Circa 1954
It takes serious, dedication to learn to smoke properly. It's about as easy as giving yourself a suntan with a propane torch or extracting your own teeth with a string and door knob. Begin when your eleven or twelve by searching out a patch of porous vines and weeds. There stems dry in such a way that when you light one end, they smolder like a Halloween punk and allow the smoke to be drawn through their porous centre. Our own Bowker Creek had a fine crop that was especially good in the late summer. Hold the coveted stem high in stylish fashion and suck until your lips hurt! Feeling dizzy? Most likely the sucking, not smoke inhalation. But yes, this is cool! Three or four of you pressed together under the soap berry bushes, willing your tortured lungs not to cough as you practice blowing smoke rings. It's a delicious secret when you're eleven. Avoid getting too close to your parents and, for heaven's sake, don't let anyone kiss your foul lips. Well done! By breathing in something that smells worse than burning socks, your virgin, pristine lungs are well prepared for the real tortures yet to come.
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2 comments:
Yes I remember trying rollies when I was around ten. Thought I was pretty cool!
Yo, Chemo: I learned to smoke Phase 1 (tailor mades) exactly like that -- under a 10 foot tin Orange Crush sign in the back yard at my old man's corner store. Phase 2 smoking was learned later during my days with the Lands and Forests (Smokey doesn't smoke tailor mades -- you might burn down the forest -- and you WOULDN'T want to do that!). I put too much tobacco in the paper and they looked like brooms. I cut back and put in too little and I looked like a weenie next to the guys with stained fingers and beards who could put together the perfect reefer with one hand in a rain storm. I licked the paper too much and it disintegrated -- after being lit, of course...and cut my tongue on the edges by not passing on enough of my sputum in the closing exercise. Phase 1 b) involved a pipe, but I'm not going there. Looking forward to your words of wisdom re:
1. Asking for first date
2. First kiss
3. Learning to dance
4. Asking for first dance
5. Learning to deal with rejection of first date, first kiss, first dance and asking for a cigarette from a cheap "friend", etc.
Blissfully Aware of the Thrills and Agony of Both 60's (funny the similarities between the two, hmmmm.) in Gordon Head
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