It is almost impossible for anyone who lives in a somewhat densely populated area to avoid the infamous date/time/number that for some marks the root of euphoria and for others the pinnacle of American stupidity — 4/20, coincidentally, today. Smokers nationwide snicker every time the clock strikes 4:20; April 20 after April 20, giant clouds of smoke that give Iceland a run for its money hover over America's college campuses. But few have taken the moment to exhale and ask why.
The Waldos: Long, long ago in 1971 in San Rafael, Calif., there was a group of high school buddies not too different from any other male high school group in the '70s. The Waldos — so called because they were known to hang out by a wall outside the San Rafael High School — liked to think of themselves as adventurers.
Thus in 1971, when they got word of an abandoned Coast Guard's marijuana plot by the nearby Point Reyes station, they immediately planned to trip out to the nearby peninsula to search for it. At 4:20 p.m., the boys were to meet by the Louis Pasteur statue outside the school building, hop in one of the boys' 1966 Chevy Impala, light up and head to the coast. Awaiting the momentous journey, they reminded each other throughout the day with a nonchalant, cryptic "4:20 — Louis," which, requiring a few too many brain cells, later got shortened to "4:20."
For weeks on end, the Waldos searched, and for weeks on end they failed, with no fairytale ending to follow. What they did end up with was a long−lasting tradition of smoking together the entire ride out to Point Reyes (which may have been counterproductive to their search) and a then−obscure code−word to refer to their favorite substance.
The Dead: At this point in the story, you're probably wondering how a group of stoners who spent their teenage years baked driving around Point Reyes searching for a weed garden managed to start what is now something of a national holiday, and despite the Waldos' show of dedication, your skepticism of their efficiency is not out of place. Luckily for them, the Waldos happened to know a few guys who enjoyed above−ordinary stoner status: The Grateful Dead.
In the '60s, The Dead moved from San Francisco to Marin County, where, not too far from the Waldos' hometown, one of the boys' fathers managed The Dead's real estate. One of the perks of knowing Phil Lesh, it turns out, was that the whole clan enjoyed free entry into concerts, practices, parties and — last but not least — smoking sessions, during which the Waldos' term was passed along.
The golden ticket: I know, somehow Deadhead subculture still doesn't explain how "4:20 — Louis" got from San Rafael's Waldos to Tarantino's clocks in Pulp Fiction and the current state of the library roof.
For that, we can thank Steve Bloom of the New York−based marijuana culture magazine High Times, who was hanging out in the parking lot of a Dead concert in Oakland in the early '90s. Amid the hippie−infested, pot−scented mosh, he was handed a yellow flyer that would go on to become the number's ticket to the mainstream. On it was printed "We are going to meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420−ing in Marin County" with a convenient albeit wrong explanation that 420 began in San Rafael as the police code for "Marijuana smoking in progress."
High Times posted the flyer on the Internet, and the term spread like wildfire, but the origin consisted of mere myth until in 1997 one of the Waldos contacted High Times with the true reason why the air over Somerville and every college town, coast to coast, is just a little bit cloudier today.
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Romy Oltuski is a junior majoring in English. She can be reached at Romy.Oltuski@tufts.edu.
