Chewing tobacco--ugh stay away

Once we were visitingthe Mike Cassassa place.
Mike and his wife were very very Italian and made wine and the best cheeses,
Mike chewed a tobacco from a yellow package. He would stuff a great big 'chaw' in his mouth and seem very elated at the taste. Then he would chew and stuff the wad somewhere in his mouth--under his lips I guess finally needing to spit the juice out. He was remarkably accurate at what ever he aimed the spit. It seemed he could spit and hit a fly at 20 feet distance. Y'know, I envied that ability and when I'd have raisins to eat I'd pretend I was chewing like Mike and waste some of my sweet raisin juice on a target--usually a fly.
When we visited Mike's place for some reason or other, we were taken to the root cellar. I saw three packages of this chewing tobacco in the back of the cellar , and when no one was looking I helped myself ( God was watching and the devil too) to a package of tobacco. Wow now I could learn to chew and spit like Mike can.
It came time to get on the old truck--a flat bed 1927 Chevrolt truck--to go home. When no one was looking, I sneaked a big 'chaw' into my mouth and boarded the truck. We stood up at the back of the cab holding onto the back board for stability.
I chewed my wad hurriedly to get some juice to spit off the side of the truck trying to maybe hit a squirrel or a stump--- anything for practice. Mike was able to even swallow some of this juice. BUT, I didn't intentionally try to swallow the readily made excess juices. BUT I absorbed some of the deadly nicotine through the tissues in my mouth and it wasn't long till I was very ill and dizzy. When we drove into the yard, no one had any idea what was wrong with me. I was dying-- or felt like it and it would be better I thought if I did die. I went to the outhouse and heaved and urped and again I learned that tobacco was a poison. But why is it that others could with stand it? was I a freak? I think I dumped the rest of the package into the out house hole. I couldn't confess to any one about this particular theft for which I was immediately punished, but y'know what? it was one of the sins I confessed when I became a real Catholic over seas. Yes I was finally absolved. The punishment was life long.
There was another tobacco chewing person I can never forget. He was the owner manager of the Thorp water powered mill. It was where we most often took wheat down to have made into flour and Farina --. One winter day, we loaded the sleigh up with about 6 sacks of out own wheat. John drove the mules with Donald and me going along for the sleigh ride about 20 miles away from home. That's a day of nothing but cold misery you can bet..On Ice and snow.
When we got to the mill and John asked the miller to do the grinding, the old man took us to his tiny office. In one corner was a large pot bellied stove which was a very welcomed item. We hugged the stove to regain our body warmth while the miller ground the wheat. At one point he entered the office and asked if we'd like him to make for us , some FARINA--gee, we never heard of it so we agreed and he filled a sack which is now a cereal--it was new to us.
Looking at the office walls, the old calendar and the stove itself, it was readily known that this man was a tobacco chewer. Every inch--even the ceilings were spotted with tobacco juice--the stove too. He most likely killed flies with his spit. We could also smell an odor of burning scalding spit on the hot stove. Ugh!
We made it home at dark, and we told our mother about the miller who chewed and spat, then in our minds we conjured up the ugly thought that what and where did he spit as he was grinding the wheat? Nobody knows.