The True Origin of '420': Setting the Record Straight

October 15^th, 2012: Ever since I read an article about a group of guys named the Waldos claiming to be the originators of '420', I had doubts from the start. Something didn't make sense. Why did they choose 4:20 as the time to meet at the statue, and who was the one that first coined the term? This never made any sense to me, and I knew something wasn't right. Suspecting there was a true originator, I began sending out energy for them to contact me for this article. Today was that day.

Bebe said, “The Bebes and the Waldos are still good friends to this day; however, it's time the truth be told.” He went on to say, “The Waldos were a group of guys I ordained,” referring to Steven Capper as the 'Original Waldo'. He explained that they were a small group of non-athletic guys he dubbed 'Waldos', because they were uncoordinated and goofy.

“During the summer of 1970, at San Rafael High School, there were two groups of people involved in bringing forth the term 420: the Bebes and the Waldos. The Bebes beat the Waldos to the punch on nearly every phrase. The Waldos put a story on the web in 1998, but not the real story. They never mentioned the Bebes, because they would have some explaining to do.”

The Bebe and one of the other Bebes named Bone Boy sent their claim to High Times in 2003, after someone sent them the article they did on 420 and the Waldos. They waited for months, yet never received a reply.

420 Letter from Bone Boy:

The Bebe Is the Thomas Edison of 420

With over 420 million Google results, the morphing of the number 420 into an international phenomenon is fairly baffling to me, an early '70s graduate of San Rafael High School in Marin County, California.

I've been sent numerous stories over the years regarding tracing the beginning of 420. I've listened to syndicated radio talk show hosts devote nearly entire shows to 420 on April 20^th, heard radio shows celebrate each weekday with a reggae tune at 4:20, and have seen 420 features on TV. How about the number being a police code, or penal code, or The Who's 1965 album cover of My Generation in front of Big Ben at 4:20, clocks in the film Pulp Fiction set to 4:20, etc.? Anyway, I can tell you, as one who has firsthand knowledge of its true origin, that nearly everybody has been had…

It is amazing to me that even sociologists have weighed in with their 'expert' 420 viewpoint (and they get paid for this!?) of what it means. “420 creates an intense sense of group belonging among friends, strangers and crowds,” or “a kind of mystical, spiritual or extraordinary sense of belonging, where the group exists as a reality greater than itself.” What? Way too stoned in Madagascar, I'm afraid.

True, the term initiated its international acronymic ascent in the early 1970s – actually 1970, at San Rafael High School (SRHS). And the notions SRHS alumni left Marin County, taking 420 to the collegiate level – mostly along the West Coast, the I-5 and 101 corridors, and in fact, all the way past Seattle and up to Prudhoe Bay – are true as well. I know: I took it to the Arctic Sea with an 'Arctic four-twone', standing on frozen water. The number also surfaced and spread throughout the Grateful Dead concert community, thanks in large part to the Waldos, I'm certain, taking the term east, promoting the newly-fabled number on a national scale. Deadheads are a great promotional vehicle; however, this is about where the myths end and the truth takes off…

I'm sorry, but the real story is rather short, unimpressive and unimaginative. It is spontaneous though, just like the character who first coined the term – completely by accident, like most things from his youth. Brad Bann, a.k.a. the Bebe (Beeb – a nickname), about seventeen at the time, was the Father of 420 and many other terms that caught on around the campus of SRHS in the Fall of 1970. Take for instance 'Waldos', used in the current 420 smoke lore, denoting a group of guys. It was a word originally made up to describe an odd, awkward, out of place person. Its predecessor was 'Gome' or 'Gomer', after the TV character Gomer Pyle, and our neighborhood Gomer, Gary 'Gomo' Schweitzer. When Bebe didn't know you, he would call out, “Hey Waldo” or “Hey Gome”.

Bebe also had specific nicknames for everyone and everything in our neighborhood: the Blue Boys, Puff, Du, Hello Andy, Turkey, Bone Boy, Thorgy, the Mead, Pig Newton, the Incredible Walking Man, and Bonfiglio (or Bonfig), a tag he would use to address bearded hippies of the era. There was Dune (pot, taken from the title of a sci-fi novel) and Alfred, a term meaning “to borrow, but never return”. He spawned Jimmy Bardoni, a fictitious name he would use whenever he got into hot water. Bebe not only concocted 420, he labeled the guys who claim to have created it. The Waldos (though they were not the Waldo Fathers of 420) were perhaps the greatest promoters of the number back then. I mention all of this in an attempt to lay a foundation, I suppose, of a history of 'Mindless Term Invention' by the Bebe.

