Jimmy Cragett, my first cousin stayed a week with us on the farm when I was about fourteen years old. We were both smoking cigarettes at that stage in life.
Mommy came upstairs one morning to awaken me so I could go milk old Pet. I had a pack with about five or six cigarettes in it in a back pocket in my blue jeans. After Mommy had gone downstairs, Jimmy and I were getting dressed. We had to be quiet because Daddy was still asleep. Jimmy whispered to me that Mommy had checked the pockets in my pants and that she had found my cigarettes. “Well, I’m smarter than she is.”, I confidently whispered back. I went over to the open window next to the chimney and dropped my cigarettes down to the ground.
While I was getting the milk bucket, some water to wash old Pet’s teats, and a pot to milk into, Mommy said in a low voice, “Give me those cigarettes that are in your back pocket.”
My answer was my best look of surprise and denial. I told her, “I don’t have any cigarettes. Look for yourself.” Mommy didn’t say anything else and I thought the incident was over. Like I said before, I knew I was much smarter than she was. I could tell that Jimmy admired my ability to remain cool. We went out the back door and I picked up my cigarettes as we went around the house. The calf lot where I milked was not visible from our house, so we each smoked a cigarette before going back to the house. I did have enough sense not to take the cigarettes back into the house. I hid them so we could get them later.
Daddy woke up and ate breakfast about two hours later. Jimmy and I went into the living room to watch one of the two television channels we could receive. After Daddy finished breakfast, he came into the living room and told Jimmy that he needed to go outside for a while because he wanted to have a little talk with me. Jimmy left and Daddy held out his hand. “Give me your cigarettes.”
I told him that I didn’t have any. He repeated his request in a calm, assertive voice. I shrugged my shoulders and repeated that I didn’t have any. Daddy was not in the mood to listen to my lies. He stood up and grasped my shirt just below the collar. He picked me up until I would have weighed only about five pounds if I had been standing on a bathroom scale. He put his large right fist against my left cheek and said, “Son, I want you to tell me the truth. Now, where are your cigarettes?”
I suddenly realized that things had just been bumped up a notch and that I was about to receive more than a switching if I remained on my current course. As Hank Williams sang, I saw the light. All I could do was to say, “Okay, okay. I’ll go get them.” And so I did. That’s why I am alive today to be writing about it.
Daddy and I used to go to Pocahontas County several times during the fall of the year. We usually camped by ourselves, but we sometimes stayed with Bill Acord and his son Fred.
During one scouting trip in September, Daddy and Fred Acord walked up a hollow to look for animals and to see how much food the animals had to eat. Fred’s son Larry and I stayed at the car with Bill. Bill rolled his own Prince Albert cigarettes. He offered his tobacco to Larry and me. I didn’t do a very good job of rolling my cigarette, but I smoked it anyhow. I think I was thirteen at the time.
Fast forward about a month. Daddy and I had driven to Pocahontas County. Bill Acord had established a camp and was planning to stay for about six weeks. He had enough room for Daddy and me to sleep in his tent. My cot was close to the tent door. I woke up the next morning as Bill was putting some wood into his stove. I could see and hear Daddy snoring on a cot farther back in the tent. I guess I wanted to impress Bill with my reckless disregard for the fact that Daddy was so close. For some reason, I told Bill that I was going to go outside and “take a smoke”. That’s what I did. I smoked a Winston cigarette.
About twelve or fourteen hours later, Daddy and I were back in the woods coon hunting. We had stopped to listen for the dogs and to rest. From out of the blue, Daddy asked, “What did you tell Bill this morning?”
The blood in my veins suddenly froze. He had not been asleep after all. My brain searched for a believable lie. The only thing I could think of was “I told him I was going to pee.”
Daddy response was a simple “Oh.”
Neither of us spoke for what seemed to be five years. I was lying. He knew I was lying. I knew he knew I was lying. I felt bad about it. I couldn’t think of any way to untell my lie.
For a large part of my childhood, I could not be trusted to tell the truth, especially if I thought the truth would bring punishment. The lies usually were not believed by my parents, so I usually didn’t gain anything by lying.
I wanted a bicycle for Christmas when I was about nine or ten years old. We children went to bed, eager to awaken the next morning and see what Santa had brought us. By that time, I knew who Santa really was. I woke up at about 3:30 am. I decided to quietly see if Santa had brought me a bicycle. I tiptoed out of our bedroom, through the living room, and into the “parlor” where the Christmas tree was. There, in the dim moonlight, I could see the outline of a bicycle. I fondled it for a few minutes and went back to bed.
When the proper time came for us to get up, I tried to act surprised that I had got a bicycle. Later, as we ate breakfast, Daddy asked me if I had got up during the night. I wish I had answered “yes”, but I didn’t. As I was saying the word “no”, I knew Daddy had been awake and had probably watched me fondle the bicycle in the moonlight.
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