Nancy asked if I ever tried smoking

Nancy asked if I ever tried to learn to smoke.
Yes I tried. It was a 'learning process' I saw all the old men smoking--some smoked pipes --some smoked cigars and some rolled their own. It looked like something a 'man' had to learn to be a man.
Daddy smoked when he could--that is even a nickels worth of Bull Durham was expensive in those day--you got a small bag of groundup tobacco and the paper was in a little packet glued to the bag. My Dad would hold a paper tween his left fingers and made a trough into which to pour a dab of this ground tobacco. Then with a bit of acrobatic skill he could roll the paper into a cigaret form and to prevent the paper from unraveling. he'd lick the paper an that was the ingredient to stick the papers together. Then he'd twist the ends to prevent a little loss of this precisous stuff from falling out. Inserting it in between his lips he was able to strike a match on the seat of his pants--he'd lift a leg to cause the denim to be like sand paper and the match would light. He's hold the burning match in a cupped hand taking the lit match to his cigaret end --this cupping would prevent the match from being extinguished. The twisted end ot the rolled cigaret was like a fuse to a fire cracker.Then with a draft from a puff or two the tobacco was lit. Ah !! such enjoyment to puff and puff like a locomotive at the station. Sometimes --no--more often he'd take a mouth ful of smoke and bloww it out his nose like a mad bull in the funnies. It looked like a lot of fun.
So why not do the same as Daddy? We rolled up newspapers and lit the end . The taste was horrible and the smoke wasn't like tabocco smoke. With a little more experimentation we sneaked coffee and rolled someup into a cigaret to smoke. Right in front of Daddy and Ma too!! but my mother didn't think that was so bad, she had brothers and a father too who smoked. It was how a man was growing up. So the next experiment was to find dried up sunflower leaves and crush them into a powder that resembled Bull Durham. When that burned it had a sweet taste which lasted forever on your tongue.
When we visited the neighbors they also would experiment with learning to smoke. And wouldn't you guess that there was no limit on what would serve as tobacco--hear this!! dried Horse manure--yes, it's finely ground vegetable fibers now and "purified".It wasn't suitable for smoking I learned. Are you urping yet?
The neighbor boys folks had a hired man named Bill Nelson. He smoked real tobacco. He would buy a whole carton of Granger tobacco which must have been made by the Bull Durham company because the tobacco came in very similar little bags.
When we'd visit the neighbor boys, we'd often hide in the empty irrigation canals to try out the tobacco. They'd steal a bag from the upstairs room where Bill Nelson roomed. We'd smoke and I had to finally give up because of the burnt tongue taste which lasted for days. I could see why smoking is a crutch to lean on when you wanted to diet--nothing tasted like food--it always was 'burnt tongue".
Once at a Grange dance which we tried always to attend, One of the boys, somehow bought a pack of rreal cigarettes--they were called "KOOLS". They had a menthol taste and a little bit better taste with better results if your nose was plugged up.The menthol served as a nasal decongestant. It did more for me at least.To smoke in a school in those days was a crime but at the dances and Grange meeting that rule didn't apply. So the place to be trying this pack of cigaretes was down in the men's room which was under the stage. I remember Charlie Newton smoking as if a veteran at it--and Fred too and Bob Roseburg--and I don't remember Donald being there. Or Junior Roseburg--maybe they were excluded from our "smoker's club' because they were two years younger than I was. I wasn't the ring leader by any means and did not have money to contribute to this but because it was on a dare basis, I did try smoking. I don't remember my folks ever admonishing us for trying.
I made corn cob pipes and I made a pipe out of elder berry brush. I also found many used old clay pipes at the old Bednar farm after the Bednars nearly all died off and left the place. Smoking was the 'thing to do' and pipes were a fashion. I was never ever though, a great fan of smoking and I absolutely abhored women to smoke--and here's one reason which stuck in my mind--/
In the old days my Dad couldn't afford a license on the car to go to town so he'd alaways take the back streets as soon as he entered town and would park out side of nearly the limits, by the rail road track. Now in those days Cle Elum was famous for its string of Whore houses on Railroad street. There were lots of rumors about the street of houses and why and how come they were allowed. No use telling those rumors here.
Well as we drove pass some of the houses there'd be a lady (?) in the window all dolled up with heavy red lips and other make up beckoning passers by for business. I didn't know beans about them. But those women smoked and I found out later their trade. So I felt that if a woman smoked she was beckoning.Soliciting--so I hated to see women smoke and it was a requirement and my most important behavioral traits when thinking of a marriagable mate. So I shied away from women who smoked--really.
So as time went on, I left home to work in a saw mill. I thought that smoking a pipe was the cat's meow so I bought a cheap pipe and a can of tobacco. My buddy JIm Graves and his brother Chuck smoked heavily/ I couldn't hack the cigaret route and the pipe might be better. But the hot smoke coming out of the stem hit my tender tongue and burned it and also made the ugly taste of burnt flesh. It also compelled me to spit so often I was losing weight I think.
So I just quit for ever and became an obnoxious tobacco hater--so much that my brother in law told me "Why don't you get on a soap box" -- ,hearing that I then toned down my rhetoric agaist smoking and as you know now today there are laws which I am in favor of but I didn't contribute a bit toward to cause the banning of smoking in nearly all places.
BUT I must say the most --the very most--experiment was when Donald and I found a brand new unwrapped and banded cigar in the trash which Daddy hauled from the restaraunts in town. WE had a teepee made of burlap out in the yard for a play house. We had a kerosene wick burning in the middle. Then we unwrapped the cigar and with a pocket knife we spilt it ever so carefully to not cheat the other one out of a cigar. Then over the kerosene wick, we lit the cigars and began to puff puff puff-to make a big flame. It wasn't long till I had a couple brothers on the other side of the flame--I was sick beyond words. Somehow Donald wasn't as sick. I made it to the creek and laid there with my hands and face in the cool water--and urping violently feeling as green as the tree leaves. MY older brother John came by and just laughed a big horse laugh as I lay there in my death throes. I was able to make it from there to lay in the sun on a wood box. The illness lasted for three days. I was cured. I knew that tobacco was a poison. Later Donald used it to worm hogs--yes some tobacco in the feed and the pigs would poop out any worms it had in the intestinal tract. The pigs then grew faster. So yes, Tobacco is a poison.
When I went to the army, soldiers were given cigarets free, but I sold mine when I got my ration. Over seas cigarets was like having gold--for trading to civilians. I bartered for other items.
I am now happy the anti smoking laws have passed. I discourage the use of tobacco --except for worming pigs.