Today I walked out of Walmart. I had in hand some coverlets for my bed that were on sale. Also, my prescription for a tooth gel my dentist wants me to use. I have been using it for a year and it seems to be working to keep my teeth in shape. I don't want to wear false teeth as the previous generation often did. I see my dentist every six months and I will do so forever.

I had parked around the end of the building, so I would not be in the thick of the parking pack. I want to keep my car in good shape also, and I can use the extra walking. Again, I need to keep my body in shape. With promises to keep, I exercise and eat as well as can be expected. In any case I walked past a gentleman sitting on the bench provided for those who needed to rest or wait for someone.

In his hand was a cigarette. This is where you find smokers in this time and age. Outside, usually alone, and usually with that sad look on their face. You know that look? The sad look?

Sometimes, of course, you will see them huddled together the required distance from the main door of their office building. Facing and bracing themselves against the weather, hot or cold, wet or dry, they will be there.

This is not going to be a diatribe against smoking, nor is it going to be a plea for our freedoms to be restored to us. No. I won't do that. I am just remembering my own situation and contemplating the one I find around me now. I was just outside filling the bird feeders. That is a Sunday chore. The little buggers go through the seed too fast, but we love to see them outside the front window.

What did I find right at my front garden but three cigarette butts. Oddly, they were Pall Malls. And, from the green printing of the name on the butts I could guess they were menthol. Nothing odd about that, even though I was not aware that Pall Mall made a menthol cigarette. That must have come about after my smoking days. The odd thing is that my father smoked Pall Malls, and he was the only person I ever knew to do so.

You should know that my father died when he was only 68 years old. I am 65. He smoked his entire adult life. I always remember him with a cigarette in his hand. In the 80s and 90s he would smoke outside on his deck attached to the double-wide trailer he shared with his second wife, Hilda. She had smoked her entire life also, until she got throat cancer. Then, after conquering that, she had lung cancer. She overcame that also. But, of course, smoking could not happen in their home. Thus the outside smoking.

So dad made it to 68 years old. That was after he had suffered through at least five heart attacks and five strokes. Still, he could not quit. He continued until the final stroke took him away from us. Hilda was able to make it to 82 years of age. She had loved my dad, and regretted his loss for some 18 years. She remained in that double-wide until she was forced to end her days in the nursing home for her final few months.

Anyway, my mother also smoked. But in her case it was only an occasional thing. She would buy a pack of Winstons and it would last for weeks. Then she would not smoke again for months or even years. The smoking may have had something to do with her bladder cancer, but who really knows? The doctors who made her life a living hell for her last year on earth certainly didn't.

When I got to the University of Missouri in 1966 I was not a smoker, but I had friends there in the dormitory who were. It was probably inevitable, but I started bumming cigarettes, and finally began buying my own. My cigarette of choice was Marlboro reds. I don't remember why. Perhaps because the buddy I bummed off of smoked them. I would smoke them for years, in college, then in the Navy when I flunked out, and again when I returned to the university.

During the second time I was in college I met and became friends with some young ladies who were sisters. I tend to like young ladies a lot. They smoked Marlboro Lights. Perhaps they thought they were healthier. Who knows? I never asked. But they also tended to be broke a lot and would bum cigarettes from me. So, of course, being the ladies' man I am, I started smoking Marlboro Lights. It became my cigarette of choice for years.

I enjoyed smoking. I always did. I loved having my coffee and cigarettes even when driving down the road. I would always have to make and take along coffee, or stop and get some McDonald's coffee on the way. My wife never smoked, and she always wished I would quit, but she never nagged me about it. After all, I had been a smoker when she met me, when we fell in love, when we lived together, and finally, when we married. So she was not going to be hypocritical about it. But she made it clear she would love it if I stopped smoking.

In 1996, when we moved to Kansas from Missouri, I enlisted in the Kansas Army National Guard. I was placed in the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 130th Field Artillery Brigade, or HHB 130th FAB for short. I retained the rank that I had received in the Navy, but instead of being a Communications Technician, Interpretive 3rd Class, I was a Specialist in the MOS of 93F, or would be when I completed some training. A 93F was a Field Artillery Meteorologist. We would send up weather balloons to gather data that computers would crunch and feed to the gunners firing the howitzers, for better accuracy.

And of course I was still smoking. However, something was different now. We would have to pass an Annual Physical Fitness Test every year which included running for two miles in a given amount of time. One also had to pass the same test to get into any Army training school. I found that passing that test became harder and harder and I knew that the smoking was not helping me at all. Finally, in order to get a promotion to a higher rank I decided that quitting smoking would be necessary. I really needed to pass that PFT.

It was just a matter of quitting. Stopping a behavior that was ingrained in my personality at this point. How would I do it? I decided to go cold turkey. I used my logical tendencies and knowledge of the physical addiction caused by tobacco use. It was really rather simple in retrospect. I gave myself two weeks to do nothing but quit. I stayed at home, never leaving the house. I ate whatever I wanted. Whenever I felt the need for a cigarette I would take a nap, or eat some more. That was my life for two weeks, eating and sleeping. After three days the physical dependency passes, but the psychological dependency can actually last a lifetime. For me the two weeks was enough.

You will understand that I was not really nice to live with during those two weeks, but my wife understood what I was doing, and she put up with some rather abusive behavior. I was not a happy camper. But I conquered the need I had for tobacco, and, in the process, made my wife very, very happy. It was a good thing. That was in December of 1998.

Two months later I passed a Physical Fitness Test to get into PLDC, or Primary Leadership Development Course, which one needed for a promotion to sergeant. I wanted that promotion. I got it by quitting smoking I was certain. Since then I have smoked three cigarettes, and that was all during the first year after quitting.

This was rather a ramble, as is my tendency. You may have noticed that. I will say now that I have three brothers and two sisters. Neither sister has ever smoked. Two brothers smoke now, but both are trying to quit. Neither has tried my method. I hope they do so soon. I want them to last longer than dad did.

And I want them to be able to stop standing or sitting outside with that sad look on their faces.