I was fourteen. I was alternating between sunning on a warm rock and diving into the invigorating water. Doing the same thing the next rock over was the consummate hippie. Blond hair to his butt, a forked yellow beard that would tickle his navel, and a few rags for clothing. Standing and stretching, he turned to me. "Wanna smoke a joint?"

I pointed across the river. "My mother and sister are right there."

"Then we'll step behind a bush." As he introduced me to the joys of weed, he told me about his broken old mail truck. Soon we were standing in front of it.

"Start it up!" He did. The engine was shaking like a dog shitting razor blades, but I knew what the trouble was. "Burnt valve -- common on the old F-head Jeep. Cheap fix: two valves and one gasket." After repairing the engine, I spent the rest of the summer with Randy. Bumming around the mountains, chasing now-extinct hippie chicks, fishing, and finding the next party. Wonderful summer. In the entirety of human existence, that tiny perfect window: after penicillin, and before AIDS.

Summer was winding down. Nearly time to go back home (yuck) going back to school (double yuck). One last trip to the mountains. Something we ate was not agreeing with the bowels. The rumbling was completely drowned out by the thunder of an approaching storm. The diarrhea was explosive, and often. We mapped out where our prospective piles would be. "I'll take the back side of the truck, downwind, starting twenty feet away, and three feet closer each time. You take the front."

We took turns running out and blasting. Inevitably, we were out at the same time. Two hippies, squatting naked in the woods, rain splatting, poop squirting, wind whipping the trees, while singing a frightening tune, the whole thing lit up with flashes of lightning.

"Always remember," Randy says. "Always remember the three most important things in life: tight pussy, loose shoes, and a warm place to shit."

Forty-plus years have passed. All those beautiful earth mothers are gone. Randy may be a corporate cog, for all I know. I haven't had a toke of weed for nearly forty years. (Switched to Guinness.) My brain remains stuck in the sixties while my body ages. Still, in public or private, when it calls for a toast, I raise a glass. "To tight pussy, loose shoes, and a warm place to shit!"