Tobacco

It goes without saying that tobacco is not good for you and you can easily admit to yourself it doesn’t have any healthcare benefits.  Now personally, when it comes to using tobacco, I can honestly say I’m a life long expert.  My first memory of using tobacco was when I was three years old living in my grandmother Lawson’s apartment house.  An older couple, Ruth and Harry Keenan, lived on the 3^rd floor and they both smoked like chimneys.  Ruth smoked filterless Camel’s and Harry had a pipe in his mouth constantly.  I loved the smell of the smoke, the yellowed furniture, and the whole process of lighting something on fire and putting it in your mouth.  I would climb up three flights of stairs with my Mom every other day just so I could watch her smoke with the Keenan’s.  One day when he wasn’t paying attention,  I stole one of Harry’s pipes and filled it with Prince Albert tobacco like I saw him do everyday.  The next day my Mom smelled smoke coming out from behind the sofa and caught me puffing on my new Ivory Meerschaum pipe I lifted from Harry.  ( Unlike the 1960’s some parents today are so cautious they put bike helmets on their kids when they tuck them in at night.)  As I grew up the Nuns at St. Mary’s school lectured us that smoking was a venial sin, so my brothers, sister, and I were always trying to get my Mom to stop smoking without much luck.  We used a variety of tactics including hiding her cigarettes, soaking them in water, and my favorite was stoking them with cigarette loads from Bevilacqua’s Grocery Store.  Most of the time the loads didn’t work, but one time I stuffed about ten in one cigarette, put it back in the pack, then forgot all about it.  It reared its ugly head days later one summer night at my grandparent McMahon’s house in Hague, NY.  After dinner, when the plates were cleared, the entire clan of McMahon’s, King’s, and Lawson’s were all drinking, smoking, and yelling at each other when my Mom’s cigarette exploded and left nothing but the filter in her mouth.  Thankfully, the troops all had enough Four Roses Bourbon to sterilize an Operating Room and blamed each other for my mischief.  My Mom looked like Wile E. Coyote with her hair singed back, but even that event didn’t stop her.   She eventually quit years later for no real reason, but by then we were bitten by the tobacco bug.  In addition to Tijuana Smalls , Philly Grape Blunts, and other fine products, my brother Mark and I began testing out in high school Red Man Long Leaf chewing tobacco.  For whatever reason, Mark could chew Red Man like it was country ham, but for me other than the joy of spraying massive blotches of brown spit everywhere, all it did was make me nauseous and sleepy.  One October afternoon Mark and I were deer hunting with a large group and I was put on watch.  We all loaded up on Red Man before heading out and within 15 minutes I’m dizzy and sick enough to lay down under an elm tree.  I watched an entire herd of deer walk past me 15 yards away and all I could do was look at them waltz past.  I was probably hallucinating also since I swear I heard them laughing at me.  I never took to chewing tobacco regularly, but on occasion I would lapse to the dark side.  When Diane and I moved to Oklahoma chewing tobacco was everywhere, so I tried taking it up again to fit in.  I was driving back north to Oklahoma City from Durant one night after a hospital meeting and put in some Mail Pouch Long Leaf I got at the Circle K for the ride home.  I don’t know how long this lasted, but I looked down at the speedometer and I was only going 25 miles an hour on I-35; didn’t realize that all the truck air horns were about me.  I’ve not had chewing tobacco since then, but I did enjoy a 40 year career with cigar smoking which hit its peak right before my cardiac bypass surgery.  The surgical nurse at admission asked me if I smoked and I said, “Not really, only a couple of cigars a week.”  He followed with, “Well, that’s two cigars per week for nearly 40 years, that’s about 4,000 cigars.  That’s smoking a lot.”  Nothing like having a wet blanket for a nurse right before major surgery.  After surgery it was so hard to breathe I couldn’t even walk 10 yards without gasping for 3 months.  To say the least, smoking was no longer high on my to do list.  I tried having a cigar about a year later, but it felt like I was inhaling a dried leaf pile.  After that experience along with tying in several bouts of cancer later,  I decided to hang up the humidor.  It just wasn’t fun anymore; I got tired of getting the stink eye from everyone including myself.  I gave my entire cigar inventory to my smoking pal Rich Costible who sobbed that it was the saddest day in his life.  I don’t miss smoking and I certainly don’t yearn for chewing tobacco any longer.  At the same time, I see family and friends that still smoke or chew or vape and I think nothing of it; I’m not a reformed tobacco whore with a mission to cure everyone else because I’m no longer smoking.  Smoking and quitting smoking is a personal choice that each person has to make on their own even when it is obviously bad for you.  Personally, I liked my father’s rational for quitting, “I stopped when they were no longer a nickel a pack.”  Smoke ’em if you got ’em. Slainte!