Nasty habit, but....

Growing up in tobacco country, I assumed that smoking was as natural as breathing. It came as a shock some time later to discover that the two might well be incompatible. Finally, when I threw out my last pipe, I felt the way I did when I had to put away my faithful old dog.

Tobacco was king in the Kentucky of my youth. Not only did the long green leaves mean cash for farmers, but their processing was a large pail of the Louisville economy. My first job at a local radio station was to compile the tobacco market reports for the predawn farm programs.

Just about everyone I knew smoked. We only had to look at the real and imagined world around us to realize smoking was the thing to do. In the movies both the Thin Man and Bette Davis smoked incessantly. In the newsreels we saw Franklin D. Roosevelt with a Camel in his cigarette holder, Winston Churchill with his trademark cigar, Joseph Stalin with his curved pipe.

Women smoked cigarettes, egged on perhaps by weight-conscious ads that advised, "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet," but pipes and cigars belonged to the masculine world.

My father smoked a pipe, crumpling dry tobacco leaves into the bowl. My uncle smoked locally made dark Certified Bond cigars, and entertained his nieces and nephews by blowing smoke rings around their fingers. Some kids in the neighborhood rolled their own cigarettes. The nonsmoker was looked upon as some kind of nut, like a vegetarian.

Even in my innocent nicotine age, however, there must have been a subconscious suspicion that smoking could be injurious to one's health. Why else would one lighting up his first cigarette as a badge of manhood, refer to it as a "coffin nail"? And why did so many cigarette ads hearken to a medical theme? "Not a cough in a carload," bragged one. "For digestion's sake, smoke Camels," prescribed another. Finally, we were comforted with the legend, "More doctors smoke Camels than any other brand."

But not for me were the quickie thrills of cigarettes or cigars. I fell in love with the sustained, meditative pull of the pipe. I don't know if I would have started pipe smoking on my own, but circumstances made it inevitable. When I was appointed editor of my university's literary magazine, I received die the traditional pipe marked with the school's monogram. How could I not smoke it?

Besides, I found I enjoyed it and even felt it must be conducive to good writing since so many book, jackets portrayed tweedy authors smoking their briars. Automatically lighting up my Kaywoodie as I sat down at a typewriter, I could generally get several words out of each fill. If I reached a block, I merely puffed slowly until an idea appeared in the smoke.

When I went to Europe during World War II, my pipe naturally went with me, notwithstanding that cigarettes were the army's smoke of choice. When you opened a box of K-rations you found cigarettes along with toilet paper, which for many was a lesser necessity. Pipe tobacco was not so readily available, but fortunately, the wife of a pipe-smoking friend from Philadelphia kept us both supplied with Middleton's Walnut Mixture.

So it went for many years, smoking and writing, smoking and playing chess, smoking and watching television, smoking just for a feeling of peace. Pipe smoke was a calming influence even as angrier smoke rose from riot flames in the city where I worked in the mayor's office. In lonely hours, the pipe was man's best friend.

Then things began to change. Another generation was coming along that didn't appreciate the aroma of pipe smoke and no longer looked upon pipe smoking as an indication of some kind of an artistic or intellectual bent. You noticed people giving you dirty looks and moving to other tables in a restaurant. Your own children began to make a big show of coughing and gasping when you lighted up after dinner.

Little by little you began to retreat, lighting up at work only in your own private office, smoking at home only in your den. You began to find restrictions imposed on pipes long before cigarettes became a public enemy - no pipes on airplanes or in some restaurants. The pleasure of pipe smoking was mixed with anxiety as you wondered where or when it would be accepted.

Besides, you were beginning to notice the pipe felt heavier between your aging teeth, and when the groove you had worn over the years disappeared with the installation of a replacement, the pipe no longer fit comfortably. Finally, when the dentist told you those white spots in your mouth were caused by smoking, you took a last sad look at your last remaining pipe.

But darn it, I still miss it after these years, just as I sometimes miss that old hound. I miss the smoke dreams and the companionship only my pipe could provide when I was writing. And at times when I get stuck I find myself reaching for it...uh, like now ... when I'm still trying to think of a good way to end this....