But I don’t want to make this about sadness and mourning … we’ve had plenty of those the last couple months. Instead, I want to share one of my favorite stories about my dad and me (and not coincidentally, about just how naïve and sheltered I was as a kid).
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| My dad's old grinder he used to make 'cigarettes' |
I remember my dad coming home from work on occasion and removing from his briefcase a small plastic sandwich bag filled with tiny green leaves. I would watch him run the leaves through an herb grinder, one that looks exactly like the one pictured to the right (it was even the same color and had the same logo and lettering on the front). I would watch him lay out rolling papers. He’d pour some of the now-grounded leaves onto the papers, roll them, lick the edges, and place them in a metal cigarette carrying case.
Normally, he would smoke Kools. But occasionally, he’d smoke these homemade cigarettes. Most of the time, he’d bring these out during sporting events.
(As a side note, this is how I can roughly place the time period in which this took place … because the homemade cigarettes most often came out during Flyers hockey games, and my house was the gathering place for Flyers games because home Flyers games in the early 1980s could only be seen on Prism [anyone remember Prism?]. And missing a Flyers game was a cardinal sin in my home [it still is].)
So my parents’ friends would come over, and they’d watch the game and pass around the homemade cigarettes using an alligator clip. They’d suck it in for far longer than they would a regular store-bought cigarette, and when they’d try to speak afterward, their voices sounded, gruff, deep, and strained.
I remember watching my dad filtering the leaves in the herb grinder one evening, and asking him why he made his own cigarettes.
“Sometimes I just like to make my own cigarettes. Plus they cost less to make them than they do to buy them,” he told me.
“Why do they make your voice sound funny?” I asked.
“Because they don’t have filters like regular cigarettes.”
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| If you've never seen History of the World Part I, please do yourself a favor and go watch it. Now. |
Fast forward to my senior year of high school. I’m spending my lunch period in the Mentally Gifted room in my high school (essentially, a computer lab and study hall for the smart and creative kids). I was sitting at a table with a friend who was well-known as a heavy partier.
“What are you doing after school? You doing anything?” he asked me. I’m not sure what my answer was, but I assume I was scheduled to work my part-time job that evening, so I had to get home.
“You sure?” he asked, as he unzipped his backpack to reveal a blue version of the herb grinder that my dad had. It even had the same leaf picture and text on the front.
“Oh!” I said probably a little too loud. “My dad has one of those.”
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| The moment I finally realized what my dad was doing all those years, thanks to a blue version of his herb grinder. |
“Yeah, he used to use it to make his own ciga … SONOFABITCH!!!!!”
(That last word I know was a little too loud.)
When I saw him at home that night, I confronted my dad.
“YOU LIED TO ME!” (also too loud)
He responded with a look that hovered somewhere between, “Oh crap, I’m busted,” and, “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific here.”
Kind of makes you wonder how often your parents bent the truth a little bit in order to quiet a too-inquisitive child. I mean, did McDonald's REALLY keep running out of chocolate shakes? Did a little boy down the street REALLY trip and break his neck because he didn’t tie his shoes? And most importantly, will my butt REALLY fall off if I unbutton my belly button?
I wish I could still ask him.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Love you and miss you.
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