Cowboys And Cigarettes

[walkin jack]

Please allow me a slight temporary drift to make the point that along with branding another pleasant thing is de-horning. Blood everywhere! They usually had both going on at the same time at the ranch up in Paris Texas when we visited there.

I remember the time a 10 years old me walked past the chute just at the moment when one horn got cut a little too close. Didn't make my mom any to happy too see me drenched with cows blood.

Okay, as you were....

 

[Kernel Crittenden]

Jinglebob,
I haven't branded in decades but I can still smell that burning hide.

Yeah that one don't go away.

Never heard of ear tags? They smell like plastic.

 

[Iggy]

Never heard of ear tags? They smell like plastic.

State laws require branding.

We use ear tags for identification purposes and insect repellent.

You can plan on a 50% loss of ear tags. They get brittle and are rubbed off etc.

Then you got a real problem identifying the critters who may have crawled through fences and wandered miles from where they belong.

We have to have a brand inspector present to read brands anytime ownership changes hands. That poor booger has trouble enough reading brands in the dusty corrals as it is.

He'd go blind with ear tags.

 

[carpriver]

Like many others I started smoking by borrowing cigarettes from my dad and grandfather. Gramps smoked Camels Straights and dad smoked Pall Mall. When I started buying my own I smoked Winston, switched to Marlboro, When I quit I was smoking 2-3 pack of Luck Strikes. I was 44 when I quit I had enough of smelling like cigarette smoke, coughing up flam and not being able to walk up a flight of stairs with gasping for air. I did use the patch, I had tried to quite before but went back when the stress got back. I needed to learn to manage my stress.

I think I remember That John Wayne did develop lung cancer and had to have a lung removed.

 

[williamlayton]

I just have never smoked much over a pack in one day.
I enjoy smoking--I like a good cigar.
I am going outside to smoke one as soon as type this--and say goodnight to all.
Blessings

 

[shouldazagged]

I started smoking Philip Morris at fourteen and smoked for forty years, nearly all of it two and a half to three packs a day, three for the last twenty years.

Six months ago my brother died of lung cancer and congestive heart failure. I saw him try to smoke his last cigarette the morning of the day he died.

I quit cold turkey twenty-two years ago. It was too late. I have bronchiectasis and COPD. Very mild exertion leaves me struggling to breathe. This will progress.

Those ads helped to kill an awful lot of people.

 

[CajunBass]

I've never smoked a cigarette...well maybe a couple back when my first wife and I were dating. She got me to try them. They tasted like smoke. I saw nothing to them.

But I started smoking a pipe a few years later. A pipe was a wintertime thing for me. During the summer I didn't have enough pockets to keep track of everything.

I quit several years ago, and got rid of all my pipes, but I still miss it at times.

 

[TenTea]

I'm reminded of 2 poems...

Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.
It satisfies no normal need. I like it.
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right off your bean
It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen.
I like it.
- Graham Lee Hemminger, Tobacco


Tobacco

A weed among the plants we find
That hurts the body and the mind,
Yet in the way of self-abuse,
We see it constantly in use.
Unpleasant to the smell and taste,
Yet men for it their money waste;
The reason why I scarce can tell
For none at first do like it well.
Some do it chew and some it smoke
Whilst others in their nose it poke....

W.B. Shockley parchments

 

[Double-O-Dave]

I started smoking at age 16 and quit when I was 32. I had just gotten married and my poor wife was struggling with a horrible diet to lose some weight. To show her that I was simpatico, I told her I would give up smoking never intending to actually do so, but just make a show of it for a few weeks to earn brownie points. Son of a gun if the program I was in (Smokenders) didn't actually work! My last cigarette was Oct. 10, 1988. The Smokenders program had a saying that has stuck with me all of these years: "You're a puff away from a pack a day".

When my kids were very young, I used to tell them that I once smoked a new truck and boat. It took a while, but they finally figured out that I meant I spent so much money on cigarettes that I could have bought a new truck and bass boat. I hope they never take up the habit.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Kernel Crittenden]

... I spent so much money on cigarettes that I could have bought a new truck and bass boat...

You bring up a good point. Cost. When I started smoking I could get a pack of Marlboros, Camels, or Winstons (... taste good like a cigarette should) for 35 cents from a vending machine. When I quit for good they were north of 5 bucks, kept behind the counter, and I had to show an I.D. to buy them.

