Fifty Years

 On the day our country celebrates its 250^th birthday, I will be celebrating another anniversary. It was on the 4^th of July, 1976 that I quit smoking. I figured that if I didn’t slip up and go back to this addiction, I’d always be able to remember the exact day I quit. The two hundredth birthday of our country, fifty years ago!

    I did do some planning. I smoked more than my usual amount of cigarettes on the days proceeding. I wanted my mouth to taste like shit! I smoked one butt after another, opening a new pack as soon as I emptied the last. Lighting a new cigarette off of the one I had just finished, my fingers smelled as bad as my mouth tasted.

    1976, beside the country celebrating its 200^th birthday, lots of things happened during the year. There was a Freedom train that stopped in Pittsburgh for a couple days. The average price of gas was around sixty cents a gallon. NASA landed Viking 1 on the planet Mars and it sent color pictures back to us earthlings. VHS tapes were introduced, changing how we watched TV. The first Rocky movie was released, Alex Haley’s book Roots spent 22 weeks in the number 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List and Stephen King was rapidly gaining popularity with two books under his belt. Cigarette prices were soaring up into the fifty cents a pack range. It was getting expensive to smoke in those days!

    Just a couple years out of high school, I was working in a small machine shop in the basement of a building in Blawnox. I was a whole two years into my full-time working life. I rode my motorcycle and enjoyed hiking and camping. In the evenings, I’d get together with my friends, and we’d listen to music, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Kansas, Frampton, Wings and The Eagles to name just a few. We would watch TV and BS, fueled on by herbal and alcoholic spirits. Those were the days! We all smoked. BUT, I can still remember the smell of the room the next day as I cleaned up. Emptying the butts into the trash and washing the ash trays could turn your stomach, but I dealt with it. It was all part of the habit!

    I have to say though, cigarette smoke can smell good, especially if it’s just a slight wisp, and an attractive woman is doing the smoking. A mixture of perfume and cigarette smoke can take you away to a different place. It can add a bit of mystery or intrigue to an evening. It brings to mind, Brigitte Bardot or Uma Thurman, Humphrey Bogart or Clint Eastwood. Smoking was cool, it made me feel cool! It also left a bad taste in my mouth.

    The time had come. I didn’t want that monkey on my back anymore. It was time to quit, while I still could. So, late in the night, as the clock neared midnight, on the 3rd of July 1976, I took my last drag on my last cigarette, crumpled the pack and started anew.

    Now this year, as the country celebrates its 250^th birthday, I will also be celebrating my 50^th year free of tobacco addiction. A half of a century, I’d never have guessed it back in 1976. I haven’t always made the best choices, but this was definitely one of my better!