Quite simply, the birth of 420 occurred at precisely 4:20 in the afternoon, to begin a bedroom bong session at the house of Du and Puff on a Saturday in October of 1970. The Bebe, along with the brothers, began preparing to 'bong out' when Bebe glanced at the clock on the nightstand and said, “It's 4:20, time for bong loads.” After getting high, they proceeded to do some audio recording with Bebe, as we did frequently, using his assortment of voices (including his impression of Abraham Lincoln) and said as tape was rolling: “Four score and twenty years ago…” As it turned out, 420 became an instant code in our neighborhood.

We gravitated to any and all Bebe terminology he conjured up. 420 seemed to just roll off the tongue better than any other number – 4:19, 2:37, 3:58, etc. – and gosh knows we needed a code to use in front of non-stoners, especially for the parental establishment. I remember Bebe once saying, “It's 420” in front of Hello Andy's mother, and she responded by saying in a minor panic, “My goodness, it can't be that late yet; I have to go pick up your sister!” As knucklehead teenagers, I guess we never realized parents were on such prompt time schedules.

420 developed its own lexicon: “Do you have any four-twone?” or “who's got the four-twone?” “This is excellent four-twone” or “four-twenty”, and “I'm too four-twentyed”. Sign language and lip reading also evolved, as well as a hesitation code of sorts, where a person would say four, then moments later, two, followed shortly thereafter by a zero. There was the countdown as well: four... two... zero. Way too stoned: “four-twoned”. It was also used to define certain kinds of weed: “420 Colombo” and “Thai 420” for Thai sticks.

I submit the story just shared is the truth and nothing but the whole 420 truth. 'Four-twenty' was only designated as an actual time at the moment of its inception. It was never intended as a time of day to get high, but evolved into that, as well as the coronation of April 20^th into the stoner holiday all over the world. It was and will always be, first and foremost, just a simple code – period. Four-twenty is an accidental anomaly. There is no deep meaning. A guy looked at a clock as he was about to smoke out with some buddies, blurted out the time, and it became local stoner lore. If Bebe would have said, “It's twenty minutes after four,” the term probably would have never gotten legs to get out of the bedroom that day. 'Four-twenty' just sounded stoner poetic.

The Waldos were a real group of guys, ordained by Bebe. One of them, Bebe referred to as the 'Original Waldo', I believe. But now, it's time to examine the story. Of the Waldos in 1970, I believe one was a junior, one or two were sophomores and the others, freshmen. Two of them, I believe, lived in the same neighborhood, and the others in different parts of town. One dude's dad was a DEA agent, as I recall.

School finished at about 3:00 p.m., for some, earlier. Some may have had sports after school; some didn't. Now, let me get this straight: guys are going to return an hour-and-a-half after school was dismissed to meet at a statue, get high and go look for pot plants a lengthy drive away? If this is believable, you must be in possession of some excellent 420. Have you ever driven from San Rafael to Point Reyes? It's about an hour each way (without commute traffic). So, at 4:20, guys get together at the Louis Pasteur statue in the middle of campus, away from sports fields or gymnasiums, pile into a car and cruise out to Point Reyes looking for pot plants based on some map, then return? 4:20 seems kind of late to be driving an hour or so to look for pot plants. Might the sunset have interfered with their ability to find anything? What time did they get home, especially if they indulged in herb and did a bit of wandering out at Point Reyes? Which, by the way, is highly likely. Of course they didn't have any homework.

Postmarks on letters is an interesting tool in tracing the beginnings of 420, but I'm sure that if Bebe saved any of his reel-to-reel tapes of prank phone calls, 420 would no doubt be heard.

I was in Las Vegas with a friend during NCAA March Madness this year. As we were going down the elevator from our hotel room to the lobby, we stopped at several floors acquiring passengers along the way. Most were sporting shirts from their favorite teams. When I asked one young man what time his team played, he replied, “Game starts at 4:20.” Most of the eight other people in the elevator began to chuckle. People from various parts of the country knew exactly what the number represented.

Four-twenty is now a brightly colored number in the fabric of pop culture. When something enters, then becomes part of pop culture, the truth of where that something originated demands to be uncovered. That moment for 420 has been now, for quite some time. How did it come to be? How was it intended to be used? Who first conceived and uttered the term? Who is responsible for creating this iconic three digit number?

It's a simple truth, really. Brad Bann, a.k.a. the Bebe, is the Thomas Edison of 420.

The moment of truth. I finally had the answer I'd been seeking, and it was time to set the record straight – once and for all.

Stay tuned for part II...

Rob Griffin, Editor-in-Chief