This reminds me of my grandfather. He learned to smoke when he was five. His mother thought he looked cute smoking a little corncob pipe.
When I was a little boy I used to play gin rummy with him, and in between hands he would roll his own cigarettes. I remember watching him roll them up, watching his old hands working with those little white papers. That was in the late ’70s. He started rolling his own during WWII because cigarettes were so expensive then.
When he was quite old his doctor told him he should quit smoking. So he did, just like that. Even though he smoked for over sixty years he just quit in one day.
My other grandfather smoked cigars. I really liked the way they smelled. It was harder for him to quit, and I felt bad for him about it. Two weeks before he died he came to visit me and I took him to a baseball game (he loved baseball - the organist played Take Me Out to the Ball Game at his funeral, which made everyone just a little happy on such a sad day). His health wasn’t so good, but he was allowed to have some popcorn and a big beer at the game. I only wish he could’ve had a cigar too.
Rolling your own is cool, but I think if I smoked I’d smoke cigars. I’ve never tried smoking a cigarette or cigar or anything. My dad hated smoking, having grown up around such a heavy smoker. In our household that was just something you would never do. So I didn’t. I could always tell, though, that deep inside I’m a smoker. I just never learned to smoke.
Via are2.
