twocorgis said:
adorshki said:
Ohhh...you don't know the half of it..... :shock: :lol:
And I was born here.
Maybe that explains a lot. :lol:
That's funny, Al! :lol:
The truth about Weed:
Town's name is joke fodder, but Weed rolls with it
By Sam McManis
Sacramento Bee
Posted: 10/20/2011 11:56:31 AM PDT
Updated: 10/20/2011 12:16:56 PM PDT
Arch a brow and crack wise; show your rapier wit and pun with impunity.
Weed does not mind. Weed abides. Hell, Weed is right there with you, civic tongue deep in cheek, as it makes rib-jabbing references to the fact that its name is a popular euphemism for a certain illegal substance.
Whatever makes you steer the car off Interstate 5 at exit 745, 747 or 748 and plunk down a few bucks to prop up the sagging local economy of this city at the foot of an impressive volcanic extrusion, Mount Shasta -- hey, it's all chill, dude.
So what if the town's winking nod to drug culture may draw the Cheech & Chong and Harold & Kumar masses. These are hard times. And, besides, there aren't many other budding prospects for this former logging burg nearly 30 years after the sawmill shuttered. Founder Abner Weed, the lumber baron who made this a humming company town in the early 1900s, might be rolling in his grave. But Weed denizens just kind of, you know, roll with it.
There, right off the Central Weed exit, is the Weed Store, purveyors of an array of novelty items based on the mock-innocent assumption that people will be shocked -- shocked! -- that you're wearing a T-shirt with a marijuana reference ... until reading the fine print: "Weed, CA."
Offerings include:
-- "Dude, Weed Is Cool."
-- "Next Exit: Weed."
-- "My Child is a Weed High Honor Student"
--"I love Weed! It's a town, officer."
Down the street at the rival Weed Smokeshop, one of the multihued shirts in the window proclaims, "Weed Makes Me Happy."
Over at the Mount Shasta Brewing Co., on the west side of town, ale offerings include "Mountain High IPA" and "Shastafarian Porter." Each bottle cap is stamped with the slogan, "Try Legal Weed" and "A Friend in Weed is a Friend Indeed." For the low, low price of $6, you can buy lovely earrings made from said bottle caps.
The popular local diner, the Hi-Lo Cafe, features a marijuana-reference curio shelf, including "Weed Police" beanies and "Got Weed?" water bottles.
The franchise of that ubiquitous truck stop, Pilot Travel Centers, has Weedian offerings like key rings and hats, located suspiciously close to the Doritos display rack.
Even the stately Weed Historic Lumber Town Museum gift shop, where curator Harold Orcutt tries to keep the town's reputation intact, sells "I'm High on Weed" shot glasses, though Orcutt is quick to note he also offers "Weed: The Natural State" shot glasses for those who don't cotton to drug-infused humor.
But Mark Stensaas, owner of the Weed Store, makes no apologies.
"At this point, there's universal approval in town for the way we're (marketing) it," he said. "We have fun. It's tongue in cheek. We play that card, like, 'Wow, I don't know why it's so funny. We do love Weed ... California.'
"And, you know, my 16-year-old daughter actually is a Weed High honor student."
Stensaas, 50, grew up in Weed and left to go to college in 1979. The International Paper Co. mill was still humming along when he left. By the time he came back to start his own family two decades ago, the mill had closed and taken 600 jobs, devastating for a town of just under 3,000 residents.
Current census data reflect the economic hit Weed has taken: a median income of $25,357, with 22.1 percent living below the poverty line (compared with 13.5 percent nationally).
"It had been a self-contained community," he said. "Anything you wanted, you could buy here. All the facets of small-town life were still available. Now it's a brave new world. Weed's new economic reality is being an I-5-dependent community."
Vaune Dillmann, owner of Mount Shasta Brewing Co., says 92 percent of his business comes from tourists.
That's not a great sign for Weed's economic health, he says. Dillmann, a former Oakland police officer who came to Weed in the late 1980s, loves the town and spearheaded the effort to rebuild the town arch over Main Street (where travelers pose for snapshots). But he fears for its future.
"The only reason I'm still here is because (his business has) got a very unusual name, a very unusual product, and we make quality stuff," Dillmann said. "We're hurting. There's no money. Businesses have closed."
Beyond the arch on Main Street, where tourists seldom wander, empty storefronts with "Liquidation" and "For Sale" signs rival the open shops. Four hair salons still draw business, as does the Cedar Bowling Alley, Papa's Place Cocktails and carpet and antique stores.
Roseburg Forest Products operates a biomass plant in Weed, Crystal Geyser Water has a bottling plant on the outskirts, and the College of the Siskiyous is the biggest employer.
"Slowly," Stensaas says, "things have just dried up and gone away. There's Walmart in Yreka (20 miles north) that hurt businesses even down here."
Given the dire times, the one-joke play on Weed's name seems a viable economic alternative.
"During the summer months, it's shoulder-to-shoulder people in here," said Kevin Taylor, manning cash register at the Weed Store.
