Remembering Paul Epperson

As close as I can remember, it was late 1973 when Paul Epperson introduced me to marijuana.

Don't get me wrong. I'd heard about marijuana. I'd read stories about people getting high on marijuana, though being the naive 17-year-old I was at the time, I didn't have any concept of what it meant to be high.

Paul and I were at Parkwood High School on a Friday afternoon representing East Newton at a speech tournament. After participating in a round of extemporaneous speaking, a few of us had to stop at the restroom. When I entered the room, I was overwhelmed by an odor that was completely foreign to me.

"What is that?" I asked and Paul began laughing.

"You don't know what that is?"

I shook my head.

"That's marijuana," he said.

I suppose you could call that my informal introduction to marijuana, but it certainly shaped my thinking about the subject. For years after that, people could talk about Parkwood football teams or Parkwood educational activities, but I knew, thanks to Paul, that Parkwood High School was the marijuana center of southwest Missouri.

I never asked Paul how he recognized the smell of marijuana; after all, the whole point of the story is how naive I was.

That same day, I became aware of how gifted a musician Paul was as we managed to enter an unoccupied music room during a break and Paul entertained us on the piano with selections that ranged from rock and roll to classical to boogie woogie.

I lost track of Paul for about 30 years after our graduation and I'm grateful we reconnected, because he played a part in saving my life, though he never knew it.

In 2004, Paul was playing the keyboard for the house band at J Town, which I believe was at 26th and Main, and he invited two former East Newton classmates, Richard Taylor and me, to perform with the band at its Open Mic Night. At the time, Richard and I were in the band Natural Disaster.

As I entered J Town, I was once again overwhelmed by the smell of smoke, but this time it wasn't marijuana. Being an asthmatic at that time, I reached into my pocket and inhaled my Primatene Mist.

As it turned out, we had a long wait before we performed and just before our time, I took another hit of Primatene Mist.

While I could breathe better, I was feeling a bit woozy. We were introduced and began doing the Johnny Rivers song Secret Agent Man. During the second verse, though I didn't know what was happening at the time, I blacked out and when I came to, I was lying on the ground and one of my former students Chelsie Banfield, who was performing that night, was handing me a glass of water.

I learned later I had hit my head on the bass drum. Thankfully, the drum wasn't damaged.

Since the show must go on, I sat on a stool as Richard and I swapped the leads on three more songs before our time was up.

I stopped by Urgent Care that night and discovered my blood pressure was sky high. Until then I never realized I had hypertension, nor did I realize that Primatene Mist could cause an increase in blood pressure.

I later discovered that nearly everyone who was there that night thought I was drunk.

Richard and I made a triumphant comeback on the final open mic night before J Town was closed forever. I talked with Paul for a few minutes that night, but never told him about his contribution to my health.

He died Thursday at age 69.

Paul introduced a lot of people to good music over the years and entertained thousands.

And he introduced me to marijuana.