Saturday 5 October 2019

Sunday, September 29th, 2019


Regina, Saskatchewan

Drugs Are Just Bad

I could not believe it, but it began snowing in Saskatchewan when I landed there just after 9:00 a.m.  I walked through some of the super-wet stuff on Green Turtle Road and later Victorian Avenue.  On the flight I saw more than one Indigenous person on board as passengers.  I love these people—the First Nations—who got such a raw deal and treatment from so many white folks.  In my walking through the wind and snow, I contemplated our Native Peoples, many of whom are struggling with drugs and alcohol.  I thought of the lyrics of the superb entertainer from the Cree Nation, Buffy Ste. Marie, who was born right here in Saskatchewan.  Before becoming a monk, I used to sing this song by Buffy, in my hitch-hiking days;  the lyrics are:

Cod'ine

An' my belly is craving, I got shakin' in my head
I feel like I'm dyin' an' I wish I were dead
If I lived till tomorrow it's gonna be a long time
For I'll reel and I'll fall and rise on codine
An' it's real, an' it's real, one more time

When I was a young man I learned not to care
Wild whiskey, confronted I often did swear
My mother and father said whiskey is a curse
But the fate of their baby is many times worse
An' it's real, an' it's real, one more time

You'll forget your woman, you'll forget about man
Try it just once, an' you'll try it again
It's sometimes you wonder and it's sometimes you think
That I'm a-living my life with abandon to drink
An' it's real, an' it's real, one more time

Stay away from the cities, stay away from the towns
Stay away from the men pushin' the codine around
Stay away from the stores where the remedy is found
I will live a few days as a slave to codine
An' it's real, an' it's real, one more time

An' my belly is craving, I've got a shakin' in my head
An' I've started heating whether my body said
Steady yourself with the grains of cocaine
An' you'll end dead or you'll end up insane
An' it's real, an' it's real, one more time

An' my belly is craving, I got shaking in my head
I feel like I'm dyin' an' I wish I were dead
If I lived till tomorrow it's gonna be a long time
For I'll reel and I'll fall and rise on codine
An' it's real, an' it's real, one more time
An' it's real, an' it's real, one more time ©Buffy Ste. Marie

This song is about the hazardous nature of drugs, intoxication and the like.  Stay away from it.

Thank you, Buffy.  https://youtu.be/d3bfqlTCHZk

May the Source be with you!
5 km

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