Looking back to my youth I sometimes recall the times when there were lessons to be learned. These lessons didn’t always involve someone sitting down and explaining something to you. Sometimes it was a lesson that could only taught by experience. For me, learning to smoke was one of those lessons.
I can’t remember for sure how old I was, around seven I would guess. But I can remember that day as if it were yesterday. As I often did, I was sitting out in the front yard enjoying the evening and talking with my Grandma. Grandma lived with my Aunt and Uncle who lived just next door to us, and everyday after school I would make my routine trip over there to visit with her. She had a small room in the back part of the house and I can remember her always sitting on the edge of her bed smoking a cigarette and looking out the window. If ever we kids had a notion to do something mischievous we had best not do it anywhere that could viewed from that window, for if we did my Mother would no doubt find out about it. Grandma was one my most favorite people when I was growing up, and she always made me feel like I was her favorite grandchild.
When the weather was nice you would always find Grandma sitting out in the yard. She had a set of three heavy metal lawn chairs, and to go with the chairs a small round metal table and her little butt bucket. The bucket hung on a little shepherd’s hook that was shoved into the ground. It was a small black bucket with the word “butts” painted on it, and I remember thinking of how very funny that was.
As best I can remember Grandma was also my first employer. She had a routine of sitting in the backyard during the morning hours until the sun got up over the tree in our backyard. It was my job to then move all of her equipment to the shade of the front yard, and then the next morning everything would once again be moved to the back again. Now this job was not as easy as it sounds, those chairs were heavy! I can remember when she first gave me the job that I couldn’t even lift the chairs and I had to drag them back and forth, but then later on I got to where I could heft them up over my head and pack them around that way. I couldn’t complain though, it was a well paying job, twenty five cents a day as I recall, and at that time you could still buy something with twenty five cents. Then there was a bonus job that earned me another twenty five cents, and that was to empty her butt bucket whenever it got full.
It never took Grandma long to fill up her butt bucket, she was a heavy smoker and she enjoyed it. It seemed she always had a cigarette in her hand and I can remember her fingertips being stained brown from the nicotine. I would sit for hours out there with her, talking, laughing, and watching the patterns of smoke that the cigarettes would put off as she would move her hands when she talked. I also remember this being the time when I started wishing I could smoke to.
Then that evening came when I remember myself saying to her “Grandma, I wish I could smoke like you.” And she replied “ Well, I think you are old enough now. Come here and I will light one up for you and you can learn.” I couldn’t believe it, my Grandma was going to teach me to smoke, and with Mom being at work getting in trouble wasn’t even a concern. She took her lighter, lit one up and handed me the first cigarette of my life, and I proudly sat there in that chair smoking a cigarette with my Grandma. I can remember her telling me that I wasn’t doing it quite right. She said I should take bigger puffs, breath it in deep and then put my head back and blow the smoke towards the sky. I felt like some kind of big shot sitting out there smoking with my Grandma.
But then as the cigarette grew shorter, I started feeling a little sick. Grandma was smiling and asked me if I was feeling all right? I told her that I was as I got up, put my cigarette in the butt bucket and started walking towards the house. I was running by the time I got to the front door and it was a miracle that I even made it to the bathroom. When I did I stuck my head in the toilet and I paid for every precious puff that I took of that cigarette ten times over. I remember sitting in front of the toilet with my eyes watering and my stomach in knots wishing I would die. “How can she smoke those things?” I thought, as I wiped the sweat off my face. After a while I got my composure back and I went back out and sat down with her again. I didn’t see any point in telling her what had just happened. I could tell by the look on her smiling face that she already knew, and that for some strange reason she seemed to be getting some sort of satisfaction from it. That was to be the last time that I would ever ask anyone for a cigarette.
I look back now and laugh about the time that Grandma taught me to smoke. Although I now know that it wasn’t a lesson on how to smoke, but rather a lesson not to. As best as I can recall that was my first and last cigarette. I am glad for that and I believe that I owe it to the hard lesson that she taught me that evening. I lost my Grandma when I was in my high school years. Her memory often comes to me and takes me back to the evenings I spent sitting with her out there in the yard. Her name was Amanda and she was very very dear to me. I will miss her always.
Jack Roberts – Aug 2002
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Reviewed by Tracey L. O' Very
3/1/2005
Amanda Such a Beautiful name and I can just picture her through this whole story. I wish my Grandma would have done that for me well rather my Uncle I'd guess since neither one of my grandma's smoked but my grandpa and my dad did let me have that glass of bourbon YUK! that kept me from that nasty crap! Yuk How can they drink that stuff. Even mentioning it I can taste that Yuk!!! Thank You Jack for all the stories I truly am glad that you do this I love hearing these tales What a neat Lady Grandma Amanda.
ThankYou Jack
Love Tracey xo
Let this coming of age story of a boy named Bean take you back to a simple time. Set in a small southern town in the 1960's, encircled by a river and gleaming white cotton fields.
