Smoke and Mirrors

My last cigarette was smoked on August 30, 2005. Suzie and I were joined in wedlock on that date two years prior. As our nuptials approached and for a goodly period before that, my daughters and her daughters often hammered us about needing to leave tobacco behind. To shut them up, I said that we would quit two years after our wedding. I’ll be damned if they didn’t remember my promise.

Suzie’s crutch was a pill called Wellbutrin. I had read that heavier smokers had better success with Nicorette gum, so that was what I used. In my heart of hearts, I did not think I would be able to pull it off. Despite that, I started weeks ahead of time psyching myself up for the huge challenge. I began with a 100-count box of gum at the 4 mg nicotine strength. Then I did two boxes at the 2 mg strength. When I finally switched to regular rather than nicotine gum, it was early February and only a few 2 mg pieces remained.

I found that my level of addiction to nicotine was lower than I thought. The gum label said you could use up to eight pieces a day, but I never used more than four. The oral fixation was apparently a big deal for me. One piece of the gum might last me four or five hours, way beyond the 15 minutes it takes for the nicotine to be used up and long after the not-too-good-anyway flavor was gone.

Though I read a lot of material about quitting before leaping off the cliff, I never saw anything about what turned out to be the final piece of the puzzle for me. Though cigarettes are stimulants due to their nicotine content, most smokers will tell you that they get a sense of relaxation from them. I was doing okay early on, but something was missing. About a week after my last cigarette, I discovered that the relaxation did not come from the nicotine. No. It came from the deep breaths taken with the first drag or two on a cigarette. From that point forward, I was pretty much home free. Every time I felt like I needed that relaxing feeling, I’d suck in and exhale a breath or two of air in much the same way I might take a couple of long drags. It worked for me.

I’m glad I quit and wish I had done it sooner. Whatever long-term health consequences there will be, I don’t know. It is my hope that the stories you hear about how pink your lungs get a while down the road are true. I breathe better now. I’m not always hacking and coughing anymore. Being a non-smoker is a good thing.

All that said, I have a few smoking stories that might provide a chuckle:

Some comedian was on the Tonight Show back in the Carson days. As Dean Martin used to do, this guy was holding a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other. All during his stand-up routine, this fellow waived and poked the cigarette hand around to add emphasis or color to his stories and jokes. Near the end, he let the cigarette catch his eye then looked sheepishly beyond it at the audience. He said, “Yeah, I know I should quit, but I’ve made a commitment here. I’m in it for the duration. Besides, the way I figure, maybe two or three months from now there’ll be, what, three or four of us treading water out at the three-mile limit.

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One day about 13 or 14 years ago, a co-worker passed by some smoker buddies and me in the parking lot of the building in which we worked. It was a below-freezing day, and he said, “I don’t know how you guys can stand being out here in the cold to smoke.”

I said, “Well, what you don’t understand is that when the nuclear winter does come, I will be used to the severe temperatures and you will not. I will live, and you will die. The bonus is that the radiation will cure my cancer.”

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People smoke with their booze and with their coffee. They smoke after meals and after sex. There are some folks, though, who smoke during sex, some because they're good at it and others because they're bored.


Now that the smoke is gone, I can see myself better in the mirror.

Hardships, Blessings, Lives Well Lived, Joy on the Horizon

It's the depression. A father leaves to find work. The mother and two young daughters never know if he met his demise or simply chose not to return. At 23, the mother dies from a streptococcal infection about a decade before mass-produced penicillin was available to tame it. The girls, four and six, lived with their grandparents for a time, but due to the hard times, were ultimately put in the care of the Baptist Orphanage in Jackson, Mississippi. When the eldest graduated from high school, they moved to Baton Rouge to live with a great aunt.

In the year following high school graduation, the youngest marries and 11 days shy of a year later gives birth to a son. Four and a half years afterward, the couple is blessed with a daughter. In fourteen months, the girl child is stricken with encephalitis and is left with severe brain damage and destined to live out her years in a persistent vegetative state. The young couple dutifully commit to attending to their ill daughter. It is initially assumed at the time that she will not linger beyond a year or so. In truth, she lived and was lovingly provided with home care until just short of her thirty-ninth birthday. A deep and abiding love enabled this good woman and this good man to live a life close to home, one much less footloose and fancy free than their contemporaries, despite the hardship.

So rich was the woman’s caring for her husband that she took in her mother-in-law, a victim of a stroke, a little more than a decade before the death of her daughter. With the need for around-the-clock care, she handled the eight-hour overnights while private nurses helped with the other 16 hours a day. Also in a persistent vegetative state, the mother-in-law eventually passed four months later.

