How to quit smoking
It appears the national media had a slow news day in late December (at least, The New York Times did) when a story about President-elect Barack Obama and a likely New Year’s resolution to quit smoking made the news.
The article by Denise Grady and Lawrence K. Altman, which was published in The Fresno Bee, said Obama’s heaviest smoking was seven or eight cigarettes a day.
The Times reporters related that Obama promised to obey the White House no-smoking rules, but wasn’t clear if that meant he would be lighting up outside. His transition team refused to answer any questions about smoking.
I’m slightly older than our next commander-in-chief, and can proudly brag that I kicked the smoking habit quicker than you can say “It’s time for change!”
My first — and last cigarette, with some very minor exceptions at 1 p.m. in some smoke-filled bars — came when I was 12 years old.
Perry Shockley, my step-father’s dad, decided one day to offer me a cigarette. Gramps, as we called him, was known to go through cigarettes like an eating champion goes through hot dogs. (Granny, his wife, went through snuff just as quickly … but she never offered me some!)
Anyway, I remember riding alongside Gramps as he controlled the levers on an alfalfa-cutting machine in southwest New México. Before I knew it, he offered me a cigarette. Wow! It meant I was now an adult! Until then, the closest I had come to smoking was those candy cigarettes that are now banned in this country.
One puff. That’s all it took for me to swear off cigarettes. How can someone use something that makes you cough, and makes your clothes smelly, and costs more than a pretty penny????
I think Gramps (who died more than two decades ago) knew what he was doing. He was smart enough to realize that if you give a kid a smoke, chances are he will curse at you and swear off the vice. It worked.
Reminds me of how my father gave me my first beer when I was about 8 years old. But, that is another story. And, as far as I know, Barack does not have a drinking problem.
