There was a head shop in the heart of Coconut Grove

1970. One of the Original Grove Kids  had a head shop in the heart of old Coconut Grove. One of the first. It was an old style South Florida wooden house with a gabled tin roof,  lots of windows with sashes for hurricanes. Lately, the yard had become a gravel parking lot and the original tenet had long since gone on to produce huge rock concerts, in other parts of the country. Currently there were two nasty Miami Beach mafia torpedoes, standing next to their canary yellow Cadillac convertible and surveying the motley crew of skinny long hairs in front of them. Eddie and his brother were Miami rock concert promoters of various dubious distinctions. They had booked the Bethlehem Asylum on various gigs, including a rock festival on the nuclear submarine base in Key West where all the enlisted men wore Hawaiian shirts, stood at parade rest as the go go dancers bounced up and down in cages at either end of the giant stage while the Asylum pounded out their extraterrestrial jazz amidst the psychedelic light show bouncing around the cavernous fighter jet hanger. Later, Eddie had asked Jim, the theatrical bassist for the Asylum, to accompany him to a “meeting with some associates”. Eddie was hoping not to get killed by these guys by bringing along this new weird breed of Rock n roll businessmen. It ended well. Eddie was grateful, and the Mafiosi probably had a good laugh about it later.