I am the son. Three months after my parents’ marriage, my conception signaled an abbreviation of carefree days. My birth truly made carefree a term of their past. Not until the passing of my little sister did Mom and Dad have the simple pleasure of just being alone together once again. Regrettably, that togetherness was all too short, as Dad went to meet his maker only five and a half years later. I miss, think about, and talk to that good man every day of my life. They were the closest and most loving couple I have ever known, and I can only imagine the size of the hole his absence leaves in each and every one of Mom’s days.

It is my great blessing to have twin daughters, Erin and Regan. Despite having an invalid child for whom to care, Mom provided daycare for those two rascals during their first few years. Through them, she finally got to enjoy some of the fun things, such as girly toys and frilly attire, missed as a result of my sister’s illness. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Regan and her husband, Brad, are now expecting a little one. Whether she’ll get to see the pink side of things again rather than the blue is not yet determined, but it will be fun to see Mom enjoy this addition to the family. There will be sadness in my heart that Dad will not be physically present to share in the joy, but gladness will be there, as well, in the knowledge that he’ll be smiling with us in spirit.

QWERTY Connections

Two links have been added to My Blog List on the front page of Red Stick Writer. If you have a few extra moments when you visit here, do yourself a favor and visit these linked pages. I call them QWERTY connections because they are top of the heap just like the letters on the keyboard.

One page is for Erin Peterson Art, which belongs to one of my twin daughters. She is a nationally certified art teacher who mentors other teachers and exposes some lucky fifth graders in my home country of Louisiana to the joys of artistic creation. Her paintings are displayed for your enjoyment and available for purchase. There are also some fun examples of some creations by her students. Additionally, she provides some interesting blogging regarding teaching, life in the arts, and the culture of the Bayou State. If you stop by, be sure to leave a note and tell her that her dad sent you.

The other page is the entrance to Christine Harris's Photo Galleries. It has been my pleasure to work with her for nearly 10 years now. This good friend was kind enough to serve as one of the readers of my agent-needy novel. Two of her photos have graced the Red Stick Writer page. From the splendor of spring blooms to cute shots of pets to awe-inspiring landscapes to interesting views of everyday items, Christine shows us how beautiful our world can be if we just look at things the right way. Leave some breadcrumbs in her guestbook so she'll know your dropped by.

I don't know if life is like a box of chocolates, but I do know that's all I have to say about that. Enjoy.

High per Links

Playing golf is joy. I once played regularly, dreamt of par golf, occasionally achieved even-bogey rounds, and worried over closing the gap. Circumstances and obligations of life turned regular play into infrequent play, and my scores turned unattractive. Yet, my appreciation for hitting the links has never diminished.

Have you noticed that, like parks, cemeteries, and the places where lighthouses are found, golf courses are some of the most beautiful venues we have? Realizing that, I stopped worrying over my scores and accepted golf as way for me to commune with nature. Given my level of golfing skill, I have communed with parts of nature most folks have never dreamed of, much less seen.

Today, while in Tulsa to visit my stepdaughter, Amy, her husband, Troy, and their five-week old son, I experienced the joy of golf with the new daddy. What with the significant changes in his life, it was the first time in a while that he has gotten to play. The weekend visit has been my first opportunity to see the new grandson. I hope to someday share a day on the links with Luke Edward Johnson.

Golf joy has only been a part of the goodness of the last several days. On Thursday, I got a call from Regan, one of my twin daughters in Baton Rouge. She was excited to tell me that she and her husband, Brad, are expecting a baby in April. My wife and the exclusively female offspring from her side of the family were surprised when a Luke popped into their lives. I'm wondering if Brad, like Troy, despite the prevailing wisdom of an equally estrogen-pumped sisterhood of Ya-Yas, will end up with a tiny golfing buddy of the male persuasion. Whatever the case, excitement is abundant, as will be welcoming arms when the time comes.

Is the caffeine making them move that fast?

Earlier posts of mine have mentioned that I wrote much of my completed and agent-needy suspense novel, By the Light, in the loft of the City Market Coffeehouse here in Kansas City. To get into the loft, one has to climb an iron spiral staircase. The loft consists of couple of tables with chairs, a couple of cushy chairs, and a couch. The only restroom in the joint also resides at loft level. There are functional paned windows through which you can look down upon the ground level of the cozy bean beverage establishment.

Over time, the regulars got to know me and knew that I was writing a story about a serial killer and the profiler and the journalist tracking him across the country. It was my custom to write at one of the tables in the loft. From time to time one of the regulars would come up to the loft to use the restroom or wash their hands. They were friendly folks and usually would inquire as to how my writing was going. "How's the murder business," or "have you killed anybody lately?" they would ask. It was amusing, both to me and the inquirers, to see less frequent visitors scarf down their scones, guzzle their coffee, dizzy themselves by hasty descent of the spiral steps, and precipitously put as much distance between themselves and me as they could. As departing, they invariably looked over their shoulder to find me looking down at them from the loft windows with my best look of mock menace.

