Smoking in the Boy's Room

I first started smoking cigarettes when I was about eleven.  Did not smoke a lot as cigarettes were hard to come by.  I guess I really did not start smoking regularly until I was in my early teens and we'd moved back to Nat's Creek.

On weekends my cousin Steve and I would go to Sherman LeMasters' store and get things his parents would order then we'd get several packs of Winston (what his Dad smoked) and kept them for ourselves.  I guess Sherman knew what was going on but he never stopped us.

Later we would get our smokes from Delmar and Cat (Kathleen) Mollett.  They smoked "Old Golds" so that was mostly what we smoked.  they would buy extra when they went to the store and so we had a place to go that was close to us.

By the time I was around sixteen or seventeen I was a regular smoker.  (Sigh) All the lies and excuses I gave my parents.  I don't suppose they believed a word of them but it seemed I was "getting off" at the time.

What has this got to do with the tile of this blog?  In High School we always went to the boy's restroom to smoke.  A lot of it was sucking down as much as you could in a short time and going back to class feeling dizzy.  Just did not want to be caught by a teacher and sent to the Principal's office.

The day I got 'caught' I went into the bathroom to use if for it's built in purpose and even held the door open for a male teacher.  As I walked around the stalls someone handed me a Camel Stud (a Camel cigarette with no filter) and I looked at it and said I did not want it and flipped it into the urinal.  Unfortunately, the teacher whom I had opened the door for was standing  right beside me.  Oops.

Now I don't dislike this teacher.  He was the one who loaned me his copy of 'The Hobbit'.  But he saw me with a cigarette in my hand.  He directed me to the Principal's office.  Now let me explain something only smokers would understand... I was smoking menthol cigarettes.  A Camel Stud would have ripped my lungs right out of my chest.  That was not an acceptable defense.

So, they sent up to see the Principal (Mr. Cheeks).  At the time Jim Cheeks was the principal and Bill Cheeks (his brother) was the superintendent.  The saying was our school was like an ass, it took two cheeks to run it. 

At the time the penalty for getting caught smoking, as I understood it, was three 'licks' or three days suspension.  I was not about to explain to my parents why I was suspended for three days so I elected to take the 'licks'.  Only, old Jim must have forgotten how to count as he went way past three.  Ten as I recall and that man could swing a mean paddle.  In face he had a whole selection of paddles in his office and you got to pick which one he would use on you.  Some choice.

The other two guys who were waiting in the office ante-room said they were both going to take the licks but when I came out looking white as a ghost they both decided to take the suspension..  That was the only time I got caught smoking in school and I was not even smoking then.  Does not mean I had not done it a hundred times.  :-)