1975

My Stash Box

The Audio Oscillator before the new top

On the heels of the hippy movement of the 1960’s, marijuana use in the 1970’s was widespread, especially in a university town like Gainesville.  I first smoked marijuana in 1971 while at lunch with friends that I worked with at the University which was not the most pleasant of experiences but by 1775 I was enjoying marijuana regularly.  One day in 1975, probably while high, I decided I needed something to store my marijuana and associated paraphernalia in, a stash box. After giving some thought of what might make a good stash box, not too big nor too small, something more permanent than the cardboard box I had been using.  After thinking about it I remembered an old electrical device that I had for many years that had a nice wooden box that was the perfect size. After digging through several boxes of my old stuff that had been stored since I moved out of home back in 1970, I finally found it, the 1000 ~ Audio Oscillator.  It was just the perfect size. On the top of the box was all sorts of connectors and a tuning fork which at first I thought I would leave and just remove the inside components. After removing the top, I found it wasn’t easy to remove the inside parts and keep the outside parts so I decided to make a new top.  I happened to have a nice piece of redwood board that came from the old shelving Dad had saved from the Chemistry building renovation. This seemed appropriate since the audio oscillator itself came from the Chemistry Department given me back in 1967.  I cut the board to size, rounded the edges, and attached the top to the box with a couple of brass hinges I bought George’s Hardware.  I lined the bottom with a piece of mole-skin padding used for blisters and I had a very nice stash box.  I used the stash box until 1989 when I moved to Virginia and stopped smoking marijuana and the box was stored away in in moving boxes.

For many years my stash box has sat on a shelf in my study. In 2023 it still contained items from 1975: Zig-Zag and Job strawberry flavored cigarette papers, 35mm film can that still contained marijuana seeds, plastic vial that was used to store marijuana, a roach stone and a small stone pipe.