The Day I Quit Smoking

One evening I was hiding at the bottom of the back stairway (through the years we rarely used the front stairway – except for illegally sliding down the banister, or for evening spying ventures) spying on Dad and Uncle Mac, who were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea, smoking a cigarette, and talking. The kitchen was small and cramped (it was pre-addition) and not lit too brightly. Evidently I was not hiding very well because Dad spotted me and called me over. He apparently decided that of the available motives, I must have been interested in the cigarette. Although I wasn’t even old enough to attend school yet, he must have felt it was not too early to teach me something. So he showed me how to hold the cigarette properly and how to suck air through it. He handed it to me and coaxed me along. One attempt had me gasping and choking and feeling sick. Nenna came running in from the living room and scolded Dad and her brother who were laughing quite hardily, and helped me rinse out my mouth. Since that day, I never seriously contemplated smoking a cigarette. The candy ones would be quite enough after that (which we did get great pleasure out of – rolling the box into our t-shirt sleeve just like Dad did. That was a good enough imitation for me).