"Honestly," added worker Juliana Jimenez with a sly smile, "Who doesn't want an 'I heart Weed' T-shirt? Doesn't matter who you are. We've got grandmothers coming in -- Wisconsin grandparents, not hippie grandparents. Everybody loves Weed."
William Duran, on his way home to Bend, Ore., from the Bay Area with his two sons, ages 11 and 13, pulled up in his black BMW X3 SUV looking for mementos.
"I've driven through here a number of times, but this is the first time I've stopped," Duran said. "The kids wanted to. It's a quaint little place."
Laren Lamb, who lives in Watertown, S.D., and was on an extended road trip of the West, saw the billboard just south on I-5 and had to stop. She bought a poncho and key chain for herself, a hat for her brother and postcards to mail to friends.
How will an "I Love Weed" T-shirt go over in South Dakota?
"Probably not too well," she said, shrugging. "That's why I bought the key chain."
Long before Weed embraced its euphemistic side, it struggled with its identity. In 1971, Mayor Frank Rizzo proposed changing the name to Shastina because of, according to a Bee story at the time, its "relationship to undesirable foliage including marijuana."
Rizzo had argued that "nobody likes a weed," but the City Council and the citizenry at large shouted him down. That episode drew national attention to Weed, in the form of one of those kicker stories at the end of a newscast.
Two decades later, Dillmann may have had that in mind when he hit upon the idea of marketing the double entendre on his beer bottles. In 2008, he battled the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which wanted him to stop using bottle caps with the "Try Legal Weed" play on words.
Dillmann sued. He drew support from Weed's mayor, City Council, a Siskiyou County supervisor, even got letters from Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Civil libertarians and beer connoisseurs rallied to his defense and, more important, the media paid attention. Outlets ranging from Fox News to High Times magazine featured his fight, which sparked interest.
When the federal government finally approved his bottle caps, Dillmann told reporters, "Weed fought the law, and Weed won." (You can now buy a T-shirt with that very slogan at Dillmann's tasting room.)
"Some people said I should be the subject of a college marketing course, titled 'How to get a million dollars in free advertising and get the federal government to pay for it,' " Dillmann said, leaning back in the chair of his office laden with bric-a-brac.
Asked if he was exploiting the good name of Abner Weed to make a buck off a mere play on words, Dillmann rustled papers on his desk.
"I've got a letter from the (Weed) family giving me rights to use the name with no royalties attached," Dillmann said. "Listen, I'll play with the name and put Weed on the map, but I don't want to offend (the family). I've gotten thousands of emails supporting me."
In fact, Dillmann may be the only person in the nation to have autographed photos of conservative radio talker Tom Sullivan and reggae artist Ziggy Marley side by side. Sullivan embraced Dillmann's fight against the government; Marley embraced the "Shastafarian" label.
Notoriety has a downside, though. Dillmann draws all types of characters to his office.
"I was solicited by something called the 420 Club out of Connecticut," he said. "They wanted me to be their national spokesman. I said, 'Hey, man, I'm a retired cop from Oakland, officer of the year in 1972. I can't do that type of stuff."
Then there was the visit from a 6-foot-8 mystical preacher from the Netherlands, dressed in black with a trench coat and long, flowing beard. He gave Dillmann a sacred offering.
"It was a plastic bag of sterilized infrared hemp seeds," Dillmann said. "He wanted me to put a few granules in each beer. He told me, 'I've been blessed or scorned since birth with special powers.' Guy says he can predict car crashes and things. I said, 'C'mon, man.' About two sentences later, he waved his arms and that blue beer can on my shelf over there exploded. The lid blew right off. Foam was everywhere. The guy shrugs and says, 'See what I mean?' I said, 'That's enough, buddy. You're outta here.' "
The weirdness only escalated a few years back when Dillmann introduced "Lemurian Lager," a beer named after what some say is a mysterious ancient civilization of 8-foot-tall beings who dwell inside Mount Shasta. Smelling publicity, he held a contest to draw an image of a Lemurian for the label. Entries poured in from Weed and other Siskiyou County towns, but Dillmann said he also experienced the wrath of fundamentalist Lemurians.
"This woman drives up in a pink Mercedes, wearing furs and diamonds and a huge beehive hairdo," he said. "She says, 'I am the human representation of the Lemurian race. How dare you put on a contest? Lemurians don't even drink beer.' "
These days, few in Weed will admit worshipping Lemuria. But Amanda Craig, who worked at the Weed Smokeshop, says one of her friends is "totally into it. She tells me, when the time comes -- I think sometime on the Mayan calendar in 2012 -- they'll jump off the mountain and give us their Lemurian blessing. I'm like, 'OK, then. I can't wait.' "
Perhaps that can be Weed's next big marketing gimmick: Lemuria, redux.
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I just want to point out that at least in Southern California the movement for fair treatment of lemurians is gaining traction.
They're a lot more open-minded down there.
