My dad, bless his soul, smoked big, fat cigars.  I was his sidekick and went where he went.  One of these places was the gas station.  He smoked that big, fat cigar while filling the car with gas and filling red gas cans for the boat and lawnmower with gas.  He ignored the “NO SMOKING” sign on the gas pumps.  I finally protested his actions and he would hand me the cigar.  It became my job to keep the cigar lit while he gassed up the cans and the car.  I had to put the chewed and wet end of the cigar in my mouth to puff on it to keep it lit.

I was also by the lawnmower, which was a workout to start.  My dad smoked his cigar while grunting as he pulled and pulled on the cord to start up the lawnmower.  We had a small boat.  I was in the boat as he hooked up the gas to a hand held pump…also as he smoked his cigar.  It was my job to squeeze the bulb to get the gas into the boat’s motor.  I did this job while he smoked his cigar.  If I complained, I got the well smoked and beloved cigar to hold while he did these tasks.

At twenty I became a smoker.  I had friends over and could not locate my lighter.  Drinking alcohol did not assist me in finding the lighter.  I had pulled my hair up into a thin, blonde ponytail.We had a gas stove.

Inebriated, I leaned over the gas burner I had used before that evening.  I lit my cigarette and my ponytail.  It was amazing how fast hair burns.  The ponytail was gone.  I turned off the stove burner and with a lit cigarette I pulled the elastic off my singed hair.  The result was a horrifying hairdo.  It was a good thing I went straight to bed as my friends decided to do so as well.  The next day I had a hangover of massive proportions, and took scissors and shagged my own hair to make it look intentional.  I was lucky it was a cigarette and not a big and fat cigar to light. I would have burned all of my hair trying to light one of those stogies.