I met an elderly man at a playground...

The playground is between South St. and Lombard St on 6th. My son was off playing and this man who I assume to have been in the range of about early to mid 70's and I began chatting. He explained to me that he was a native and life long resident of the area. Our conversation drifted and we wound up discussing the multitude of various changes that South Philadelphia has gone through. As is often the case when discussing such matters with my inner-city elders, we got to talking about one of the main paradigm shifts that gets pointed out for being a major catalyst of the perceived downward spiral of the inner-city neighborhoods ; the influx of "drugs".

The odd thing was that after all that was done being discussed this old man began explaining that the way they smoked pot was very different in his day. He explained to me that they used to take big puffs off of a joint and then exhale into a paper bag; then pass it to the next guy, who would in turn inhale the exhaled smoke, hold it, then exhale again into the bag and pass and repeat on down the line.

Wow I thought, that sounds gross.