My first encounter with the delicacy of tobacco was at about age three or four, while listening to the manly talk of grown cousins, neighborhood farmers, and the few "big boys" I occasionally encountered while negotiating between our farm place on what is now Guy Gaar Road, the old Harmony Grove Baptist Church, Gaar's country store, cotton gin and grist mill, and the Gaar's Mill school - all of which constituted the world as I knew it, not counting the occasional visit to my grandparents' home by the railroad track in nearby Dodson. About all the menfolk dipped, chewed, or smoked, and the brand preference for each of the commodities was discussed with some seriousness. Country women pursued their habit with grace, most often on the front porch in the after-supper dusk, with a sweet witch-hazel twig chewed to a frazzle on one end, dipped into a bottle of sweet Rose Bud snuff and nursed along as a "toothbrush" while joining in the family conversation and gentle spitting into the cool of the evening in a time before television and air conditioning moved people into the house.

Snuff dippers parsed the benefits of Levi Garrett's regular, sweet, mild, in the big brown bottle, the clear glass, or small pocket-sized tin box. Chewers spoke of the differences in Brown's Mule, Day's Work, Spark Plug, and plain rough-cut. Smokers rolled their own with Golden Grain, Old North State, and Bull Durham, all dry flakes in a cotton draw-string bag, and Prince Albert in the distinctive flat red can, plus the mentholated Bugler, Kite, and a few others. "Ready rolls" were an expensive affectation not too much seen in those Depression days, but there were the "big three" Camels, Luckies, and Chesterfields, plus Old Golds and an array of others for the momentarily affluent. And for the brave, the few, the proud - and those with leather lungs - there were Picayunes.

One heard occasionally of some person in the community who "fell dead" of causes which were generally attributed to it being simply one's time to go. All in all, it was a time of tobacco innocence, when the perils of lung cancer, hypertension, stroke, and heart attack had not yet been scientifically connected to the simple pleasures of a good nicotine jolt, whether from a favorite dip, a chaw, or a good-smelling hand-rolled cigarette. Many of those who did not amuse themselves with tobacco made the choice on religious grounds, same as they did not in each other's presence partake of liquor, dance, play cards or gamble in other ways, attend movies, nor much else that was strictly for fun without a larger utilitarian value.

As I floated through this period on clouds of childish vanity I longed to be "big," one benefit of which would be to gain access to my own favorite form of tobacco, which at that time I calculated would be Garrett's snuff. One day a group from the neighborhood was passing the time of day on our front porch, and the manly talk, the smoke, and the spit were proceeding on all fours. I lurked around the edges of the forum, whining occasionally to my mother that I would like to have a dip of snuff. I deserved it, I thought, having grown up at least enough to cuss, albeit not yet with the color and aplomb of one Willie Adams, a neighbor whose prowess I admired. (Riding on a mule-drawn wagon with Willie one day, I proceeded toward home from Gaar's Store nursing a big nickel peppermint stick. Protecting it while I rode bouncing on a load of feed sacks, I swatted and growled, "I guess the flies will eat the damn stuff up before I get home with it." Willie roared with laughter as he told the folks at home about it; I thought that was pretty swell.)

Between making coffee for the front-porch crowd, and elbowing me aside with promises of a right good switching if I didn't shut up bellyaching about a dip of snuff, my mother finally arrived at the right decision. "OK, sonny boy," she said sweetly. "You want snuff? I'll give you snuff. Go on back to the kitchen."

I was elated, anticipating the thrill of this rite of passage at age three or four in the same wide-eyed ignorance as I did that much more substantive rite which I began also anticipating with a great deal more urgency at around 12 or 14, right on up to around 20 or so. She borrowed someone's tin box of Garrett's and brought it in. Opening it, she took a small spoon and lifted out a tiny pinch of the deep brown powder. Passing in front of my nose, it smelled delicious. Anxiously, I pooched out my lower lip to get the wonderful stuff settled down between lip and teeth.

The impact was virtually instantaneous: the first reaction was from the gut, which warned me it wanted to heave up. I could feel the deep sickness moving through my whole body. My eyes seemed to turn back into their sockets, my knees threatened to buckle under me, my breathing seemed . . . well, if you've never felt it yourself, you wouldn't understand. Then I knew why everyone spit.

Did I learn a lesson? Of course: I had to get stronger to handle this stuff. By the time I was around 14, I had learned to dip, chew, and smoke, which I finally became tough enough to inhale without feeling I would pass out. Then at around my 30th birthday, there came an announcement from Oschsner Hospital in New Orleans that said a definite cause and effect relationship was proved between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. I decided that was enough, and quit, cold turkey. The smell of tobacco smoke gags me now, but I still remember how good I thought it was going to be back then

A few days ago, I was passing the time of day in an area convenience store, and noticed in the well-stocked counter of 39 different brands and packs of cigarettes and round-canned snuff a small display of cigarette papers. I asked the storekeeper if he handled Bull Durham or Bugler. He shook his head and said it had been several years since he had any of that. I asked, "Who buys those cigarette papers?" He mumbled something, and I thought he said he was not going to stock anymore of them after these were gone.

Back