Honest Smoke!

Despite the fact that the Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health showed no evidence that smoking early in life is a symbol of growing up, nearly every smoker my own colleagues and I have interviewed over the past ten years reported, that this was indeed the original reason for taking up the custom.

Arthur Homer Cain

 I was an early experimenter in smoking.  I started smoking in the open and in front of my parents at the ripe old age of sixteen, but I was sampling the vice long before I came out of the smoking closet or in the case at Beaver Dam Lake, a two holed out-house.  I didn’t do drugs or drink alcohol in high school -- smoking was my sin of choice. 

Smoking today is viewed quite differently than it was in the days of my youth.  Smoking is now viewed by society as the mother of all vices and no-smoking policies are enforced by non-smoking, holier than thou, mostly reformed smokers -- the smoking police.  You can see the poor smoking wretches huddled outside their office buildings on very cold, blustery days trying to keep warm, but always serving their personal demon.  It’s the price they pay for their sin.  And I must say I don’t really care.  It’s a rotten dirty death dealing habit.  However, coffin nails are still a matter of personal choice -- this is America.

Most everybody, particularly in the fifties and sixties smoked.  Most of my friends smoked in high school.  My old Ford must have looked like it was on fire, as smoke from our before school cigarettes poured out of the car as we stepped out to go into the school building.  Cigarettes and cigars were advertised on television.  In every movie, actors both men and women all puffed away on the screen.  I saw an old clip of Janis Joplin, the legendary rock star who eventually died of a heroin overdose, on a Dick Cavette show in the sixties, and she sat right next to him smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke his way.  Smoking was considered cool, sophisticated and just normal.

One warm summer day, with way too much time on our hands, my neighborhood friends, Frank Wilson, Jerry Weisenauer and I decided we wanted to have a smoke and spent some time trying to figure out where we could get the tobacco.  I came up with the solution to our nicotine dilemma.  I knew that Uncle Jake, our next door neighbor, kept his cigars in a smoking cabinet in his living room.  It was in the afternoon, and I figured I could perhaps sneak into his house without anyone knowing and steal a cigar.  I was right.  There was nobody downstairs.  I figured that if I were caught in the house I would just say I had come over to visit.  The cigars were right where they should be.  I quickly grabbed one and silently sped out the door with no one being the wiser.  Ha! Ha! What a clever boy was I.

We disappeared under a big leafy bush tent that served as both our hide-out and the left field fence of the back lot baseball field.  We lit up and passed it around.  My brother, Terry, joined us a little later to share a few puffs.

Mom called that it was time to come and get washed up for supper and everybody went home.  As I passed her on the way into the house, she smelled the cigar smoke on my breath and clothes.  Why did I think she could not smell the smell of a smelly cigar?  She asked if I had been smoking.  I quickly admitted the crime with a quiet and mumbled, “Yes”.  How could I do anything but admit the truth with the evidential smell clinging to every part of me? 

“Where did you get the cigar? 

”We found it.  It was all wrapped”.  Honest!

Mom was mad, of course, but this was not the first time I had been caught using the forbidden “weed”.  I fully expected she would tell Dad, and there would be some level of punishment administered.  Based on past smoking convictions, I wasn’t too worried about what punishment might be handed out.  I could take it like the man I was pretending to be.  However, this was a crime of a repeat offender who had perjured himself under questioning by my ultimate judges -- my parents.  As I found out, I was subject to larger crimes and punishment and a life’s lesson learning event of most epic proportions.

When Jerry got home, his mom asked the same motherly smoking question, as to where we got the cigar, and he was too quick to say, “Sam stole it from Uncle Jake’s house.”  (Uh-oh!)

Of course, Mrs. Weisenauer was not one to keep a secret, so she called my Mother and told her the truth, according to Jerry.  Terry and I were quickly banished to our beds without supper, a frequent form of punishment for rather serious offenses.  I could live with it, although I was hungry.  A little later I heard Dad coming up the stairs -- Clomp! Clomp! Clomp! (Uh-oh!)  As he entered our room, I could see that he held his house slipper in his hand.  He whacked my butt good, and then moved to the other side of the room to administer the same punishment to my brother.  Although I’m sure there were other spankings, this was the only spanking I ever remember my Dad giving me.  It hurt, but I could live with it.  I figured that my punishment was over, and I had made it once again through the sentence.  (Uh-oh!)  The paddling was a good one, but not nearly the punishment that was still coming.

He said,  “That was for smoking, but that’s not the end of it.  (Uh-oh!)  For stealing and for lying about where you got the cigar you, Jerry and Frank are going to go over to Uncle Jake’s tomorrow and tell him that you stole one of his cigars, and you are to do the talking.  (Uh-oh!)  “What about Terry?”, I asked.  “He wasn’t in on the stealing, so he doesn’t have to go”, Dad replied.  I guess in legal terms, he was considered an accessory after the fact.  I thought to myself, “Boy, that doesn’t seem fair (I knew enough to keep my mouth shut though).  This has gotten way out of hand.  This is really serious.  I’m not sure I can take it.  Another house slipper whack would be better than this.”

The three of us walked into the Campbell’s house about noon the next day.  They were all seated around the table in the kitchen getting ready for lunch.  I did the talking, as instructed, and told them what I had done and that we were very very sorry.  There were even a couple of tears shed.  We were forgiven, but in retrospect, they must have had to do everything possible to keep their snickers muffled at our obvious pain.  It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.  I suppose that was a secondary lesson learned.  Do what you have to do and get on with it.  This experience made me more of a man than any cigarette or cigar ever did. 

It was lessons learned about honesty and confession.  It didn’t stop me from smoking for a long time, but it did teach me about the importance of honesty and a personal code of conduct that I have carried with me all of my life.  The consequences of dishonesty and lying are too great, and it had nothing to do with a spanking.

Honesty is at the core of my soul, and my parents lovingly placed it there.  They understood how and when to teach the most important lessons of life.

Honesty is always the best policy; confession is good for the soul, and the country still needs is a good five-cent cigar.

Have a nice day!

Little Sammy Carl