Seed In the Wind — Big effort is needed to spread The Seed.

Tues 11/21/1972 Rome News Tribune

Rome Georgia

Editorial and Analysis pg 4

Jim Bishop

Seed on the Wind

After dark the palm trees lean toward the big open windows of the whitewashed shed in Davie, Florida, to whisper ugly rumors. Inside are 700 teen-age drug addicts sitting in cut-down jeans and weathered slacks. Facing them across an aisle are 500 parents stony with fright. Alice, who is 14 and has the round face and clear eyes of the innocent, picks up a microphone and says; “Mom, I must tell you I’ve been on speed, hash and psychedelics for two years. I never knew the meaning of honesty.  Please don’t cry. I love you, Mom.”

She sits. The microphone moves to the next child. A father with the immobile expression of a policeman sits up stiffly. “I’m Kathy,” the girl says. She flicks long dark hair from her eyes. “I’ve done pot, heroin and beer. I stole from my mother. My friends were phonies. It’s going to be a long road, Dad, but I have hundreds of friends here at The Seed.” She hangs her head. Softly: “I love you all.”

A thunder of sound erupts from all the addicts. “Love you, Kathy!”  A brown-eyed, middle-aged woman stands unasked. “Where was The Seed three months ago when my boy was dead on the bathroom floor with a broken syringe? Where were you then?”

Good question. A short man sitting on a tall stool brushes his lion mane hair forward. He is Art Barker, long-time alcoholic, who founded the SEED two years ago because he believed that peer pressure, and the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, might cure young addicts.

Barker looks at the brown-eyed woman. “We are late everywhere we go,” he says. “We don’t have enough money to feed these kids: every new boy and girl must be personally monitored by an old boy or an old girl. If we had known about your boy . . . “How could you?” the woman says without rancor. “I didn’t.” the hundreds of children turn her way. “Love you!” they shout. The brown eyes fill with tears.

The sound of love slams the palm trees of the little town of Davie, Florida. The Seed is an idea. So far, 2000 students from elementary and high schools have volunteered to enroll in its program against their better judgment. Most of the youngsters gave it a chance because, in spite of immaturity ranging from 11 years of age to 18, they saw nothing ahead but imprisonment, insanity and death.

Most newcomers sit sullenly for two days listening to the rap sessions, the open confessions. They listen to addicts in their own age group. An “old boy” or “old girl” monitors the dialogue. No young drug addict can “con” another. If a newcomer lies, he is told by his new I-love-you friends that he is lying, and why.

In the beginning the sessions start at 10 a.m. and go on until 10 p.m., with time out for two meals. A newcomer who has to go to the bathroom is taken by the hand by an “old” Seedling.

At 10 p.m., a host of automobiles pick up the new boys and new girls and divide them among 350 foster homes in the Fort Lauderdale area. The foster parents in those homes have children who graduated from The Seed. Before bedtime, each addict must sit and write a moral evaluation of himself—his past, a current assessment, and a picture of the future.

A typical mother, Mrs. Phyllis Kennedy, has a tall handsome son who used dope, and was a “dealer,” or pusher. Mrs. Kennedy spreads as many as 14 foam rubber mattresses on the floor at night. Each newcomer must remain at a foster home for two weeks. His parents are not permitted to know where he is.

When the addict is strong enough to be trusted alone, he is returned to parents and to school. He must continue to attend evening meetings at The Seed—three times a week in addition to the one full day on the weekend. After three or four months of intensive study on drug addiction (as much as seven months if he has been sentenced to The Seed by a judge), he becomes an “old boy” or “girl” and is ready to counsel frightened newcomers.

In an anteroom there is a medical clinic for newcomers whose nerves are jangled, or “Strung out” on drugs. So far, 15 physicians and a psychiatrist have volunteered to help Art Barker and his program without a fee.

At the meeting, he turns to the parents. “Our fans aren’t working.” He says. “Will you people please stop smoking.” He gets some hard looks from parents. Barker smiles. “See?” he says. “If you can’t give up the cigarette for an hour can you imagine what it’s like for your children?”

(To be continued tomorrow)

Continued in the same news paper on Friday November 24, 1972 – page 4

Jim Bishop

“Big effort is needed to spread The Seed”

One of the innocent looking girls, a pale bloom of 13, dropped out of school and wholesaled heroin between New York and Florida. She carried one pound of uncut stuff in her boots and brassier on every trip. No policeman thought of searching the child.

She told me at The Seed in David, Florida, that she picked up a big marijuana connection in Kansas City without understanding, geographically where the city was. She was given “front money” for purchases by drug wholesalers in Florida and was earning between $500-$1000 a day.

This one is now a full-time paid worker at The Seed. The secretary outside Art Barker’s office is smooth and efficient. She was an addict. The 20 or so “old boys” who monitor neophytes at the interminable rap sessions are all former drug users. When they are promoted to “staff,” The Seed pays them from $14 – $100/week.

In the two-week period when young addicts are at foster homes, mothers and fathers phone incessantly demanding to know where their children are. Ironically, when they were out at night using “uppers” and “downers and “speed” no one asked where they were or what they were doing. “Joanie,” a mother wails at a meeting, “what did I do to deserve this?”

The most pronounced emotion at The Seed is optimism. Everyone thinks that all the addicts are going to win the fight. Youngsters who haven’t laughed in months find time to tease and play pranks. Two tall black boys held a small white boy between them. “Look, Art,” they said, “We’re an Oreo Cookie.”

Grinning, Barker faces the 700 boys and girls and says: “I’m going to ask questions. Put your hand up only if the answer is yes. How many of you hooked your own brothers and sisters?” Two hundred hands go up. “How many of you could leave here right now and get drugs within a half hour?”

Almost all the hands go up. “Where would you buy it?” The shout is deafening. “In the schoolyard!” “How many of you stole to buy narcotics?” All but 50 hands go up. “How many of you were turned on by friends of your parents?” A hundred and fifty hands.

“How many bought your stuff from school teachers?” Eighty hands. “How many bought stuff from policemen?” Fifty hand are up. Waves of shock rack the watching parents. Their children stole cars, hocked jewelry, stole pocketbooks.

A boy of 14, tall and lean, says; “I did B & E (breaking and entering). I don’t know why, but every day when I woke up I was afraid. I never had anybody.”

Baker’s fear is that he and The Seed will become synonymous. “This thing is working and it’s straight out of AA. I need men I can break in to carry The Seed all over the country – maybe, with God’s help, all over the world. Our kids are spreading the word. Some bring in as many as six young ones who arrive scared, but are willing to give us a chance.

“Some who don’t make it go out and give us a bad name. They say it doesn’t work” All newcomers get a copy of The Seed’s “Seven Steps to Wisdom:”

“(1) We admit we are powerless over drugs. (2) We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. (3) We have made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves and will continue to do so on a daily basis. (4) We have admitted to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. (5) We will make amends to those we have harmed except where it could hurt them. (6) We seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him. (7) Having received the gift of awareness we will carry the message to all we can help and practice these principles in all our affairs.”

A federal grant pays the rent for The Seed and comes to $177,000. The Law Enforcement Assistance Act brings $27,000. Last autumn, 2,000 Seedlings pooled dimes and quarters and bough a plaque for Art Barker.

“To Art
Thank you for being there
When we needed you; And for giving us all
The love affection and discipline
That we needed so much
And for The Seed in which we grew
With Love: From all your Rotten Kids”