HAND ROLLING CIGARETTES

[bigchuck83]

i remember being young, in college, broke, and donating plasma for drinking money, we rolled our own smokes with top tobacco and papers, even had one of them fancy roller things. learned if you rolled your own no one would bum off of you at the bar. i could roll by hand pretty good but never one handed. then discovered lucky strike non filtered. (only smoked when i drank) Of course that was only about eight or nine years ago.

 

[Nasa]

My grandpa an old Cherokee Indian could roll one handed on horse back. When I was young I saw him many times roll with using only 1 hand. I cheat, buy the tubes and use my Top machine to shoot them out.

My other grandpa said he would never hire a man that smoked and wore gloves cause they would always be putting on and pulling off their gloves

 

[williamlayton]

I worked in the Texas Prison syatem for a bit after I graduated---waiting for my wife to graduate.
Bull Durham was free to inmates but they could also buy tobbacco products from the commissary.
Most rolled a mixture of hald&Half and Bull Durham. It was excellent and I would trade a pack of Camels for 2 packs of thier hand rolls.
Actually they machine rolled cigs. It was a roller that rolled 4 at a time and cut them with a razor blade as the last step.
It was a good smoke.
Blessings

 

[IDVague]

I was never any good at rolling my own and I tried more than a few times. My paternal grandfather, whom I never saw smoke because he quit before I was born, rolled his own when he was a younger man.

My favorite story in regard to rolling smokes has to do with him. It would have been in the mid 1930's and the forebears of my family all lived within a quarter mile or so of each other, mostly on adjoining farms. Because of that, and the scarcity of transportation other than the 4-legged variety, trips to town were few and often consolidated to accommodate the needs of all. One morning one of my great uncles was preparing to go into town for something and his wife yelled out to him to buy their son some ready-made cigarettes since he was out. The son was my dad's 1st cousin and only 3 months older than he was. Neither was yet 6 year old.

My grandfather overheard this and told his brother to ignore that and get the boy some tobacco and papers instead. The boy's mother replied that he just couldn't get the hang of rolling his own, so just buy the ready-mades instead. My grandfather made reference to an organic fertilizer of bovine origin and retorted, "he sure as Hades rolls and smokes mine when he's down here, and he has for two years".

 

[JcMack]

In the late 50's early 60's all us sophisticated highschoolers smoked ready mades. Camels or Luckies rolled up in your t shirt sleeve. We did find a use for papers later in life though.

 

[hank 33]

I'm 51 and remember my grand paw smoking prince Albert in the metal can,with tops or bugler no glue. My brothers and I use to roll some for him.He died at 72 years old of throat cancer.He wouldn't or couldn't stop even had his Larinex (sp) removed,he smoked in the hospital. So glad I never smoked that's a nasty habit. My maw check and dipped..

 

[Kinman]

I finished my smoking career back in 2002 I think it was. I had quit smoking fine cigars because the prices went through the roof and I refused to smoke a cheap one. I started rolling my own with fine blend cigarette tobacco, bought loose by the pound and rolled to my satisfaction. I always enjoyed the ability to roll one short for quick smoke or nice and fat for an enjoyable smoke. They came down with the early smoking bans which pissed me off, but then I was never a very polite smoker...not that I would blow smoke in someone's face or anything like that I just smoked when and where I wanted, except never in the woods.
Back in 2002 I had a ladder give way on me and fell something like 12 feet landing directly flat on my back on concrete, crush fractured my L1 vertebra and caused severe muscle damage to the area. One of the things the guys at work still talk about is that while I was laying on my back waiting for the ambulance I rolled up a smoke and tried to enjoy it. My line of thinking was that it was going to be long time before I was going to be able to get to a smoking area and wasn't taking any chances.
I quit smoking after that, never went back...the only thing I miss is a truly fine cigar with a fine single malt. I still take my single malt neat.

 

[jrm53]

Cigarette Machines

I had one of the red framed brown rubber rolling machines, then they came out with a fancy one that used paper tubes with cork looking end and filters. I tried them all and was rolling with Prince Albert and Zig-Zags when I quit in 1974. Now if the young folks are caught doing something and have Zig-Zag papers they call it drug paraphernalia and arrest them. I used OCB's Price Albert papers and the above ZZ's. My Dad and brother both rolled them until they died. Jeff