Hit Coffee is the story of Will Truman (trumwill), a southern transplant in the mountain west with an IT background who bides his time substitute teaching while his wife brings home the bacon. This site is a collection of reflections on the goings-on in his life and in the world around him. You will probably be relieved to know that he does not generally refer to himself in the third-person except when he's writing short bios on his web page.
Greetings from Callie, Arapaho, a red town in a red state known for growing red meat. And from Redstone, Arapaho (Aw-RAH-pah-hoe), a blue city with blue collar roots that's been feeling blue for quite some time.
Nothing written on this site should be taken as strictly true, though if the author were making it all up rest assured the main character and his life would be a lot less unremarkable.
This website is maintained by Guy Webster (web), who also contributes from time to time. Web hails from the midwest and currently lives in Truman's home city of Colosse, Delosa. He works as a utility IT person at Southern Tech University, their alma mater.
Also contributing is Sheila Tone (stone) a West Coaster, breeder, and lawyer who has probably hooked up with some loser just like you and sees through your whole pathetic little act.
The second saddest post was on MamaPundit, where she pointed out that her son, on admittance to the rehab facility last year, scored in the 99th percentile on verbal ability and comprehension. At the time of the posting, he was unable to speak or read.
The first saddest post contained no text and three pictures. Entitled: “Henry Louis Granju 1991-2010″
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Oh Jesus that’s is so sad. It could have been my nephews; they probably also would have scored in the 99th percentile verbally. What a terrible waste.
I have always been very anti-drug. That poor mom.
Comment by Maria — June 2, 2010 @ 10:12 am
I know Katie and her family, as she is a fellow local blogger and social media guru. Her kids and mine have gone to the same school, and we’ve been following this case heavily for the last month.
First lesson: drill into your kids’ heads from birth - through thought, word and example, that they should never try or even experiment with smoking or illegal drugs (or alcohol until they are legal, and even then some) so that it is such a part of your family’s culture they wouldn’t think of trying pot any more than they would rolling up a newspaper full of leaves, lighting, and trying to smoke it. Make it so it’s completely beyond the realm of rational and normal behavior. I never have once in my life tried a cigarette, marijuana, and certainly nothing any more dangerous not because it was FORBIDDEN but because it was as STUPID and DANGEROUS, like playing with matches or running with scissors in the house. It’s simply beyond possibility that it would ever be done.
Second lesson: If your kid comes to you and tearfully admits they tried a pot cigarette - don’t vilify them, put them down, punish within an inch of their life.. This is one thing they did right, they took a moment of weakness and an admission of guilt into a valuable life lesson.
Third lesson: KEEP ON THEM. Don’t ever let them in a situation where it, or something like it, could happen again. Look into drug awareness and rehab programs even with the one experimentation, because you never know what effect it could have had on them. They may be contrite one day and searching for another high the next…
Finally: If it gets out of hand, don’t wish it away. I still don’t know all the details of Katie and Henry’s stories so I don’t know exactly what path they took, but I’m sure there are plenty of kids out there that took advantage of their parents’ lax attitudes toward “growing up” that they assumed a little experiment as a teen was normal, they’d have their fun early and that they’d grow out of it. That way can be tragic.
I will pray for their family that they are able to find peace and comfort in the coming days, months and years…
Comment by Barry — June 2, 2010 @ 11:36 am
This is too sad for words.
I disagree with Barry, at least about the pot. Pot is part of our culture, not quite as much as alcohol but getting close. I don’t think it’s logical to blame his methadone overdose/robbery head injury on pot, or on parental laxness. And it’s not a workable strategy to try to brainwash them that drugs are eeevil. They’ll see too many people doing them without bad consequences, and you’ll just lose credibility.
From reading the newspaper story, it looks he 1) he either went *alone* to make a buy, or to sell, and he got robbed by three people who hit him with a tire iron.
That’s only incidentally about drugs. It’s really about why you shouldn’t do risky or illegal things alone. People who break the law one way are probably more likely to break it another way.
So he was injured, but apparently conscious — because he took some methadone from some other friends. Probably what happened is he went to some friends’ place or called them for help, and didn’t want to go to the hospital because he didn’t want to get in trouble. He and they didn’t realize how badly injured he was. He probably said he was in pain, and they gave him the best painkiller they had, which was methadone, an opiate. He took too much. He probably went to sleep, then didn’t wake up. His friends realized too late how bad off he was and finally called 911.
