A Week in a Madhouse

Oak Knoll Hospital, after it was deserted

Back in the Sixties I was a citizen of Teenage Wasteland. I cared little for my high school classes, (except for Journalism, since I edited the school paper). On a weekend, a climbing buddy drove over to my house.

From Lightbulb Coffee:

“Got any weed?” he asked, as he slammed the door of his old Plymouth.

“Negative,” I said. “No acid either.”

Faced with the prospect of a weekend with nothing to do besides watch TV or wander the muddy spring hillsides, I came up with a bright idea.

“The drugstore on Center Street sells Asthmador cigarettes,” I offered, “and they’re made of Belladonna and Datura.” (The common names of these plants are deadly nightshade and locoweed, both known to kill the cattle that ate them.)

“Let’s get some,” said Adam.

We walked over to the drugstore—the same one that refused to sell me condoms—and picked a pack of the old asthma remedy from a shelf of patent medicines.

In my back yard we tried smoking one of the cardboard-tipped cigarettes. After waiting a few minutes, we agreed that the only noticeable effect was a slight numbness in the chest.

“I think we should try eating it,” I said.

I dumped the contents of several of the medicinal cigarettes into a cereal bowl, and we ate the dry, crumbly herbs with spoons, washing it down with water.

Please, don’t ever try this at home.

I don’t remember much about the effects of the Nightshade and Locoweed, but I vaguely remember my parents coming home home and finding Alan and me completely out of it, and hallucinating. After my parents dropped me off at the emergency room at the naval hospital, I remember being roughly examined by a military policeman checking my arms and legs for needle tracks. I was then given an injection of Thorazine, whereupon I blacked out.

I awoke the next morning in between starched white sheets in a white room with white sunlight flooding through a window. To my still dilated eyes, everything I looked at had a supernatural glow, like a halo. The door opened, and a woman wearing white stuck her head into my room and announced, “Chow call, ten minutes in the day room” Before she closed the door, I noticed two blue stripes along the brim of her nurse’s cap: a lieutenant, not an angel I realized.

After breakfast I learned that I had been committed to the Neuropsychiatric Ward of the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. I ended up staying a week. There were daily visits with a Navy doctor, group therapy sessions, and the afternoons were free for sports or hobbies. The effects of the locoweed were gone by the first afternoon, and I started an oil painting. I was enjoying myself. I thought about Vincent van Gogh recovering from his shaving accident at the monastery.

The week in the NP ward was an eye-opener. Gay Annapolis graduates, lesbian corpsmen, and manic-depressive comedians were living under one roof, and I got an earful. I had known for years that the Navy was well-supplied with homosexuals, but nobody talked about it. Decades later, when gay people were officially accepted in the armed forces, I was amazed that it had taken so long.

For the complete rundown on my short stay in the booby hatch, and to meet some unforgettable characters, please read Lightbulb Coffee, or How I Survived the Sixties. It’s available in Paperback or Kindle on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books, Inc.