There's a Garrison Keillor story, published in The New Yorker in mid-1980s, about the last five cigarette smokers in America: "they were located in a box canyon south of Donner Pass in the High Sierra by two federal tobacco agents who spotted the little smoke puffs just before noon".
They are arrested ending their months on the run, during which they have been desperately living off their final few smokes. "They disgust me," says the arresting officer as they are dragged to the van.
The short story was hilarious back in 1984, when I first read it, sitting on the back steps of my flat, enjoying an early evening gasper. Everyone smoked back then, although the phrase "disgusting habit" was beginning to make the odd appearance.
Now, decades on, Keillor's arrest squads cannot be far off. In the coming election, Labor and the Coalition propose taxing cigarettes until it's effectively impossible to smoke (The Greens, of course, will ban cigarettes but make marijuana compulsory).
Already it's pretty hard to smoke. Who would have predicted the packets featuring cancerous lips and gangrene-ridden limbs? Who would have imagined smoking banned in the open air – even in Martin Place, a wind tunnel so effective you could test jets in it? Who would have predicted cigarettes at $40 a packet?
I haven't smoked for nearly 30 years, not a single one, but part of me wants a final drag before it's all over. Amid the cancer and the emphysema, beside the stinking breath and sallow skin, there are the memories.
For a start, there was a whole language around smoking, all of it ready to disappear with that last cigarette. Oh, for a donkey root while igniting an OPC. Oh, for a durry, or a coffin nail or even a cancer stick. And oh, for the moment in which two rollies (has anyone got the makings?) are swapped for a tailor. Can we at least take notes before these words are gone?
Not all the memories are good. At school there was a teacher who had doubts about my masculinity. He thought me effeminate and would roll his eyes whenever I spoke. With the startling logic of a 14 year old, I formed the solution to this problem. I was, after all, a smoker, and if he could just see me in action he would realise my underlying manly swagger.
When I next saw him at the local shops, I made sure I pulled out my pack and lit up, puffing away as I walked past. Alas, he just rolled his eyes in his customary manner, wrote down my name and walked on. I was duly flogged the next morning.
It didn't put me off smoking. For a start, the packet was a fashion accessory. The girls would wear their packet of Alpines in the back pocket of their jeans, stretching the already taut material. The result, when viewed from behind, always caused me to experience a sudden tightness of breath (although that could have just been the smoking). We boys chose a pack of Winfield Blues, worn underneath the right-hand sleeve of our t-shirt, believing it emphasised the chunky arm muscle we imagined lay beneath.
Later, when I settled down and children loomed, I pledged to give up and told Jocasta I'd been successful. I then kept smoking secretly while I was at work. God knows why she didn't smell it. Presumably she just thought I smelt like that.
In those days, the Sydney Morning Herald had an annual Christmas party, in which skits were performed by the staff. I came unstuck when a young cadet performed a sketch in which I was bellowing into a telephone, while chain-smoking.
Jocasta, who was in attendance, was unsurprised by the rendition of me as a bad-tempered madman but, as we left, posed the tight-lipped question: "Why, may I enquire, were you depicted as a smoker?"
The thrashing I received, while verbal rather than physical, had a remarkably similar quality to that experienced when I was 14.
It didn't put me off smoking. More clandestine years followed, feeling like the hunted outlaws in the Keillor story. A friend in a similar situation even went to the lengths of planting an aromatic gum tree near his back door. He and I would sneak out to the garage to smoke while our partners were inside, breaking off a leaf or two to chew before we made our way back into the house.
His addiction may have been even more intense than my own. The poor tree was almost stripped bare.
In the end, you get so sick of the cycle – giving up smoking, resuming smoking, hating yourself, giving up once more, and on and on and on – well, in the end you just sigh with what little breath you have left, and give up for good.
So, now I think about it, I might resist that final cigarette. The authorities are on the hunt; the last desperados are being driven into the hills.
There were pleasures, but all far outweighed by the pain. Roll on the election: the war against cigarettes may be the only good policy around.
