to use the label “stoners,” but my son smiles knowingly.
Frisbee wasn’t a team thing when I was a kid. It was something you did on the beach in the soft sand where you burned your soles. I didn’t play. I could never get the hang of throwing it right, let alone catching it.
By the time I was a young adult, I met a guy who played on a team out in “Cali.” Manny wore a gold frisbee charm around his neck and was always smiling. He was a great guy, warm and friendly, and very cool; but even though he was in his twenties he rode a bike around our resort beach town. You know what that means, don’t you: D.W.I. or D.U.I.–Depending on your state. (Are there other acronyms for “I loss my license for driving under the influence?”)
The other stoners I knew always had squinty eyes and the munchies and not much mojo. They listened to Neil Young or Bob Dylan for hours on end; which later became video games.
I know. I’m being judgmental. I only inhaled a few times in my entire youthful abandon, and it never caught on for me so I’m prejudiced against it. And I’m going to catch crap about it because I keep moving to places where it seems like everyone lights up. In Steamboat, even the lawyers were puffing on their way up the mountain in the Gondola; and in Vermont… don’t get me started.
Pot smoking seems to be an accepted right of passage here. “Make sure you tell your kids to buy locally grown weed,” the other mothers say.
“That’s what their cabin is for,” say the dads about the structures their sons build to have a place of their own.
“Be the frisbee player who doesn’t smoke pot,” I say to my son.
“Don’t write about me anymore,” he says. “Kids are starting to read this stuff.”
“That’s great. Give me five.”
“I’m not giving you five for that Mom.”
My son, who shall remain nameless to protect his separate identity, goes on to tell me that not all frisbee players smoke pot, and then adds a qualifier, “probably not.”
He tells me that it’s becoming a serious college sport, and that my stereotypes taint it.
Thus in exchange for my disdain, I’ll offer a really cool link–all about the history of the frisbee–and how the game Ultimate was invented in–New Jersey–where I met that guy not really named Manfred.
(ps. Manfred’s name was changed to protect his lack of innocence.)
Kelly Salasin, November 2011
To join the conversation about substance use and parenting teens, comment below, or click here for more from myself, my nameless son, and other readers.
(And Manfred, if you’re reading this, can I use your real name? It’s so you, and so much cooler than the one I made up; without any help from my son, I might add, who refused to offer me a stereotypical pot smoking, frisbee player name.)
The Empty Nest Diary 