When I was about 12 years old, and we rode our horses on the dirt roads and open range around Healdton, OK, we'd pick up coke bottles along the road and for 3 coke bottles (6 cents) at Red Ferrell's country store, we could get a bag of Bull Durham tobacco and the papers and try to roll our own cigarettes like the cowboys in the movies, but found we really didn't care for smoking.
But one of my buddies liked a plug of old dark colored chewing tobacco. I can't remember the brand, but it cost 11 cents, so I figured if he was that extravagant, it must be good. So I bit off a piece one day, promptly spit it out when I tasted it, and thought I'd never get that taste out of my mouth, and have had no desire for chewing tobacco or snuff since.
But awhile before I turned 19, I started smoking a pipe, originally to help me stay awake driving, and smoked a pipe for 5 years before I changed to cigarettes, but I suppose as with many people, I gradually increased the amount I was smoking until I was smoking 2 to 3 packs a day.
So, on July 11, 2006, after smoking for 47 years, I finished the last cigarette in a pack, threw the empty pack away shortly before bedtime, and just never opened another pack. I didn't quit for any health reasons; I just decided they had gotten too expensive, and I figured the house and vehicles would stay cleaner if I didn't smoke. Personally, I could never tell there was any physical addiction symptoms, but it was such a habit, that I'd sometimes reach for my shirt pocket only to find nothing there.
We had been ordering our cigarettes, 30 cartons at a time, from an Indian reservation, so we had 19 cartons on hand when I quit. My wife smoked all of them, then bought 3 packs before she was finally able to quit on June 25, 2007. She never used the nicotine gum, but sure has chewed a lot of plain old chewing gum ever since.
