On my 24th birthday my roommate organized a picnic with a big group of friends. It was somewhere in the Hollywood hills near Laurel Canyon. Or maybe it was off a trail somewhere near Patrick's Roadhouse up PCH. I forget. But I do remember the many bottles of cheap Chianti from Trader Joes and someone's bright idea to gather wildflowers from the pretty meadow. Gathering turned into drunken frolicking with attempts at weaving daisy chains and making leaf pile angels. The Smiths/Cure/Depeche Mode mix tape on the boom box was turned off in favor of a group rendition of Age of Aquarius, complete with choreography. We were modern day wood nymphs! We were one with nature! We were ... good lord ... covered in welts.If only there had been signs.
11 comments:
Terrific story. I can just see you guys in a stupor, unknowingly adorning each other with poison ivy. YIKES. If your reaction is anything like mine (not to mention my son's who has to go to the hospital and the staff shake their heads saying "we've never seen anything like this in our life"), then it was weeks of unsavory rashes and itching so incessant that you wanted to just be put out of your misery! Poison oak and poison sumac are prevalent here and there certainly are no signs - that's for sure!!
Hilarious!
I had a few mix tapes with the Cure, the Smiths and Depeche Mode, too. Luckily no poison oak though.
HA! Hilarious. What a memory.
You made leaf pile angels in piles of poison oak. You poor little retro-hippie. It's such a darling image.
If I wasn't familiar with the horrors of poison oak, I'd be laughing.
I'm like your nephew. Hospital bound. It's one of those things you don't build an immunity to. In fact, you become more sensitive with each proceeding exposure
Never had poison oak, although I was around it a lot as a kid. I figured I had an immunity, but at this point, I would not want to test whether it's changed.
Where is this sign, Laurie?
Thanks, guys.
While I had a pretty severe reaction to that nasty little plant, I didn't suffer like PA or my nephew. (Though, now that I know you can have a worse reaction on subsequent exposure I am glad I didn't go traipsing up that pathway in the picture!)
Mister E, it's behind the baseball diamond at Lower Arroyo Seco Park.
Until tomorrow, everyone...
This is hilarious!!! you have made me giggle this morning, I thank you for that!
Gotta laugh at that one!!!
My dad used to clear our hill of poison oak with his bare hands and arms...until one day, he decided to burn it...unfortunately, the poison was worse and he broke out in a horrible rash reaction...oatmeal baths, a lot of calamine lotion...don't think he went to the hospital, but then, I was probably only in kindergarten or there abouts...and in those days, the doctors made house calls!!! I have always been susceptible, and can't even imagine what my reaction would've been had I made leaf pile angels!!!
"On my 24th birthday my roommate organized a picnic with a big group of friends."
Somehow, I knew this was not going to end well.
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