Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette
Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death.
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait,
But you just gotta have another cigarette.
Written by Merle Travis for Tex Williams and released in 1947
It was in the trailer park on Dickerson Road near the Shwab Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee, where I first succumbed to peer-pressure and puffed my first cigarette.
Naturally, at age eleven I was too young to buy my own cigarettes, and so was everyone else. However, we were not above pilfering them from ashtrays and unattended packs as they were discovered around the trailer.
Several of us guys (do not remember any girls tagging along) came up with a brilliant plan to get as many cigarettes as we could from our homes and meet down in the wooded area behind the trailer park.
I was able to get two whole Kools and one Camel (both unfiltered) from my mom’s open pack, and several smokable ducks from the two ashtrays in the living room. Both my mom and dad smoked, and by age fifteen I was smoking regularly at school.
My first preference in the early years was Old Gold Spin Filters, but by the time I entered the Air Force I was hooked on Winston and Kools. I remember getting $25 every 15 days and the first two things I bought was a carton of each. Mom started buying cigarettes for me when I was a junior, in fear I would get hold of some "Waccius Baccius!"
Thank God, other than puffing (not inhaling like Clinton) a great cigar occasionally, I have not smoked a cigarette in almost twenty-five years!
Meanwhile, back at the hideout, we all gathered and piled our contraband on a big rock and gathered around. Someone had the good sense to steal some matches, several books as I remember, and it was a good thing. None of us knew anything about lighting one cigarette from another. It was one match, light as many as you could until your fingers got singed, yell “OUCH,” and strike another!
Pretty soon the five or six of us were puffing away. It probably looked as if Indians were preparing to attack the trailer park!
Someone had the bright idea of inhaling like his dad, and we each in turn gave it a try. After the coughing and sputtering, the experienced dude would challenge the next person.
It was not long before we were all turning green, and I think one poor guy puked his guts right there.
I made it home just about suppertime and my whole world was revolving much too fast and it was all I could do to not throw up as I stepped inside. I walked by the table mom was preparing and almost lost it.
I staggered unnoticed to the couch, laid down, and held on for dear life!
“Wash up son, it’s time to eat,” mom said.
“I’m feeling kinda sick mom, can I just lay here? Please?”
She felt of my forehead and figured I was coming down with something and did not make me get up. I also remember dad coming in and asking, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Probably a bug or something, let’em rest,” she told him.
God works in strange ways.
I soon fell asleep and the world slowed down again. It was a long time before I ever wanted to “puff, puff, puff” another cigarette.
Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death.
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait,
But you just gotta have another cigarette.
Written by Merle Travis for Tex Williams and released in 1947
It was in the trailer park on Dickerson Road near the Shwab Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee, where I first succumbed to peer-pressure and puffed my first cigarette.
Naturally, at age eleven I was too young to buy my own cigarettes, and so was everyone else. However, we were not above pilfering them from ashtrays and unattended packs as they were discovered around the trailer.
Several of us guys (do not remember any girls tagging along) came up with a brilliant plan to get as many cigarettes as we could from our homes and meet down in the wooded area behind the trailer park.
I was able to get two whole Kools and one Camel (both unfiltered) from my mom’s open pack, and several smokable ducks from the two ashtrays in the living room. Both my mom and dad smoked, and by age fifteen I was smoking regularly at school.
My first preference in the early years was Old Gold Spin Filters, but by the time I entered the Air Force I was hooked on Winston and Kools. I remember getting $25 every 15 days and the first two things I bought was a carton of each. Mom started buying cigarettes for me when I was a junior, in fear I would get hold of some "Waccius Baccius!"
Thank God, other than puffing (not inhaling like Clinton) a great cigar occasionally, I have not smoked a cigarette in almost twenty-five years!
Meanwhile, back at the hideout, we all gathered and piled our contraband on a big rock and gathered around. Someone had the good sense to steal some matches, several books as I remember, and it was a good thing. None of us knew anything about lighting one cigarette from another. It was one match, light as many as you could until your fingers got singed, yell “OUCH,” and strike another!
Pretty soon the five or six of us were puffing away. It probably looked as if Indians were preparing to attack the trailer park!
Someone had the bright idea of inhaling like his dad, and we each in turn gave it a try. After the coughing and sputtering, the experienced dude would challenge the next person.
It was not long before we were all turning green, and I think one poor guy puked his guts right there.
I made it home just about suppertime and my whole world was revolving much too fast and it was all I could do to not throw up as I stepped inside. I walked by the table mom was preparing and almost lost it.
I staggered unnoticed to the couch, laid down, and held on for dear life!
“Wash up son, it’s time to eat,” mom said.
“I’m feeling kinda sick mom, can I just lay here? Please?”
She felt of my forehead and figured I was coming down with something and did not make me get up. I also remember dad coming in and asking, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Probably a bug or something, let’em rest,” she told him.
God works in strange ways.
I soon fell asleep and the world slowed down again. It was a long time before I ever wanted to “puff, puff, puff” another cigarette.
