I remember three things happening the spring of 1970: I turned 13, I had my first cigarette and my father bought a car.
All were memorable.
My first cigarette was an Old Gold and the car my father bought was a 1966 Chrysler Town & Country.
Our family didn’t have a lot of money, so getting any car ó even a used one ó was a big deal.
Before the Chrysler, my father had driven old Ford Country Squire wagons. There were four boys in our family, so a station wagon ó that era’s version of a minivan ó was a necessity.
The Fords we’d owned were boring, and I was thrilled when Daddy came home driving the Chrysler. It had an AM/FM radio, power windows and seats and air conditioning, all frivolities our Country Squires lacked.
The first evening we owned the Chrysler, my brothers and I climbed in and Daddy took us for a spin. We even circled McDonald’s, my brothers and I immensely proud of our new ride.
A few days later, Daddy asked me to clean the car. I washed the outside, then went in the house, grabbed the vacuum cleaner, some extension cords and hustled back to the driveway.
I was doing a good job, going so far as to pull out the back seat to vacuum underneath. That’s when I discovered the cigarettes, a pack of Old Golds that had fallen from someone’s pocket.
I felt I had stumbled on a bag of stolen cash. I checked to make sure my father wasn’t looking, then stuffed the cigarettes in a front pocket.
I knew nothing about cigarettes going stale, nothing about cigarettes at all, really.
Except, of course, that I wasn’t supposed to have them.
I remember carrying the smokes gave me a sense of power, similar, I suppose, to a gangster with a loaded .38-caliber pistol in his pocket.
I toted the cigarettes several days, unsure what to do with them. At night, I tucked them in the back of my underwear drawer and felt strangely guilty when I prayed that my mother not find them.
Finally, Eddie Thomas, my best friend, came over and the two of us snuck out behind the big, old cedar tree at the back of my yard.
Eddie didn’t seem as fascinated by the Old Golds as I thought he’d be, but he still agreed to help me light one.
Eddie lit a match and I stuck a cigarette in my mouth, imagining that I looked like Paul Newman or whoever it was we wanted to look like in 1970.
For several minutes, Eddie and I tried unsuccessfully to light the cigarette.
Five times Eddie had a match burn down to his fingertips. He whined as 13-year-olds whine, finally blurting, “Are you inhaling?”
I was stunned. Inhale?!?! Was I supposed to inhale?!
I have no recollection of getting a cigarette to light that day, but figure I eventually did. Nor do I recall what became of the Old Golds.
They’re no longer in my front pocket, so I must have ditched them at some point.
That attempt at smoking was one of my few.
I’m too tight to buy something that I’m only going to burn, so I’ve steered largely clear of cigarettes, even those I’ve since found under the back seats of used cars.
A time or two, when I’ve had a physical, I’ve had a doctor ask if I ever smoked.
I just reply, “No,” and let it go at that.
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When not ripping out the back seats of cars in search of cigarettes, Steve Huffman writes for the Post. Reach him at 704-797-4222 or shuffman@salisburypost.com.