Remembering Richard Mitchell, Part 3

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Once he told us about the only time that he tried marijuana. A former student of his had paid him a visit after returning from Vietnam. Upon leaving the office, the soldier gave Mitchell a “gift.” He said he thanked him and immediately hid the joint in his desk.

Later, while sitting in his office with time to kill, Mitchell decided to give it a go. He said that as he lit the joint, he half expected the FBI to burst into his office and arrest him. But they never showed. As someone who rolled his own cigarettes, he said his first reaction was to wonder why people would smoke something that tasted so horrible.

He then went to have lunch with a colleague at a Glassboro diner. He said he’s always been a picky (sometimes he brought his own food when he went out to dinner with others), extremely light eater, but on this occasion, he found himself ordering seconds. In the middle of a particularly engaging conversation, Mitchell said Attila the Hun walked up to the table. After briefly stopping his conversation, he greeted the warrior, then continued talking to his friend (he said that neither he nor his colleague ever mentioned that lunch afterwards).

That evening he had to do a show in Philadelphia (I have no idea what show and welcome any information that anyone might have about it). It was raining and the night was foreboding. He mentioned a particularly ominous Sunoco sign that had since been torn down.

He didn’t say much about the show, except that he felt it was the best show he had ever done (at least he thought so that night), though he has no recollection of what he said.

That was his first and only experience with marijuana.