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I went from the first through seventh grades in a small town grammar school in the middle, the so-called Piedmont section, of our big state.
It was around 1950, World War II a recent memory for us all. The Civil War had not been forgotten, either. Damnyankee was considered just a single word.
Our little school had only four classrooms, the senior lady teacher also served as principal. Miss H. was never married, quite proper in middle age, able to correct us youngsters in all our social or educational failings.
For example, usage of the word “guy” in polite conversation was rare but beginning to be heard more.
“It’s Northern slang,” she snorted in disgust. “Our good Southern boys were thrown together with Yankees during their war times and picked it up from them, it’s pure slang. Don’t use it.”
Seventh-grade boys, like myself, were the oldest students on the little campus, and she called us all into her principal’s office one day.
We all smoked cigarettes in the boys’ bathroom, and she was not happy about it. Never forgot her surprising words on the subject. Honest.
“I know a man likes to smoke after a meal,” she said. To a dozen seventh-grade boys. “But I want y’all to quit smoking inside the building. If you want to smoke, do it on the ball field.”
So we did, with full permission. Parents were never told.
Surgeon general’s report
A few years later, the U.S. Surgeon General issued the first report blasting smoking and the damage it was doing to American health.
Wife and I both smoked a pack a day. I liked Winstons, she smoked Salems.
Living in Rocky Mount, about 60 miles due east of Raleigh, right in the middle of the Coastal Plain where they grew tobacco big time. So much money was involved that they called it the Golden Weed.
I was a reporter on the local daily newspaper and thought I could not write at all unless I had a smoke going, like incense curling up around my head. Thought a real newsman looked like that, working in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke and printer’s ink.
So, I jumped on the report with both feet to see if I could find a loophole for my situation. And I quickly did.
The original report said that a study of cigar smokers, who never deliberately inhaled the smoke and smoked only five a day, showed no greater incidence of lung cancer than non-smokers.
“That’s it,” I told my young bride. “We’re not buying any more cigarettes in this house. I am going to start smoking cigars and pipes, no inhaling.”
She agreed. “But give me whatever cigarettes you have now. I will put them with mine, make them last as long as I can …”
Like catnip to a cat
So I smoked pipes and cigars, no inhaling, writing for mostly newspapers but also some magazines and finally wrote four novels, out of print. (My Real Mountain Tales series is a collection of these columns in three books, available at gift shops, museum and the Cherokee Scout office.)
Clenching a pipe in my teeth proved expensive, with crowns required. Cigars were my best friend. Didn’t even have to light them, just chew on them and literally eat them up. The stench is a learned response, sort of like learning to relish eating ramps.
The great awakening for me came in 1997. Finally got curious enough to consult the Center for Disease Control & Prevention website in Atlanta.
The CDC, rightfully so, brands tobacco use as the nation’s biggest health problem … that could be eliminated if folks would leave tobacco (and the nicotine it contains) simply alone.
CDC numbers show that nicotine not only causes cancer in the lungs, the mouth, throat, etc., it also impacts the heart.
Because nicotine causes your blood vessels to contract, get smaller, which forces your all-important heart to work harder to force blood through a suddenly-tiny pipe.
I quit on the spot, thinking, “A man’s a fool to attack his heart …”
Times change. Today, pure nicotine packets are sold in convenience stores for those who want them. No tobacco need apply.
Call your next case …
Wally Avett first wrote for the Cherokee Scout as editor in 1969. His books are available as signed copies at the Scout office in Murphy. Call him at 828-837-5531 or email wallyavett@gmail.com.