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June 9 made my second anniversary. It’s been two years since I fired up one of my Pall Malls. Nobody thought I could quit, least of all me. One friend said I should have bet I was going to quit because everyone who knew me would have given odds I couldn’t stop. My friend and Doctor Bill Findley used to look
at my chest x-ray after each annul lab visit and say there was no
change, still showed some loss in my lungs.
Once an x-ray showed a small spot in my chest and he had me go
immediately for a catscan. It
turned negative, but he apparently was expecting the worse. Bill never tried to lecture me on quitting.
He just said he hated to think of me coming in to his office in a
wheel chair trailing an oxygen tank. But
he knew fussing at a nicotine addict was the same as coming down on an
alcoholic. That craving is
fierce. Nearly 20 years ago I had quit, stopped eating
meat as well. I felt great.
But my lungs must have been still strong enough to recuperate
then. People would smoke
around me and apologize. I
would say it didn’t bother me, “blow some my way.”
The aroma of tobacco still smelled good even though I got past
the craving. When I decided to start smoking again, all it
took was one cigarette to rekindle the craving.
I choked when the unfamiliar tars and chemicals invaded my lungs.
But it brought back the jolt that nicotine gives, brought back
the inner recollections of tobacco smoke that I began at in college to
be “one of the guys.” When I had quit smoking for those two years, it
never bothered me to be around smokers.
I couldn’t understand how it bothered anyone else. After all, I grew up in Virginia tobacco country where my
father had a farm that grew the leaves that went into cigarettes and
other similar products from snuff to chewing tobacco.
Everyone smoked. Magazines
and radio extolled the virtues of cigarettes.
It was fashionable and added to sex appeal, the ads told us.
Hollywood stars from Ronald Reagan to Bette Davis hyped one brand
or another. People smoked
in restaurants, in movie theaters and even on elevators. Once when several of us were smoking and passed
a woman in a hotel hallway she began fanning the nicotine away when we
passed. How silly, I
thought. How could a little
whiff of smoke bother anyone? When
Barbara Porter rode with me in my old Oldsmobile station wagon for the
’94 Wamp Around the District for Zach, I let the windows down and
didn’t smoke because she said it bothered her.
At the first stop, Barbara said she had to change cars.
There was so much nicotine in the interior of the wagon it made
her sick. I still didn’t
get it. How could anybody
be that sensitive to smoke? As addicted as I was to smoking, I was even more
persistent in my right to smoke. Often
I would avoid meetings where I couldn’t smoke.
After all, that was my right, I thought. It came to a point where I at times couldn’t
finish a sentence for coughing. I
would lose my breath and gasp for a while before I could resume the
conversation. Food lost its
taste. I could smell
nothing. Since I came out
of service in 1955, I had kept a 36-inch waist.
As I lost weight, I had to put the belt in the tightest notch and
my clothes felt baggy on me. Nights I would wake up coughing and couldn’t
get to sleep for wheezing. Many
times I prayed for God to give me the strength to quit.
I got to the point I could go all day without smoking, even with
coffee in the morning. But
I would stop by my VFW post, have a beer and before I went to bed I had
smoked a pack of unfiltered Pall Malls.
I couldn’t bring groceries into the house without sitting down
on the steps to get my breath. Everybody’s different.
Some people have iron constitutions and can seemingly smoke with
impunity. Some people can
quit smoking easily. Some
can’t. I didn’t think I
could. But one Sunday two
years ago I lit a Pall Mall, coughed my head off bringing up crud from
my lungs, and I put my cigarette out half finished.
I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. Oddly enough, it wasn’t as hard as I thought
it would be, because I felt I had no choice.
Unfortunately, my lungs had gotten weak enough so that the smoke
now bothers me when it’s right in my face.
And I can smell the nicotine in the clothes of a heavy smoker.
I understand now why Barbara couldn’t handle the station wagon
with its nicotine soaked interior. I understand why that woman tried to fan away the nicotine
when we passed her in the hall. I still don’t feel like running track.
I’m having to let my pants out to add two inches to my mid
section, but it’s worth it. A few of my VFW friends have overcome the
addiction. Others haven’t
and I still enjoy their company. The
smoke doesn’t bother me unless it comes right at me.
Seems whenever someone puts one in an ashtray I attract it. Only one of my friends seems to resent my not smoking and
wants to tempt me into starting. It’s
a waste of his time. I have a few beautiful pipes from my pipe
smoking days and when a fellow named Nick had Pelican Pipe on Broad
Street. In all honesty, I
do wish I could smoke. But
I would not want to smoke regardless.
What I’m wishing is that I had quit smoking because it was the
smart thing to do, not because I had to. |
