I'll Smoke Tomorrow -- with apologies to Susan Hayward (as Lillian Roth) and Vivien Leigh (as Scarlett O'Hara)

Smoke Screen

I started smoking in 1958, when I was ten. It was an experiment. I wanted to pretend to be beautiful and glamorous, like my mom.

(I don't know. Maybe she was also pretending?)

Also, like those guests on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

I used to buy cigarettes for her at the grocery store, back when they cost a dime. That was 1953. I was five. I had to reach up above my head to place the dime on the counter.

Sometimes the shopkeeper couldn't see me until I put the dime there, because my head didn't clear the counter top.

By the time I was twelve, smoking was a full-fledged addiction for me --- a pack or two each day.

I never smoked in front of my stepdad, but he knew I smoked and never said anything about it. That restraint probably helped my health a little.

It was by the grace of God --- and some diligent pestering by my kids, especially led by the oldest (I'll call him Freddie) ---- that I had my last cigarette in the summer of 1982.

Never had a craving.

Never had another cigarette.

Never really felt better, or worse, or any different at all.

Just glad to be rid of the expense and annoyance. Glad to be alive and breathing.

How that Did Happen?

I will save the details for another post. 

Or perhaps an entire book? It's a long story.

Or, perhaps not? The essence of it all is this:

I had an entire full pack of Pall Malls --- my mom's, and my, favorite --- sitting there on a bookshelf.

There were nineteen cigarettes left in the pack because I had taken one drag off one cigarette the day before. At the time, I just thought maybe I'll finish this later, or tomorrow.

So, I saved the very long butt, just in case.

The next day that long butt was still sitting there on that shelf, beside that nearly-full pack.

I lighted it. I took a drag. I was looking forward to finishing that cigarette, as I had not had a smoke for 24 hours.

But, then, another part of me thought, "Wow, that is so disgusting."

I had an epiphany. I got in touch with my "inner non-smoker." I guess that is the only way I can describe it.

Back, then, a pack of cigarettes had not yet broken the "$1-a-pack barrier," which lots of smokers and non-smokers were talking about.

''We're about to break the $1-a-pack barrier,'' said Roy D. Burry, vice president and analyst at Kidder Peabody. That milestone will probably come in mid-1983 . . ."

Seems quaintly old-fashioned now, right?

Rest in Peace, Dear Mummy

Today is July 4, 2015.

My dear mom would be looking forward to celebrating her eighty-eighth birthday this November. She was born in 1927.

She died of lung cancer in March of 2012.

She was not even 85 yet. 

Links

Here are some links answering to the call, "Smoking Cessation:"

I especially like this one. It's very short, helpful and authoritative.

Wikipedia page entitled, "Smoking Cessation," is worth a look-see. You never know when you might get a new idea you had never thought of before.

This page from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is mostly filled with information you already know. But, a reminder can't hurt. And, just might hit you right between the eyes for a reason you don't even understand.

(Smoking is primal and subliminal. For some Native American folks, tobacco has always been a sacred crop. Even now, we cannot help but realize its power.)

This page is an advertisement from Glaxo-Smith-Kline, the makers of Nicorette and NicoDerm CQ, so take it with a grain of salt. But, take what you can out of it. I don't think anything is wrong with trying their products, really. But, there are many other ways to go and things to try.

Don't be intimidated.

Just sayin' :-)

Charles Dickens and the Main in Seat 61

Everybody knows that Dickens hated trains. They were new when he was a little boy. He remembered the countryside from before the invention of the train, and he preferred it without them.

My mom's family owned 206 F Street, N.W., (demolished in 1963 for a highway) since the 19th century. It was a short walk from 206 to the Union Station.

My grandpa, his dad, and one of his sisters (Alice) worked for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. I don't know about the other sister, Grace? She may have also worked for the B&O.

My mom (also Alice, after her aunt) and I  traveled by train between Pittsburgh and D.C., to visit her family. When I got a little older, I traveled by myself, mostly in the summer. There was the Presidential Limited and the Congressional Limited.

There was also the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad, though. They had coach service between Pittsburgh and the District. I'll never forget Chessie snuggled for the night with his little pillow.

My mom never really did get over her love of train travel though even when train travel became old-fashioned, expensive and mostly out of-style. (I guess that was the '70's and '80'? Hard to say, though.) She liked to travel by train from Chicago to Pittsburgh and back again. 

Long before her death, she had told me about the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago's Union Station. I was afraid to travel to Chicago en route to Pittsburgh and so never did travel to Pittsburgh by train, once I moved to the midwest.

Many seem to feel that Pittsburgh IS the Midwest anyway. It was not even a part of Pennsylvania originally, as readers know.

One of the reasons I never traveled to Pittsburgh by rail is this:   --- There's no way to get to Pittsburgh without starting in Chicago. My mom wanted to help me get over my fear of Chicago by telling me about this Metropolitan Lounge. I did not know what it was like, and I never went to it.

Back to Seat 61.

Well, the man in Seat 61 has a photograph on his blog of that Metropolitan Lounge.

Sad to say, the man is in England, which makes sense. That's where the railway originated, much to the chagrin of Mr. Dickens.

However, there is a U.S. version, also, of Seat 61, but not nearly as good.

The main point of the U.S. version is traveling coast - to- coast by train.

But, I'm already in the Midwest, and have no use for any coast. So, where to travel to?

How about north to south? I'm already near Chicago, so why not just get one of those routes to the south, along the Mississippi River?

Of course the railroads are better in the U.K., and always have been.

Charles Dickens himself verifies this --- despite the fact that he didn't like trains at all. He still dislikes the U.S. trains even more.