LILLIAN’S CIGARETTES

Once upon a time, long, long ago on Thanksgiving Day, there was an 11-year old who decided to take up smoking. He didn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders, unless you considered fifth grade a weight. No, he was just a stupid kid looking to do something he shouldn’t. Well, you ask: what does that have to do with you? Everything, I’m that stupid kid.

Now I didn’t just decide to take up smoking, no, my good friend Jerry introduced me to smoking. Jerry you see was home from the seminary where he was studying to be a priest. Jerry had decided that he should learn to smoke. Since it was Thanksgiving Day, and was home for the first time since he left in September, we got together.

Smoking in those days was not as terrible for grownups, because the Attorney General hadn’t left his mark on cigarette pack yet and no one was on a campaign to ban them. There was no TV exposure that said it caused cancer, and it was still considered sexy in Hollywood and some circles.

But for an 11-year old to smoke was a no-no, and would stunt an 11-year-old boy’s growth. Besides, if that didn’t stunt your growth, if your father caught you smoking, that would not only stunt your growth, but chances are you might even become shorter, maybe in two pieces!

But not only was the Catholic Church through its surrogate (my friend Jerry) contributing the demise of my health, my soul was being tortured also by the fact that the hope-to-be priest someday was stealing the cigarettes from his mother’s purse as well!

Oh, my tortured soul! Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault! Therefore I confess to you my brothers and sisters. But as I was making plans, God was laughing!

The Thanksgiving dinner was a feast to behold with not only the turkey, but the Italian sausage stuffing, the fennel and nuts, that made our families Thanksgiving traditional. And I not only ate, I ate well, with the drumstick, yams, mashed potatoes and other peripheral dishes that traditionally rounded out the holiday.

It was after dinner that I met my friend Jerry and discussed his plan. We would walk down to the next block, go deep into the woods and light up. Jerry had taken 4 cigarettes with him for the two of us, and I was game,

He dragged on his, the experienced smoker he was, that meant I had to drag and inhale too. I drag on the L&M and inhale, sending my head in a spin, but I don’t let on. I can’t let Jerry see me not inhale or look sick, I have to keep it up! By the third drag, I am heading home, my stomach starting to bother me and my head spinning, I head to the bathroom. Where I heaved all my Thanksgiving dinner!

And so in the eyes of the church, I conspired with a seminarian who not only smoked, but had his mother unknowingly contribute to the crime! As you may suspect, Jerry never became a priest, instead joined the altar boys, and got this heathen involved in that too!