Photoessay #2085 - Drug retrospective

I submitted a piece for my writer's workshop summer class last night.  It's called Ghost Postive and it takes place in an HIV Assay lab in 1989.  I admit, the story does feature pipettes, reagents and lab benches.

I just read the other story submitted; it recalls teenagers recklessly using drugs in the mid 1970s with a bad outcome.  Powerful piece of writing, I was impressed.

At first I thought, these pieces couldn't be more different.  But not so, they both look back to an earlier time where we all just didn't understand these substances we ingest.  Unintended consequences.  My brother would think that science has the answer, heaven knows my piece is full of science.  But we didn't know and we stil don't know.

Fascinating to look back at what people thought of HIV/AID in 1989.  And now it's receded.

A picture of the AIDS quilt from that era just to get us in the mood.  I remember going to see the AIDS quilt at Seattle Center at about that time.  I also read that it's now so huge, it would cover 50 miles if all put out at once.  But somewhere (Detroit?) there would be (or maybe already be) an attempt to display it in its entirety which has not happened since 1996.