Smoking

 

The other day I saw an Instagram ad for a little purse that looked exactly like my Grandma Little's cigarette case. It made me think about my grandparents smoking.  Each of my grandparents had a very distinct smoking style.

Grandma Little- Her smoking style was slow and deliberate.  She smoked like they smoked in the movies.  She wore red lipstick so her butts always had her color on them.  She kept her pack in a leather case with a silver metal clasp at the top.  She would slowly take the cigarette out of her pack, tap it, slowly light it, take a drag, lean her head back and a few seconds later exhale.  If it was morning she would be drinking her instant coffee with Coffee Rich and dealing out the cards for solitaire.  She smoked so much in that one spot that there was a yellow circle on the ceiling.  When they painted the ceiling they had to put on a least 4 coats of paint because the circle kept bleeding through.  If One Life to Live and General Hospital were on she would be sitting on the loveseat with a can of Planters Cheese Balls or Goldfish.  After she had her stroke she quit smoking.  She was in the hospital and rehab for many weeks and didn't have an option, but once she quit she became the anti-smoker.  She condemned anyone who did smoke, and couldn't believe they couldn't quit.  

Grandpa Gallagher- I remember him eating his breakfast with his coffee and enjoying his cigarette.  He would be in his white undershirt.  When he passed away and Grandma Gallagher came to live in Bristol for the winters she brought his car.  She wanted the car there even though she couldn't drive because nobody would let her smoke in their cars.  We would drive her around in her car so she could smoke.  The driver's side interior had little burn marks all along the window, but the burn marks that made me laugh were the ones on the seat.  Right in between where his legs would have been.  You could almost see him jump up when the ash fell.  I am sure a choice word was said as he brushed the ash away, but too late to not leave a mark.

Grandma Gallagher- I honestly don't know how much she actually smoked.  She always had a cigarette burning, sometimes two if she forgot about the first one.  She had these little plastic ash trays that went with her and her Pepsi can with the pop top turned around to hold her straw in.  The thing I remember most about her smoking is the ash.  I have never seen anyone who could hold such a long ash on a cigarette without it breaking.  I remember one time I had some friends with me at her house.  They couldn't keep their eyes of her cigarette.  They talked about it for years. 

Grandpa Little did not smoke.  He chewed tobacco.  But that was to kill the worms.  He didn't really do it for fun.  At least that is what he told us and who were we to argue.