Snow White, Peeks for Peeps into Madness, Addiction and LOVE

Saturday, April 22th, 1972 began like any ordinary day. Cold, snow up to our arse in Stephenville. Home we used the British word for ass. I am overly excited; my girlfriend from Corner Brook is visiting for the weekend. Valerie Snow, Karen and my self have plans to go to a K 20 dance. The K 20 is an organization for kids from the ages of 14-20 . It is an off shoot of the Kinsmen and Kinettes my parents were members of.

Valerie arrives at noon, we are in my bedroom and she has a terrible headache. I give her a few aspirins. We want her in tiptop form for the dance. Valerie is feeling better; we meet up with Karen at my mothers dress shop, go to the Sun Luck for Chinese and arrive at the dance for 9:00pm. My parents are chaperones; I have no problem with that. We are all scattered on the dance floor when I am literally pulled off the floor by a friend of my dad’s. His face is white as snow and I am in deep fear. What has happened? Am I going to be punished for something I did , which I did not do? As usual my bladder goes weak, it always did when I was in fear. I am brought into a room, my parents are there, a few of their friends and I can tell by the look on Dad’s face, yup, I did something again that I had not done. Fudge. Again , here we go. “What drugs are you and your friends on?” As you read this I need you to know that if I did drugs in my lifetime four or five times that is an overstatement . Drugs was not my gig, booze was. I swear to them, no drugs. Because my parents are chaperoning we did not even bother to steal any of their booze this night. We were stone sober. Valerie is stone dead. I go weak, pee myself , “what do you mean she has died?” Yes, they tell me, while on the dance floor, she collapsed in a heap. Lilly, Lilly , now is not the time to weep. We are brought home, Karen and I. We are in my room stunned, confused. We hear crying coming through the front door, it is Valerie’s mom. Her daughter, of 17yrs old, our beloved friend has died of a brain aneurysm. A head ache , a dance, then out like a light. A few days later friends in the K-20 and I take the drive to Corner B Like