Should Alice in Wonderland Be Rated PG-13?

God put me on this earth in 1951 . . . the same year Walt Disney put Alice in Wonderland.

Six years later my parents held my hand as we adventured to the Lenora Theater in Pampa, TX to experience our first family movie.

Velvet curtains flowed from ceiling to plushly carpeted floors. I was marveled by the biggest candy shop in the whole wide world. I smelled popcorn and butter and . . . I smelled everything. It was awesome and we were still lined up outside.

Dad purchased tickets and bought Mom and me some treats. Mom told me years later he went without because we didn't have enough money for all of us to splurge. My heart was beating in anticipation as a lot of stuff reeled by in black and white and then. . . the lights went completely out.

In technicolor . . .

On the bank of a tranquil river a little girl grows bored listening to her sister read aloud from a history book.

She sees a white rabbit carrying a large pocket watch. She follows him and tumbles down a rabbit hole. At the bottom, she tries to follow the rabbit through a tiny door, but she is too big. "Mr Rabbit!", she calls out.

The doorknob suggests she drink from a bottle marked "Drink me."

I'm spell bound.

The contents shrink her to a tiny fraction of her original size, but she can not enter because the door is locked. The key appears on a table, but she is now too small to reach it.

The doorknob directs her to a cookie marked "Eat me."

My heart is about to explode.

The cookie makes her grow so large her head hits the ceiling. She cries and her massive tears flood the room.

The doorknob points out the "Drink me" bottle still has some fluid inside. She finishes the last drop.

She becomes so small she drops inside the bottle. In the bottle's safety she drifts through the doorknob's keyhole out to a sea made from her own tears.

This is probably the greatest experience to date of my six long years on earth and I have just witnessed a little girl drink from a bottle and get small, eat a cookie and get big, drink some more and find safety in a bottle . . . then escape into a sea of her own tears that will soon become a wonderland of illusion, song and magic.

Imagine where this is leading.

By 1966 a red hot San Francisco group was defining the new acid rock era of music with "White Rabbit" a song written by Jefferson Airplane's lead singer, Grace Slick

White Rabbit

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice. I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the door mouse said; "Keep YOUR HEAD!"

In 1969 Slick tried to covertly send the President of the United States on a magic carpet ride (trip induced by LSD) while visiting the White House.

Slick recently reflected to Plum magazine about her life in the 50's-60's, the plot to trip out Nixon and something she has discovered about rabbits.

Blame it on the worm

Had a animated bomb exploded on a generation? Had this talking white hare who was obsessed with time and his large ticking pocket watch hit ground zero in America? Was the mushroom cloud coming from his rabbit hole the beginning of a generation transformation?

Rumors once spread Walt Disney was a communist. He vehemently denied those rumors and was one of the founders of the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.

Ideals? Perhaps this white rabbit was a commie secret agent on assignment . . . a covert operative whose mission was to convince us we could eat and drink our way into a wonderland of illusion, song and magic . . . a cold war imaginary friend who also introduced us to a deck of 52.

I just know I was taught how to toke at the age of six by a hookah smoking worm.

. . . in technicolor.