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12/17/2004: "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"

Mr. Murdstone saw a sculpture of a Santa smoking a pipe and made a passing remark, semi-regretfully, about his own days as a smoker. It was a little jarring to think of him as ever having been a smoker, though of course, based on demographic data, it would be likely that he had been one -- he is of the right age and background. I am also an ex-smoker, though it seems like so remote a part of my past that it might as well be true of a distant ancestor as of me. I used the devil's weed in my late teens and early twenties. Primarily I used cigarettes, no more than five or six or eight a day, and when I didn't want them or didn't want to spend the money, I went without. I smoked Camels, mostly, but for a change of pace I would try Newports for a week. My brother smoked Marlboros, which were awful, but I would bum them. Sometimes I would moke a pipe for a season, because it looked so professorial -- I remember you, Howard Comfort -- but it went out a lot or discharged foul juices. I could blow smoke rings, quite well. I held the cigarette with thumb below and two fingers on top, like Humphrey Bogart did. When I had no money I rolled my own. One day I stopped, and I never missed it. Except: The Balkan Sobranie. That was a fine smoke.