From the vault, October 16, 2014:
A great essay is worth repeating.
This piece was originally titled “How I Learned to Stop Chewing Tobacco and Take Up Smoking” and appeared in the 1969 edition of the Wings of the Dawn, Aurora College’s (now Aurora University) annual student-writing competition. It garnered the author (Me!) first place in the essay category.
“The man who chews tobacco is a person not to be trusted with any grave responsibilities, least of all with large sums of money. He, however, who smokes is to be honored above all men, for he has reached the pinnacle of all that is noble in mankind. I should know; I chewed for years and was the lowliest of creatures, shunned by friends, relatives, strangers, and dogs alike. At last I renounced the vile habit and declared myself for the cigarette; my world became brighter, and I found I could look any man in the eye without embarrassment.
“The most noticeable aspect of – I can scarcely bring myself to mention the word – chewing is its unsightliness. Have you ever seen a man chewing tobacco? A huge wad of the weed is deposited into one side of the mouth, producing a monstrous bulge in one’s cheek; this is slowly chewed until the whole is saturated with saliva and becomes a gummy, brown mass, squishing around inside.
“Compare this sight with the clean appearance of the cigarette smoker whose sunken cheeks present a fine silhouette against the sun. There is no noisy, distracting crunch and munch, merely the soft whisper of inhalation and exhalation, punctuated by an intermittent cough or two.
“Another wretched phase of chewing is the manner of disposal, and I can tell you that this is the most sickening practice of all. Once the moist ball of filth has been thoroughly masticated in order to extract the last measure of whatever flavor it had claimed to possess, it must be got rid of in a hurry before the bitterness seeps through, gags the chewer, and leaves him in uncontrollable paroxysms of pain and nausea. The only way to eject the tobacco is to channel it out in the direction from whence it came, i.e. the mouth. Thus, one spits in bursts and streams upon the ground, the sidewalk, or a wall, in a barrel, can, or box, over a fence, a row of hedges, or someone’s flower bed, up, down, and around – anywhere which is convenient – leaving odorous brown splotches to mark the path of the pariah. How disgusting!
“Such is not the case with the cigarette, for it is completely consumed (except for a tiny fraction which can be tossed aside anywhere without fear of littering, and the tobacco is harmlessly deposited in the throat and lungs.
“These hazards are nothing compared to the marks left on one’s physical and mental health. Consider (if you can) a lackadaisical chewer: he pursues his contemptible habit with his mouth wide open; thus, tobacco and saliva, if they do not filter down the esophagus or are spat out, dribble slowly over the lips and down the chin and drip therefrom onto one’s clothing or the ground, staining these areas beyond belief with a mud-hued muck that reeks to high heaven. Chewers are, by and large, sloppy, unkempt people whose personal hygiene is at such a low state that they are hardly fit to share the same room with normal people. Their mental health is notoriously unstable as well, as they go shuffling about, mumbling to themselves (between spits, that is).
“Contrarily, the cigarette smoker has no comparable worries and does not risk his personal appearance so dangerously. While he may, from time to time, stain his teeth and hands with a yellowish-brown, he generally avoids serious controversy by keeping his mouth closed and his hands in his pockets. On the whole, smokers are a happy lot, optimistically puffing away for hours without surcease in a euphoria of nonchalance living only for today and casting their fates to the wind.
“The man who chews has no lease on life whatsoever; he will continue in a morass so encumbering that only by a tremendous concentration of self-determination and will-power will he finally escape from the chains that hold him down and prevent his intercourse with decent society. I myself have travelled the long, hard road to salvation and hope to bring my fellow sinners to the True Way of Living through cigarettes. Until then, they have no hope, and their future is lost in a cloud of smoke.”
Let no one say that The Chas has no sense of humor.
Just a thought.