My favorite story from my Pappy...
He started smoking cigarettes—Lucky Strikes or something like that—at seventeen years old and wanted to seem cooler and more sophisticated. Later he was in love with sixteen-year-old Mildred, He was pretty sure a cigarette hanging from his pimple-covered face would drive Mildred to a state of uncontrollable lust for his bony body.
He just knew that if he smoked, he’d look as cool as Clark Gable, James Steward, or John Wayne. Turns out he more resembled Joe Camel, the cool Camel cigarette mascot.
Like men of the day, he wore a white shirt and stored his Lucky Strikes in the shirt pocket. Part of his reason for quitting cigarettes years later was that his pockets got too small—what with his glasses, pens and screw drivers he had no room for and resulting in the frequent loss of expensive cigarettes.
As a young man, he thought he was ten feet tall and bulletproof. he’d never look, feel or grow old. He’d live forever. He'd told me that it doesn't work out as you think. As the years passed, the smokes started to take their toll. He noticed he tired more easily and would experience shortness of breath, especially after extreme exertion, like the time he lost the remote control and had to get off his La-Z-Boy and walk to the TV to change the channel.
Mom warned him that he was on a direct path to a heart attack or stroke if he didn’t up the tobacco products. He thought she was such a worry wart.
“You’re gonna kill yourself with those cancer sticks, Worth she would .”
And he said... Yeah,whatever.
“Plus she had ... you’re more likely to develop erectile dysfunction if you smoke,”
He said... Yeah, whatever . . . “ Then...What? You mean I wouldn’t be able to . . .”
Now he had his attention. He’d never told him cigarettes could ruin his life!
He used to buy a pack of smokes for about a quarter. They were cheap. When they got to be about 30 bucks a carton, that was the last straw.
He did the math one night—with the help of me and my handy calculator and figured out that comes to about $2000 per year.
He quit smoking cold turkey right then and there. After all, two grand would buy a lot of chrome trinkets for his car!
At Least Money Talks...
Sad side note... Mom died of cancer 15 year before Dad died of a heart attack.
Nana
Comments