When I was in the Navy, that’s what our drill instructor told us when he was a Christian enough of a person to give us a break. I always thought us non-smokers got the short end of the stick, as we didn’t have anything to appreciate, except the vacant time that other recruits were using to ingest two cigarettes to make up for not having one for over a whole hour. I had earlier run into the temptation of the nicotine devil, but somehow had evaded his temptation. After all, it was cool, it was anti-parent, and all the girls would dig you if you did it.
Now, as then, it was the way to express yourself, to declare your independence from your parents. If they didn’t want you to smoke, then of course it was the thing to do. Just because you were young, that shouldn’t mean that you were exempt from doing what all the adults were doing. Just because they were older, that didn’t mean they knew what they were talking about. I didn’t buy it, mainly because I didn’t like it, but time changes all.
All my friends were smokers at an early age. Steve Stein, Greg Roach, Jerry Hoffman, Tucker, my brother Pat, everyone was puffing at a young age. I took a dislike to it when I was young. Dad used to buy a tin of pipe tobacco (Prince Albert) and roll his own smokes with that tobacco. I admit that pipe tobacco smelled rather inviting, but with no filter, there was a lot of spitting of the tobacco bits. I somehow figured out at a young age, spitting tobacco bits wasn’t conducive to attracting girls. Was I wise beyond my years?
But, all my buddies were doing the manly sport of puffing, and I wanted to be with my friends. So even though I risked the chance of getting busted for something I wasn’t even doing, I hung with my buds. We had a variety of places that they smoked. When going to Regis, there used to be a little woods behind McDonald’s, as the first Mac’s was smaller, and close to 53. We would stop after school and buy a burger, and then go to the tree guarded area, eat, and then smoke one or two.
When we skipped school, we would usually go down to Otter Creek and sit and smoke all day. Being a non-smoker, that got kind of boring, so I quit skipping school. Maybe the fact that I didn’t smoke got me through high school.
Later on, when Greg and Steve started going to high school in Altoona, I would meet them, and to get a smoke “break”, we would go to the small woods that was at the corner of 3rd Street West and Bartlett; there is a school building there now. Even back then we had to hide when lighting up. Smokes weren’t that hard to get; just find a machine with no one watching, and for 35 cents you could have 20 sticks of nicotine rush. It only makes sense, if you only had a couple a day you would get a rush out of a cigarette. Ever quit smoking, and after a while when you went back to Mr. Nicotine, you could fall down after that first puff?
My first attempt at smoking came about from Jerry Hoffman. I used to help him at St. Ben’s and he was always taking a smoke break. I often thought he smoked just to get out of work. So if he was taking a break, I would too, and after a while I would get bored. He would always tempt me with a Lucky Strike (straight, no filter), and sometimes I bit. I did not like the taste, so I started bringing lemon drops to suck while I smoked, which helped. I guess the taste is why when I did start smoking, I went with menthol, and that was my smoke of choice till I finally quit.
So I survived the teen years, four years in the Navy, where I could have gotten smokes for free in Vietnam, and for $1.10 a carton at sea. I never started doing the nasty till I was 21, going on 22 after I came home from the Navy. Where I had resisted peer pressure before, now all my little brothers smoked, from Pat through Tim, and I guess I caved in to that pressure; I just wanted to fit back in and get on with my life.
It didn’t take a year for me to figure out I had made a tremendous error. Smoking wasn’t something you could just pick up like any other hobby. Once you started you were screwed; it owned you. And it wasn’t a year down the road when I decided I had to quit. I set a quit date, which was June 12. That was the date I was discharged from the Navy, and in essence, when I took up smoking. So I set my sights on June 12, the red-letter day.
And every June 12th for the next 26 years I vowed to quit, and failed. It took till June 12, 1996 before it stuck, and one thing I am glad about is the fact that even though it took me so long, I kept trying till I shook the monkey.
My dad died from emphysema five years before I quit. You would think the fact of watching him slowly suffocate would give me a reason to quit, but it still took me five-years. He would sit and share a bottle of beer with me, and after a few sips he would go to his stash box and bring out a smoke from his secret compartment. And even though the oxygen machine was pumping out vital air to allow him to breathe, he would light up after slipping off his mask, and I would see a sign of contentment in his eyes, and I would truly appreciate how addictive nicotine is.
After seven years of being a non-smoker, my brother Pat described how it is to quit smoking, after he started smoking again. He said, “It’s like losing an old friend, someone who is there for you when ever you need them.” That pretty much describes the addiction. Even though I think I am over the hump after 11 years, I sometimes have a dream, and in the dream I rationalize that it is OK to smoke, that it won’t harm you, and that you don’t have to worry about kowtowing to the Nicotine God anymore. But that is just a dream, and the complete opposite is what is real.
