It seems that teenage boys are always doing something forbidden by adults and Tim and I were certainly no acceptation to that fact of life. I guess the "forbidden fruit" area was especially appealing to us guys. After a constant stream of "don't do that" and "that's not allowed" as kids, we tended to do all the things we were forbidden to do. At least we tried to do everything until on occasion we finally were caught. Our parents would tell us of the consequences are doing forbidden things such as making funny faces would cause that funny face to "freeze" and we would go through life with the funny face permanently "frozen". There may be some truth to that if any of you have seen "The Joker" in the first Batman movie. Whew! I sure dodged a bullet there, since I was always making "funny faces" as a kid. On the other hand, many people believe that one of my youthful funny faces did in fact "freeze" permanently.

 

One of the famous forbidden things in the 1950's was sitting too close to the television. This, our mother continually warned, would result in an over exposure to "radiation" which would cause us all kinds of horrendous problems throughout life. Hmmm, since we kids continued to sit too close to the television anyway, I wonder if my "fried" brain today was caused by TV "radiation". Well, our mother did say we would have problems our whole life because of this. If that is true, I paid a high price to watch Captain Kangaroo too closely to the TV screen to see instantly what stuff he pulled out of his big coat pockets every morning. As an adult, during the rare times I watch TV, I have always kept a respectable distance from the screen. Maybe this has all been in vain since the "radiation" damage was already done as a kid. On the other hand, due to my weak eyesight (no doubt caused by TV radiation as a kid) I might as well sit very close to the screen so I can read all those continuous small print moving line banners at the bottom of the screen that seem to be omnipresent on every program these days. Incidentally, among one of my many pet peeves these days is that all the annoying trendy graphics and moving banners on the screen pretty much obstructs the view. Oh well, I'll list some of my pet peeves another time.

 

Our mother always warned us about the consequences of playing too roughly. She said we would hurt ourselves. All the "bloody noses" I had throughout childhood attested to this consequence. When I ran in the house with my ubiquitous bloody nose, she would say, "See, I told you that you would get hurt playing to roughly!"  You just don't ever learn to listen to me do you?" She was absolutely right; I never did learn to listen to her.

 

If our mother had any idea of all the dangerous things we did that she warned us not to do, she would have gone crazy.  Heck, she went crazy enough just knowing the things we did do. We even did things she never warned us not to do since she never realized the extent or our ability to do very dangerous things.  When you desire to take the time, you can read some of my old stories that chronicle some of the very dangerous things we did in those days.

 

Ah, now we come to the explanation of this story title. Tim and I started smoking around age 13 or earlier. Of course, the standard warning in those days was that smoking would stunt your growth. I dodged yet another bullet since I smoked as a kid and my growth wasn't stunted since I'm 6 feet 2. I suppose that's not an accurate assessment since from about age 13 to 16 or so, I never inhaled. That's probably the reason I'm 6 feet 2 instead of 2 feet 6. Apparently, the "stunted" growth stage was between ages 13 to 16. During those years, I spent all summer on the tractor cultivating corn and soybeans with our 2-row cultivator. During this time at age 13 while doing this I first started to smoke on a regular basis. Due to boredom while cultivating all day, I started to steal Viceroy Cigarettes from the coffee mug where our Aunt Lou kept them. Before heading out on the tractor for another day of cultivating, I would grab a handful to take with me. That really made me feel good getting one over on the adults by doing one of the biggest "forbidden fruits" of childhood despite all the warnings of dire consequences. Although on occasion, my feeling good was thwarted when I forgot to take matches along too! During those unfortunate times, I always tried to light the cigarettes from the hot manifold on the old Farmall H tractor. It never worked, but nevertheless, I continually tried anyhow. There was one consequence that my mother never mentioned as a result of smoking. One time at age 13, shortly after I started smoking, while cultivating tall bushy soybeans, I did try to inhale for once. In spite of all the coughing and hacking, I did manage to smoke most of the Viceroy. As a result of inhaling for the first time, I developed an upset stomach and grew very nauseous. Along with that, I got extremely light headed and dizzy. As a result, I wasn't paying any attention at all to steering the tractor and cultivator since I had much more important things to deal with at the moment. I ended up cultivating up 2 rows of prize soybeans for a distance of what I estimate from memory to be several hundred feet. It never occurred to me at the time to just stop the tractor and get off until I was sufficiently recovered to continue. After what seemed like hours, I finally felt better. On the return trip on the next 2 rows of soybeans, I saw the bare ground with all the soybean plants lying in heaps.  A little later, Uncle Ned materialized from somewhere (probably from our local "beer joint" TEACO) to check on my progress. When he saw the 2 rows of prime soybeans gone, he was not exactly pleased. In fact, he let out a stream of profanity fitting for the former Marine that he was. I sure couldn't tell him that I got dizzy from the first time inhaling a cigarette! I told him I had to swerve to avoid a muddy wet spot. He must have thought that it must have been some huge wet muddy spot! Apparently he must have been a little "tipsy" from staying at TEACO a little too long because he bought my excuse! Oddly enough, he never confronted me that if that was true then why didn't I lift up the cultivator while going around the muddy area and avoid destroying all those soybean plants. Well, here again, I paid the consequences of engaging in yet another "forbidden fruit" activity. I doubt that he ever mentioned this incident to my mother. At least that one time I maybe agreed with my mother's advice after all. Well, at least this one time...