smoke-'em if you got-'em
Part III

Phase III of my personal smoking saga... During my senior year of high school, I worked for Ray Raff at his Cities Service filling station. Ray was kinda my hero at the time, and he always had a cigarette either in his mouth or in the ash tray. We wouldn't smoke when we were servicing cars, of course, either in the drive or in the bays. We did a lot of mechanical work, we weren't just a filling station. I learned a lot that year or so that I worked for Ray. Brakes, rebuiling engines, oil changes, damned near everything. I loved everything about being a mechanic except... the greasy hands. That, and the fact that Ray knew everything about cars, and I knew nothing. After I graduated from Topeka High, I was kinda at a loss as far as what I wanted to do with my life. I had two jobs, working for Ray and working for Helen at the Party House... and I knew that neither of them were what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. O'yeah, I was also working part-time as a photographer, doing weddings and races. Midway through the summer, I applied for x-ray school at St. Francis and I was accepted. I was elated, of course. This was going to be fun! And when I started x-ray school, I found out that lotsa professional people smoked. Some of the docs would smoke while they were doing surgery even! Well, not doing real surgery, but I have a picture in my head of Dr. Pusitz doing spinal manipulations with a lit cigar in his mouth. Dr, John Cavanaugh dribbling ashes down the hallway as he saw patients. And putting out his cigarettes in Sister Monica's favorite potted plant... he did get talked to about that, but he continued the practice more gleefully than ever before after that. Virtually all of the men I knew smoked. Practically none of the women. I was a man; I smoked.

Part I
Part II

Part IV

All material ©1998 by Doug Franklin

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