This morning Dementia came across a story about the origin of the codeword “420” for marijuana use. It turns out that it started in 1971 in San Raphael, California, spread to the Gratful Dead and the Deadheads, and thence to High Times Magazine. And THEN it went viral it the 90s. So everything in the following poem is true. But the fact that it started in San Raphael, home of Pearly Sweetcakes, the heroine of Shel Silverstein’s “Great Smoke Off”, pretty much made the following poem inevitable. It took less than three hours from inception to completion.
Uncle Hyena
420
by Paul Haynie
after Shel Silverstein
In the laid back California town of Sunny San Raphael
Lived some stoners called the Waldoes; you probably know them well.
They had a map to field of weed, inspiration for the mind,
And they gathered at 4:20, ’cause that field they hoped to find.