FIRST ACID TRIP . . . COURTESY OF THE U.S. ARMY

My brother Butch and our pal Rusty were roommates and students at MTSU in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in the fall of 1968, working part-time at the local Samsonite manufacturing plant. I was living nearby, and another of our crew, Nubbin, was visiting from Sewanee when a small package arrived at Butch and Rusty’s apartment with no return address.

Curious, we opened it and inside found four sugar cubes, one of the ways LSD was then distributed. There was also a short note from Bob Brinkley, who had been drafted and was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, where, as the classic fox in the hen house, he had access to the high-quality cornucopia of drugs the military was testing for possible use in wartime. “Have a nice trip, boys,” the note read. Rusty and Butch were due at work in an hour. We looked at each other. “Do you think it’s really acid?” I asked. “Well, let’s narrow our choices down to one,” Nubbin said as he popped one of the sugar cubes into his mouth. The rest of us immediately followed suit.

Though it was a dank, overcast day, we drove to Jimmy Molloy’s farm on the Stones River, and on the riverbank, the LSD started to kick in. We amused ourselves by watching ants march along and feeling the roughness of the bark on the trees. We stared at the clouds, bewitched by their subtle movements. I felt connected with my friends, with the plants, the animals, and the insects, with the earth itself, which seemed to be inhaling and exhaling beneath my feet.