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Drugs in Podunk (Contributed by Jim Harris) In 1941 we did all the kid things, but the only incidence of drugs happened to myself and a friend, Delton Nickelson.
We lived at 7410 Hershey in a old two story house a half block off Harbor Drive. Across the street was a large two story apartment building owned by Mr. Harvey. Mr. Harvey drove a gray Chrysler AirFlow automobile, the biggest and fanciest car we had ever seen. Across Hershey, on Harbor Drive, there was a Garage that was used to repair automobiles originally, and when the repair business closed it was turned into a hatchery for baby chickens. There were rows and rows of cages filled with thousands of chicks. Delton Nickelson and myself, would help the man who owned the chickens and his employee (he had only one) clean, water and feed the chickens, and he would pay us 10 cents each day. One day Delton and I were doing our chores about 3pm and the owner said he had to leave for a little while but would come back and lock up for the evening and for us to stay until he returned. After we finished out chores we had nothing to do. Naturally being kids we were nosy and began looking around the building. In a corner we found a gallon syrup can with the top on it. We decided to see if it contained syrup so we opened the can and was amazed to find it was full of hand rolled cigarettes. They looked like they were rolled from Bugler tobacco. Naturally we decided to light up and each took one cigarette from the can. Before we could light up, we heard the owner's car drive up and in a mad rush we put the cigarettes back in the can, closed the top and put it back in the exact place we had found it. The owner came in, gave us each a dime and closed up for the day. We left and tried to calm down from nearly being caught with the cigarettes. The very next morning when we went to do our chores, there were three Houston Police Cars in front of the building and police everywhere. We ran to Delton's back yard and watched. Finally the police brought the owner out in handcuffs, put him in a police car and drove off leaving two officers at the building. That evening I asked my Dad why they police had taken the owner off in handcuffs and he said he didn't know but it would probably be in the Houston Press the next day. Sure enough, big headlines in the Press about the raid and confiscation of a large amount of Marijuana cigarettes and Marijuana. The place was being used as a distribution facility and the chickens were the cover. That was how we learned that Marijuana was a illegal drug and not to be fooled with. The real blow was that Delton and I no longer had a job.
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