A Gumbo of Uranus, Weekly Reader, Prince Charles, and Pluto

I am an avid fan of Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent, the highly entertaining blog from the enlightening and renowned San Francisco literary agent for Curtis Brown. I toss these compliments around despite his rejection of my query regarding my novel-in-waiting, By the Light. Coincidentally, he was the first commenter here at Red Stick Writer. His featured topic on Wednesdays is You Tell Me. Last Wednesday, the topic for comment was favorite words, and I and many others provided fuel to the fire. Today's You Tell Me order of the day: What's your least favorite word? By the time I put my two cents in, I think Nathan had earned, two-cents worth at a time, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.80. I was particularly pleased to incorporate a little shtick of mine about the Weekly Reader, so I thought I'd share my comments to Nathan's blog with you here:

I'm not a big fan of sasquatch. It sounds like a description of something that burst open after hitting your windshield.

Josephine Damian's choice of Uranus triggered some thoughts. It seems they now want us to pronounce it "urine us," whereas when I was being educated they called it "your anus". I wish they'd decide which way they want to go. Regardless, neither pronunciation adds elegance to your speech.

The planetary reference reminded me of a long-held beef of mine. In elementary school, we looked forward to each edition of the Weekly Reader. We were young and impressionable and didn't know that it was a lying rag. That publication led us to believe that we would be working a four-day workweek, that we would be driving a hovercraft, and that Prince Charles would be the King of England. None of these has come to pass. To add insult to injury, we now find that, though Weekly Reader told us there were nine, there are only eight planets. Hmm. Maybe they should have gotten rid of Uranus instead of Pluto.

Change my Stripes? Not.

Time was when guys working in banks wore coats and ties. They just did. It didn’t matter if you met with clients once a minute or once a year. Most of my banking career has been spent involved with the management of the back office where many transactions are processed but few customers tread. Despite the fact that we in bank operations were a tad overdressed in de rigueur jacket and cravat, at least the neckwear provided an outlet for style and flair.

Enter casual Fridays, and 20 percent of the tie wearing was gone, just like that. After everyday casual arrived, my collection of ties seemed to be every bit as overabundant as Pat Dye’s. Some of you might remember the 1987 Sugar Bowl in which the former Auburn football coach chose to kick a field goal with four seconds remaining to tie 11-0 Syracuse 16-16. To express extreme consternation, a Syracuse radio station instigated the collection and delivery of thousands of neckties to Dye. He autographed and contributed them for sale to raise money for Auburn’s scholarship fund. My original point was that without neckties there rose a need for a new way to channel all of that pent up style and flair.

By chance, I bought a pair of top-to-toe striped socks. They were actually rather conservative with varying stripe widths of blue, gray, black, and white. During a biennial checkup, my dermatologist told me she liked them, going on to say she thought most guys wouldn’t be confident enough to wear striped socks. I told her that striped socks did not scare me and went on to let her know that I would not hesitate to eat quiche on the same day I was wearing a pink shirt. After thinking about this exchange, it dawned on me that striped socks were the perfect successor to neckties as a way to express style and flair.

That’s when I started buying nothing but striped socks. They were tough to find back then, though they are more easily procured nowadays. It took a while, but I eventually reached a point at which I was able to abandon all of my non-striped socks. I even have ultra-conservative stripers that I have worn with tuxedos.

I do have some slight exceptions. For instance, I buy argyles under the premise that their patterns are stripes of diamonds. There are also checked socks in my collection, justifiable in that they display stripes of squares. I even have one pair of polka dot socks in my drawer. That’s right, their pattern forms stripes of dots. Oh, yeah. Vertical stripes make for a nice change of pace.

Forget that adage about the avoidance of quiche by real men. It ain’t so. I’m a Southern boy, a Louisiana Southern boy. We know good food, and quiche are some. Real men wear striped socks. Real men in my family and circle of friends are discovering this for themselves, one pair at a time. Besides, you just feel better when you’re wearing striped socks. A purple and gold pair is an excellent way to exercise bragging rights for the LSU Tigers’ national football championship, don’t you think? I waved the wheat when Kansas won the national basketball title, but it would have been more fun with socks sporting stripes of Jayhawks. By degree, my wife worships the mythical bird of KU, so I get to play, too. Maybe she’ll get me some socks like that.

Anyway, I thought I’d give you a glimpse of my realness. So here’s a picture of my collection of striped socks.