Franklin D. Roosevelt 1905
I’m a Reefer Man
As part of New Deal under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, the Federal writers project was funded. This move by the government was to jump start the arts in America during the great depression.
A wind range of topics were written about by these struggling American writers. Some chose to interview regular folks, some not so regular…
“He was hopped up, you see. Crazy. All this time he didn’t touch on the subject of dope. Then, on the way back, he began talking. In Rio, on shipboard, a whole mattress full of hay, he was sleeping on it the whole trip, he was high all the time. He told me while he was walking in the street, 2 the curbstone looked like the Grand Canyon, he was sort of disembodied, like a floating ship. Finally, he took an independent attitude and I yessed him a lot, then he showed me the stuff in the lining of his coat, in his shirt cuff, in the knot of his tie even in the lining of his coat, “I’m a reefer man”, he said, grinning, “that’s what I am – A reefer man.””
Federal Writers’ Project, bar interview on June 14, 1939 titled: Maritime folklore- I’m a reefer man
Cab Calloway – The Reefer Man (Original) 1932
