There it was; right at my feet on the sidewalk, the tip of a Tiparillo.
Suddenly I thought of my Dad...and my first (and last) experiment with smoking.
Dad smoked Tiparillo cigars while puttering around in the back yard. There must be thousands of those little plastic tips back there, even today. In the bushes, in the soil, by the fence...
And so it was a quick trip back to Memory Lane when I saw a Tiparillo tip beneath my feet tonight.
I was eight or nine. Bruce Harris and I were swinging in the back yard. The coals from the barbeque were turning to gray dust. And there was one of Dad's Tiparillos on the edge of the grill. He had left behind a stogie of about 3" in length.
With Bruce as my witness I put the temptation to my lips and took a loooong drag.
It was awful. I felt like throwing up and coughing all at once. But I didn't. I took a second puff. It was no better.
And that was my only experiment with smoking.
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