Resource: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/richard-glover-remembrance-of-smokes-past-20160510-gorzvc.html
They are arrested ending their months on the run, during which they have been desperately living off their final few smokes. "They disgust me," says the arresting officer as they are dragged to the van.
The short story was hilarious back in 1984, when I first read it, sitting on the back steps of my flat, enjoying an early evening gasper. Everyone smoked back then, although the phrase "disgusting habit" was beginning to make the odd appearance.
Now, decades on, Keillor's arrest squads cannot be far off. In the coming election, Labor and the Coalition propose taxing cigarettes until it's effectively impossible to smoke (The Greens, of course, will ban cigarettes but make marijuana compulsory).
Already it's pretty hard to smoke. Who would have predicted the packets featuring cancerous lips and gangrene-ridden limbs? Who would have imagined smoking banned in the open air – even in Martin Place, a wind tunnel so effective you could test jets in it? Who would have predicted cigarettes at $40 a packet?
I haven't smoked for nearly 30 years, not a single one, but part of me wants a final drag before it's all over. Amid the cancer and the emphysema, beside the stinking breath and sallow skin, there are the memories.
For a start, there was a whole language around smoking, all of it ready to disappear with that last cigarette. Oh, for a donkey root while igniting an OPC. Oh, for a durry, or a coffin nail or even a cancer stick. And oh, for the moment in which two rollies (has anyone got the makings?) are swapped for a tailor. Can we at least take notes before these words are gone?
Not all the memories are good. At school there was a teacher who had doubts about my masculinity. He thought me effeminate and would roll his eyes whenever I spoke. With the startling logic of a 14 year old, I formed the solution to this problem. I was, after all, a smoker, and if he could just see me in action he would realise my underlying manly swagger.
When I next saw him at the local shops, I made sure I pulled out my pack and lit up, puffing away as I walked past. Alas, he just rolled his eyes in his customary manner, wrote down my name and walked on. I was duly flogged the next morning.
It didn't put me off smoking. For a start, the packet was a fashion accessory. The girls would wear their packet of Alpines in the back pocket of their jeans, stretching the already taut material. The result, when viewed from behind, always caused me to experience a sudden tightness of breath (although that could have just been the smoking). We boys chose a pack of Winfield Blues, worn underneath the right-hand sleeve of our t-shirt, believing it emphasised the chunky arm muscle we imagined lay beneath.
Later, when I settled down and children loomed, I pledged to give up and told Jocasta I'd been successful. I then kept smoking secretly while I was at work. God knows why she didn't smell it. Presumably she just thought I smelt like that.
In those days, the Sydney Morning Herald had an annual Christmas party, in which skits were performed by the staff. I came unstuck when a young cadet performed a sketch in which I was bellowing into a telephone, while chain-smoking.
Jocasta, who was in attendance, was unsurprised by the rendition of me as a bad-tempered madman but, as we left, posed the tight-lipped question: "Why, may I enquire, were you depicted as a smoker?"
The thrashing I received, while verbal rather than physical, had a remarkably similar quality to that experienced when I was 14.
It didn't put me off smoking. More clandestine years followed, feeling like the hunted outlaws in the Keillor story. A friend in a similar situation even went to the lengths of planting an aromatic gum tree near his back door. He and I would sneak out to the garage to smoke while our partners were inside, breaking off a leaf or two to chew before we made our way back into the house.
His addiction may have been even more intense than my own. The poor tree was almost stripped bare.
In the end, you get so sick of the cycle – giving up smoking, resuming smoking, hating yourself, giving up once more, and on and on and on – well, in the end you just sigh with what little breath you have left, and give up for good.
So, now I think about it, I might resist that final cigarette. The authorities are on the hunt; the last desperados are being driven into the hills.
There were pleasures, but all far outweighed by the pain. Roll on the election: the war against cigarettes may be the only good policy around.
Resource: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/richard-glover-remembrance-of-smokes-past-20160510-gorzvc.html
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