I began when my stepfather gave me a KENT cigarette. I was hooked and 13 yrs old. Those that spurned me now became my smoking buddies. It made being a societal cast off bearable. As long as we could provide each other with cigarettes friends forever. I could look at those who still took enjoyment in tormenting me in the eye and watched as the fun was lost.
Yes my Mother and Stepfather were both smokers so the undeniable odor blended in with the house. It was 1960 and the Drs at Shriners wanted one more try on my feet before I reached their cutoff age.
This allowed for my family to move and the birth of my little brother as well. How well God scripted this, a summer is lost but the anticipation of new begining is for me a gift from God. It was 1961 and smoking was how I blended in with the neighborhood. All of us teens smoked except for one and he is my brother. If I only could have been as strong.
Where did all the money come from we were not rich but cigarettes also had begun to climb in price. Another unspoken fact was how smoking and gas stations blended together. The price of gas was 38 cents a gallon and a pack of smokes was 35 cents a pack. A quarter and two nickles. Dimes were to light and kept getting lodged in the machine. We learned you had to push hard on dimes to make it work.
We walked down the street as if knowing our place was carved in stone. You held the cigarette in your fingers or cupped in our palm to hide from others. To hide the smoke we just kept our hand moving and it dispersed the smoke.
Back to the price, it has changed again as well as the price of gas 43 cents a gal and smokes 50 cents a pack. My stepfather bless his knowing soul always left enough change in his coat pocket to purchase a pack every day.
I was know smoking more than one pack a day and suddenly I quit. Wrestling became a sport my Dr's allowed me to do. I am jumping ahead to 1970 I joined the wrestling team and made my body strong for someone so weak. I week after week lost my matches but empowered the at least I tried mood to make me feel worthy. In that year I won one match and they allowed me to be in the yearbook as first string. What an honor for a kid who had suffered so much physically. For that year I was in the front page sports in our local paper numerous times yet no one knew my struggle with my disability.
I was the first to recognise that the brand you smoked labled you. The most common question that I have heard is "YA GOT A SMOKE?". I used it as well and if I had a nickle for every cigarette I gave I would be a rich man. I changed brands and no one wanted what I smoked and for the time I was a rebel. 1971 was the year I graduated from high school and for the next 10 years I attempted to blend in. The only thing visable was my limp I thought. My discontent with myself also was present and my smoking was worse. How can one man have 30 jobs in ten years but this post is about smoking.
I watched and smoked as cigarettes and gas reached a buck a gal as well as a buck a pack.
I decided after a few attempts to end my life that what would give me a sense off fullfillment. Family would give me purpose and as I smoked my wife smoked. My daughter was to be attached to a monitor that would go off if she stopped breathing. Smoking is good and FUCK the rest. May God forgive me for my arrogance.
1984 and Christmas is good, we are not rich but a carton for her and a carton for me was a good Christmas.
1987 and it was to end my patience was no longer able to be held in check. The walks to cool off were not working and I was tired of being unhappy in a home I paid for. As long as I smoked I could avoid the truth, it was not going to work. The anger in me welled up to a frenzy and before I did something stupid I did something stupid. I moved out and disconnected myself from the responsibility.
Smoking allowed me to be doing something while I was not doing anything.
What I did to smoke is embarresing. I stole, schemed, and smoked. My own SSS. This behavior is unacceptable and not how I wish to be remembered. Only as I look at life now another 10 years later companionship was always a benifit to smoking. As I stand on the side of a homeless mission and share my smokes yet never being able find one when I ask. Lonely yes stupid no, it has become time to quit. My Mother knowing of my desire to quit bought magic patches. You put it on and the desire for smoking is gone. Good now all I have to remove is the action of smoking. That "hand to mouth" that for many years was as a pacifier. For 10 months I was a non-smoker, no ex-smoker. My nemisis was not having support. When I was faced with boredom while being entertained my first thought was I need a smoke. Now again I have people who want to talk and smoke or is it smoke and talk. To be still and not smoke was what I could not master.
Again we must look at the smokes and gas controversy. It was taxes that our government had created. Tax on gas was to go for highway as tax on cigarettes was for whatever. Both taxes filled the coffers of government and helped in reducing our large debt. WHOOPS thats a secret.
Lets think for a second or so, we have millions of cars using billon of gallons of gas that are being taxed. Cigarettes the same but the tax is 1/3rd the cost of cigarettes. (JUST A THOUGHT)
Now I have emphysema and at 53 modern medicine is now able to control the effects. If you want a taste of emphysema "HOLD YOUR BREATH AND PUT A PLASTIC BAG OVER YOUR HEAD. WHEN YOU GO TO BREATH YOU MAKE THE MOTION ONLY NO AIR". There are medications that control but cure? thats still to proved. TS
