C.W. Bigelow
Title
They call me Shade-leaf, as if it's a big fucking joke. I was born of marijuana growers, became a marijuana grower, and have fathered what I can only hope will not be marijuana growers to be. Not that I see anything wrong in growing marijuana, it's just that I want my kids to have a better shot at life than I had. I've lived in this godforsaken town up on the high chaparral my entire life; not that I really wanted to, but that's just how everything turned out. Now, I'm stuck here. Now, I feel trapped. Growing marijuana is all I know how to do, and let me tell you that the outlaw's life is not nearly as glamorous as it seems. Work and worry define my life as a grower, and this has made me old before my time; and cynical - very, very cynical.
I was tending marijuana by the time I was six and able to weed, water, cut, and trim. Most of all, trim. The trimming's the worst part of weed farming. There's just no getting around it. Every fall as the other kids were going off with their parents to higher ground to witness the turning of the leaves, I was stuck in a trim house trimming pot. It becomes as redundant and numbing as waves rocking a boat at sea. At first you notice what you're doing, then it becomes commonplace, and then it becomes habit, and finally it becomes accepted as eternal. Trimming is the worst of it alright, but there are other factors that can drive a man insane. First becomes the realization that these plants are in charge, that these plants rule your life, that all you do is in service to them.
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