 

[Skeet 028]

Quit 20 yrs ago. Mother died of lung cancer..and a few friends. Blasted things are terrible. BUT ever now and again I get a little whiff of one and for a second or two I could rip that cigarette outta their fingers..suck it down in one drag and dare 'em to even look at me twice..

As part of my job I got people into all sorts of programs that the State had for people's problems..family problems drinking..drugs etc etc. Of all the people who I sent to drug rehabs that kicked 'em...only one of 'em quit cigarettes too. They were of course legal...and even more addicting than drugs in some ways. Only way to quit is cold turkey...but first you truly have to WANT to quit.

 

[Frank237]

When I moved to Montana 30+ years back that was the first time I was exposed to SKOAL. I seemed to be very popular for many years, not so much now. Many Cowboys and cowboy wanna be's did it.

Knew a guy who constantly had a HUGE wad of it in his mouth. Ended up losing a portion of his lower jaw to cancer. He was a horror movie mess when I saw him a few days after the surgery. He died a few months later from esophageal or stomach cancer from the years of having that garbage in his system.

NO idea whats the more disgusting habit. Cigarettes or skoal.

 

[Colokeb]

My best buddy was a Delta Pilot. Fit as a fiddle. Retires at 60 because Homland Security seized his mustache scissor while boarding his own flight that he was going to crash into a skyscraper.

So he takes up cigar smoking while in his woodworking shop while listening to Rush.

Dead in 9 years. Destroyed his FAA approved heart.
=================================

What made me quit after maybe a year in 1961 was the repulsive feeling I got from kissing a girl who had just had a cig. Ugh! Seemed like kissing my Dad.

 

[Old Corp]

Feel fortunate that I never had the urge, even as a semi-rebellious teenager. Always despised the stench and still do.

I think about US society in the 40's and 50's when almost all adults smoked. I suppose it was considered perfectly normal that their clothing, homes, vehicles and workplaces stank like a nasty ashtray. Errant holes burned in clothing, yellowed fingers and teeth. Almost every bar and restaurant, if busy had that layer of smoke hanging in it.
Nope, couldn't handle it.

 

[zzzippper]

I like the WWII ad featuring sergeant John Agar--who has a lit cigg and is also drinking a hot cup of joe.I cant postit here soyou will have to google for it. Anyway,its one of the most iconic pieces of advertisement art ive ever seen. I THINK it was in The Saturday evening Post???????and I THINK it was done by: Norman Rockwell.

The closest I could get was Gary Cooper in buckskins for Chesterfield.

 

[Onomea]

I smoked for over forty years. Quit in New Delhi, October, 2012. So far, so good, this time around. I think the trick to staying quit is to not fool yourself that you can just smoke one for old times sake...

Marlboro reds. Yeah, I miss 'em.

 

[reddogge]

Smoked for a few years in the 60s and stopped for good in 1965. My fraternity brother from college is dying right now from lung cancer and has a week to live. We hung around since the mid 60s. Wish he would have quit too.

 

[Salty RI]

I smoked cigarettes in HS and quit right after. Started enjoying cigars about 6 years later and still enjoy my daily cigar. Spent a pretty penny on them over the years, but I truly enjoy the time with them.
I never say "I going to smoke a cigar", I say "I going out to enjoy a cigar".

What this country need's is a good .05 cigar.

 

[armenius]

The old ads in WWII and thereabout really glamorized smoking,also the movies.Cigarettes were in all C Rations.We used to sneak a few from a friends fathers Home Guard supply.Only a humane would continue something that makes you deathly ill until you could master it and then be hooked.
Folks were to try the Camel 30 day test,Doctors endorsed various brands.The joke went around that 9 out of 10 Doctors who tried Camels for 30 days went back to their wives.They were wonderful with a coffee,a drink,for boredom and stress.We often had " the fighter pilot's breakfast...a cigaret a smoke and a puke!".After a 1000 tries,using patches,gum and lozenges with nothing but nightmares and unable to shake the addiction I gave it up cold turkey with only prayers.I have abstained now for 25 years and probably would have been dead if I hadn't stopped smoking.I rarely have a brief flashback after a certain meal,or downing a nice buck but I am able to resist.Like all addicts I am sure I would start back up if I tried one.

 

[whitecoyote]

Most folks in the Detroit, MI area will remember the "Marlboro Man". He was always there on East bound I-94 (near Metro Airport).