Old school!

Flippin' newbie.

When I started hitting up the dispensaries in Mendocino County last year I found myself to be a babe in the woods. Not so much with cannabis itself, mind you, but with the sheer variety of product that greeted me in each and every shop I visited (and I visited a lot of shops!) But my even bigger disclaimer here was not so much the incredible variety on hand but the strength of the product I was dealing with. Wow, now that took some getting used to!

What I found out there in Mendo was that the world of marijuana had passed me by. During those long years of prohibition, federal, personal and otherwise, I learned that mota had gained strength in numbers in regards to the percentage of THC found in the average strain. When I was beginning to rediscover weed there in Fort Bragg all my acquaintances in town were long in country, either had friends up in the hills who raised dope or were farmers or dealers themselves. It was nothing for them during a visit to get out their grinder, grind down a bud or two, pack a pipe and fire it up, all without blinking or coughing. It was all too normal and that kind of normal took some getting used to.

Yeah, I felt like Rip Van Winkle there in Mendo. Like him, I found that my mental attire, wrapped up in raggedy old seventies clothes, was out of fashion and much too tight. Instead of a rusted musket I had old rolling papers on me, the gum long since gone or sticking all the rest of the leaves together. My hair was short, my mind anticipatory, my desire keen but I did not have my game on. What I wanted was something familiar, what I needed was something that I could smoke to catch up with the rest of world first so I wouldn’t appear to be such a newbie. Looking like I didn’t know better, that I didn’t have a clue about cannabis bugged me, but then again, I was a librarian and research was my bag. So, while I learned to manage the high I found my way around the new world of dope on line and in print. It has been a great time and very informative to boot.

One of the things I always mentioned when I walked into the dispensaries was this jones I had for strains like those I smoked when I was a lad. I had it in my head that I could still find a low THC model that I could laugh along with, something that would not wreck me early in the day or keep me up too late at night. I was directed to the high CBD varieties and that was a path worth taking. Those strains were medicine, helped me sleep at night, took away pain, put a nice shine on things. I now know I can trust that kind of mota and I am happy to have that in my medicine chest.

But what I was looking for was a particular kind of high and all my experimenting with contemporary indicas, sativas and hybrids just didn’t get me to where I wanted to be. What I wanted was that simple high that my old stand-bys used to bring into my life. What I wanted was something tasty, something I could wake and bake with, a dope that I could puff on a mid-afternoon walk and still be able to find my way home again. What I was looking for was my old landrace friend, Colombian Gold, and I thought I had lost it forever.

Well, today my librarian skills once again saved me. I had to find out what had happened to that strain and to my surprise I found quite a number of sites dealing with her. I found that old guys like me stilled fancied it, liked its simplicity, it’s quiet, mellow high and its old school vibe. I found that it was popular in bigger cities…L.A., Seattle, San Francisco….and Denver! Online sites Leafly, Allbud and the Potguide gave me the overviews that I needed but more helped to direct me to two different shops in Denver that have it on their menu. And while Good Chemistry only has on their medical side, Buddy Boy has it on their regular line up,

So, a quest. I feel like I am going off to visit a long lost lover. I hope it doesn’t turn out like that scene in Casablanca where Rick is left waiting in the rain at the railroad station. I hope that I don’t have a runny Google maps paper in hand when I walk out of that shop, cause that would mean it was wet from tears that said that they don’t carry it after all.

Hmm, best to call ahead! Let you all know how it turns out!

Salud!

Leafly review:

https://www.leafly.com/sativa/colombian-gold

Allbud review:

https://www.allbud.com/marijuana-strains/hybrid/colombian-gold

Interesting thread of comments about cannabis from the 70's compared to today's weed:
http://bluelight.org/vb/archive/index.php/t-432874.html

Nice review from the Cannabis Culture site: this is from their Strains of Yesterday column:

COLUMBIAN

Colombian Gold
Colombian Gold came from the highland Colombian valleys near the equator, as well as on the coast (the Caribbean and the Pacific).

This was specialty pot offered commercially in the mid-70’s, for about $60 to $100 per ounce. It was seeded, but most of the seeds were undeveloped, white and useless. A few rare, viable seeds were found that were dark, small-sized and roundish. The buds were leafy and the most beautiful golden blond color. Legend has it that upon maturity the plants were girdled, then left standing to die and cure in the mountain sun and mist.

The color and cure were unique, and the aroma, flavor and high were equally so. The smell was that of sandalwood incense, almost like frankincense. The flavor was that of a peppery cedar. It was some of the most unique tasting herb in the world, and the high was just as exciting. It was truly psychedelic, powerful and long lasting.

First came the great flavor, then the stupefying awe of the shift in consciousness followed by a giddy excitement and bursts of joyous laughter. Smile-lock and red-eye made it painfully obvious who was under the influence of this great psychedelic herb.

The plants from the seeds of the Gold were primarily of Sativa origin. They grew a medium to tall size outdoors at 45?N (Seattle), and were mostly symmetrical. On occasion the symmetry was interrupted by one side outgrowing the other, causing a rounded and bulging tipped bush look. The leaves were long and slender.

When grown in Washington state, the finished product was a sweet, spicy Sativa bud that matured around mid-November. The high was adequate but not as good as the Oaxaca Highland grown at the same latitude. The plants were also slightly hermaphroditic.

I