When people hear about bad things like this happening, they often react emotionally and develop illogical ideas about how stricter drug policies could prevent it. But all the drugs this kid took were already illegal. And he knew his mother disapproved of him doing it. He was too young. And she shipped him out of state to an inpatient rehab for nine months once he developed a problem. He did this after he came back. I don’t see what else she could have done.
A lot of people are alcoholics, but we went down the Prohibition road and saw it didn’t work.
Comment by Sheila Tone — June 2, 2010 @ 12:17 pm
The notion of keeping drugs as an indescribable evil worked for me until some point during college. It probably kept me from trying LSD when I was in late high school and college when the stuff was all around me. It was mid-college before I tried pot and after Walt’s death I swore off ever trying LSD.
I think the most frustrating thing about all of this is, as I said in my previous post, different things will work with different people. Sometimes Just Say No really is the more effective strategy. Sometimes it backfires when it leads to more secrets being kept. I think it’s more successful than not at keeping kids from trying illegal drugs, but I think it amplifies the ill-effects once they’ve been tried.
I consider pot a gateway drug for a couple of reasons. First, I think it’s indicative of people in search of chemical relief or a chemical high. But I think it’s mostly an indicator. The whole “drugs feel good therefore I will find more serious ones to try” sensation you can get with alcohol. The second reason that pot is a gateway drug is precisely because it is illegal. It introduces you to a lot of the wrong people. Once you’ve hopped that fence, you get more exposure and access to worse drugs. If pot were legal, I don’t think this second part would be an issue.
Comment by trumwill — June 2, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
I think it’s indicative of people in search of chemical relief or a chemical high. But I think it’s mostly an indicator. The whole “drugs feel good therefore I will find more serious ones to try” sensation you can get with alcohol. The second reason that pot is a gateway drug is precisely because it is illegal.
Pot is the gateway drug only because it’s the first one most people try. My first drug experience was stealing and using codeine. I doubt I’m the only one. Taking a pill is a much lower barrier than smoking something. Addicts want to use before we ever try.
I’m constantly amazed at how much non-addicts think they know about us. No one would give advice to parents about how to keep their children from developing schizophrenia, or how to stop being autistic. “Hey this is how my parents raised me, and I didn’t develop schizophrenia or leukemia. So that way of parenting obviously prevents both.” Barry’s method will work on kids who don’t want to use, which is almost everyone, to be honest. I mean alcohols legal, but a solid majority of people aren’t homeless alcoholics. If it actually keeps people who would want drugs from trying, what happens when they aren’t kids and move out? Some people will start using a 18 or 21 instead of 13 or 14. I’ve also known serious alcoholics who wouldn’t touch drugs. Did them a fat lot of good.
This will sound awful, but H died for what he loved. His family will cope better with him dead than a vegetable, which seems to have been the most likely alternative. I’m sure this is no comfort at all to anyone, but you can’t change other people. It just can’t be done, even by parents.
Comment by rob — June 2, 2010 @ 4:13 pm
I might be atypical, but my upbringing treated alcohol as normal and some drug experimenting as a normal part of growing up. I got told “It’s bad but you’ll try it someday, the peer pressure will make you. Just remember its bad.”
This message -enraged- me. The whole idea that Peer Pressure would make me do something stupid, whether it’s smoke pot or sleep around or shoplift, just because its a supposed part of growing up, was simply incindiary.
Just one more story supporting the claim that Different Things work for Different People.
Comment by Nanani — June 2, 2010 @ 5:31 pm
Rob,
In my previous post on the subject, I laid out three categories. One in which there is nothing you can do, one in which you don’t have to worry no matter what you do, and a third where what you do makes a difference. You’re talking about the first category. I don’t know what percentage of addicts that comprises of, but I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere south of 100%. Henry Granju, considering the lack of environmental factors that contributed to his condition, was probably in this category like you were. It’s the not knowing and not knowing what to do with the kids in the second category that I think gets people’s minds going. It’s the haunting one.
Comment by trumwill — June 2, 2010 @ 6:49 pm