​Having A Smoke With Momma

Momma and Us Kids. (Circa 1964)

When I was thirteen years of age, the Rowell clan lived in a couple of single wide mobile homes way out in the woods a few miles outside of Lexington.  The older trailer house was for my brother Mike and me, and the newer trailer was for mom and dad and my little sister, Janie. Mary and I are still on that land living in a cozy little log cabin. Unfortunately, we are no longer country folks; the city has invaded the frontier much to our dismay.

Well, back at that time I was a curious sort of kid; and to satisfy my curiosity one day, I was rummaging through some drawers in mom and dad’s trailer when I ran across a pack of cigarettes. My momma was one to smoke on the sly, and I knew it, but I had never found her stash until that day.

Now at no time have I ever been accused of being the sharpest tack in the pack, and my first foray into theft did nothing to change the world’s opinion on that matter. You see, I stole one of Mom’s cigarettes; and then instead of walking out into the woods to give it a try, I lit it up in the bathroom of an 8 X 66 foot trailer somehow thinking I wouldn’t get caught. I got caught.

When she caught me however, much to my surprise, my momma didn’t get upset at all. What she did was to follow her little brother’s example from years before when he mixed  up some buttermilk and Alka-Seltzer and told his four year old nephew, i.e. me, that it was beer and not to tell my momma. I didn’t tell my momma, but I did take a crack at the beer and that was the last alcoholic beverage I have ever tried.

Well my momma, like her mother and her brother before her, chose the co-conspirator path to solve her young son’s newfound smoking problem.

​She invited me to come sit out on the porch with her to have a smoke. She took the cigarette I had away from me because it was hers and only fit for a woman, (her words not mine), and then she went inside to get a real man’s cigarette. Same brand of cigarette, she just cut the filter off.

She sat there on an old lawn chair with a nasty little grin on her face puffing away while she watched me smoke that entire thing. To help her cause she would insult my manhood whenever I paused; and after only a short while in her company, I was a beautiful shade of green.

I discovered that afternoon that smoke tastes good only on the way down and I have never lit anything up since.

My momma arose from a long line of Solomon's when it came to problem solving and young’uns. Like her momma before her, she relished giving you just enough rope with which to hang yourself.

I have been searching for a deep hidden meaning in this story. As with most of my stories, I felt compelled to tell it, but for what purpose I’m not sure.

Sometimes the Lord does this to me. He gives me a story, usually a real good one, and leaves it at that. In the past I would have tried to manufacture a Godly lesson in all of this, but not this time. I’m going to leave that up to you. Good luck.
 
Love,
Pastor Tony

---

Bobbe Jean