MY STORY - THE BEGINING - MY FIRST PUFF

My story starts in an exclusive neighborhood in the Salt Lake City valley area where my younger sister, age 12 and I two years older lived and went to school. I attended Bonneville Junior High School. Being a single parent my mother always worked a full time job which kept her away from home for at least 8 hours every day. She came from a very religious LDS family but acquired a smoking habit young in her life. Her older sister also smoked and her younger brother chewed. Both addicted to nicotine. My parents were divorced as well as my best friend David's parents. He had sisters also, 3 older ones. David was the youngest. He was one year older than me. A couple years down the road my mother and Davids father married.

Staying in our same home, my new stepfather moved in bringing with him my best friend, David as well as a nice 23 foot Road Runner trailer. His sisters were already married or living out side of the home so they did not come with him. Shortly after the move in, my step father asked David and I to please go out into the trailer and bring the dishes into the house so he could wash them. They had been left in the sink from a prior camping adventure before the marriage to my mother. The key was given to David and we went out to accomplish our mission. Never having been in a camp trailer, I was amazed of the amount of room inside as well as the many drawers and cabinets. Both of us being very curious in nature, started opening cabinets. The first one I opened, I saw an old military coat covered with stripes and patches. This was my stepfathers which he wore during world war II. Being interested in military stuff I wondered the places that old coat had gone. We kept rummaging and looking in drawers until we found an old grey colored box. It was marked "Rations". Not knowing what was inside we opened the cardboard flap that was tucked inside the box. There were small olive green colored cans inside and different food types noted on the top of each can. There were also two other items. The first was a small 1 inch by 3 inch toilet paper packet which I could not figure out what you could possibly do with. The second, was a small pack of filter less cigarettes, which if my memory serves me right said "Pall Mall". Not ever thinking that anyone would ever look inside the box to see if that little pack of smokes was missing from the World War II, we took the little box of smokes and placed the larger one back in the drawer where we found it. Taking a few wooden matches by the gas stove, we left the trailer. Smokes in one pocket and dishes in both hands. David locked the trailer on the way out. We walked up the stairs in the back yard, opened the door and gave David's dad the key back to the trailer as well as the dishes. He said thank you boys, thats all I need your help with right now. We went back outside and curved the corner around the side of the house where we had alot of thick foliage. Looking to make sure no one could see us, I pulled the small pack of Pall Mall cigarettes out and opened the plastic cover around them. There were I believe 5 smokes in there. I pulled one out and placed in my mouth. It did not taste to bad so I played like I was cool by inhaling it and flicking the ashes just like I had seen real smokers do. Now thinking we were pretty cool, we pulled a match out and lit it on a rock. With a large flame and the smell of buring wood, we lit the smoke that was hanging from my mouth. Embracing the moment, I sucked that smoke from that cigarette as old as world war II down deep into my lungs. It burned all the way down and kept burning as I exhaled it out. Passing the smoke to David he took a hit. I took my second puff noticing the cracking of the old tabacco at the end of the cigarette and before I could exhale, the earth started to move. It spun faster and faster until I started coughing, throwing up and went through all of the color gray spectrums on the color chart. I was one sick teenager and David experienced the same results. Cleaning our selves up the best we could, we labored back into the house with 4 smokes left in our pocket and smelling like a pool room. On the way to the family room we passed my mother in the kitchen where she was reading a book and having a cigarette. Thank god she was smoking or we would have surely been caught by the smell giving us away. TO BE CONTINUED