by W.B. (Dub) Borders There is a saying that we are simple just a product of our times. This is true to a large extent although our genetic makeup often determines how we respond.

I remember, in the first grade, getting a new pair of school shoes in late October. Yes, we were allowed to go to school in our bare feet until colder weather. I still cringe when I think of stepping on that thumb tack in the first grade! The only place we had to be careful about was around the old Junior High building, there were goat head burrs, terrible stickers, in some of the grassy areas. This was in the fall of 1949; I had a late birthday in October and was still five years old. The shoes I wanted were combat boots, like all my friends had. We were just four years removed from World War II and seeing news reels at the movie about the Korean War. So that was a big influence on our lives. Television was still five years away for my family.

One of my older sisters, Gerry, had married a young man from Pauls Valley, Oklahoma and they left for Bakersfield, California. After a year there, they moved to Los Angeles. She went to work at a large grocery store and became a checker. They were still trying to get out of the farm country. Not having much money, they purchased a cheap German Volkswagen. It only took a day or two for Gerry to realize that she needed to park a block away from work and walk the rest. Customers would not use her check stand knowing she had bought a German product. She also said that the best checker in the entire store was a Japanese lady, customers would not use her unless the waiting line was extra-long. All this to show again how we are influenced by the times we are in.

While in grade school at Allen many things influenced our young lives. Like all true boys, we carried pocketknives all the time, even to school. No second thought about it. We had knife games on the playground. One was called Mumble Peg. Different versions of the game, but it came down to who was best using a knife in a non-violent way. The person that lost had to dig a wooden peg out of the ground with their mouth, probably mumbling things about losing. I may stand corrected by members of my class, but I believe Arnold Phillips was the best at this game.

Another knife game was, Drop the Knife Trade. Two guys would hold both arms out straight, one hand clasped holding their knife, the other hand turned over and opened. At a given signal, both would open and let the knife drop into the other’s hand. Simple trading knives not knowing what you would get. If you pick your opposition carefully, you could come out the winner. I was so used to young men carrying knives that several times in a chemistry lab, I would ask, one of you fellows have a pocketknife? I need to cut this rubber tubing. I then would realize I was about to put me and the student in a bad situation.

While writing this, I’m going to get off track and tell a story about Arnold Phillips that happened when we were in Mr. Darras’s senior writing composition class. For our nine-weeks test, we were to write a composition on a select topic that Mr. Darras picked out special for each of us. The topic Arnold had was, “If a hen and half, laid an egg and half, in an hour and half, how long would it take a grasshopper to stomp the seeds out of a cucumber?” I don’t know if Arnold got an “A” for his writing, but he should have. My topic was that if an African native had never seen clothes before, how, without showing him, would you tell him to put on a coat? We were all given some topics that only Mr. Darras could come up with. GREAT CLASS!!!

First of all, this article is not written to promote any type of tobacco use by young people, but different types of tobacco use greatly influence many of our lives. My dad smoked as did two of my uncles. Working in the peanut and cotton fields many of the men either chewed, snuffed or smoked tobacco. I remember thinking how cool it looked to see a man pull out that white tobacco sack of tobacco and roll his own cigarette. I just wanted the little pouch when they were through with them. Also to see them get out a chew, look down at us and smile like he had gone to paradise.

When television began to take some of our time, many of the stars were tobacco users. Cigarette advertising was on most all the commercials. Later, we learned that the Marlboro Man was from Roff, Oklahoma. Some of our teachers would grab a few puffs out under the old elm tree between classes. I’ll fess up, I hit the teacher’s lounge as fast as possible at noontime. If a person were to google it, I’ll bet that the fifteen minutes of break time between Worship Service and Bible School on Sunday for most churches, even today, is a throwback for allowing men to smoke between services, all that time, and we only allow school kids five minutes between classes.

As youngsters we were not able to afford cigarettes, when we went squirrel hunting, we would smoke grape vines. Not much there, burnt lips if you didn’t be careful. If anything, I can tell you how not to chew tobacco. In the seventh grade I had instructions from my dad that after lunch time at school, I was to walk up to my grandmother’s place and help plant potatoes. My mom probably worked all morning cutting out the seed potatoes for our large family. Anyway, while eating at town, I bought a plug of Bull of the Woods chewing tobacco. Yes, a seventh grader could buy tobacco. Leaving the front of the high school building, walking up Gilmore Street, about a block away, out of the teacher’s view, I took out my knife and cut off a chew. Put it in my mouth and proceed to chew. I didn’t know when I got a mouth of fluid if I were supposed to spit or swallow. I gulped some down, less than a block later I was as dizzy as I had ever been. Walking from one side of the road to the other side. I quickly took all the chew out and threw the rest in the bar ditch. No more of that for me. I managed to get cleared up by the time I got up to the curve by present day Allen water tower.

A few years later while in the Oklahoma National Guard, in the back of a troop-carrying truck, my friend, Windy Wofford, offered me a chew of Beechnut tobacco. I thought, “I’m older and this is much weaker tobacco.” This didn’t turn out any better, but how was I going to keep from being embarrassed? I crawled over to the side of the truck and spit it out. Much quicker than my earlier experience. In the spring of 1986 when I finally gave up smoking cigarettes, I thought maybe chewing or dipping snuff would help get me over the tobacco addiction of smoking. Tobacco use is addictive.

That summer when driving a tractor in the hay fields, I tried both. Dipping was too nasty for me, and sure enough, I got sick again while trying to chew. I’m a slow learner. I finally was able to quit when