Sunday Morning, Cigars and A.R.P.s (Flashback to my youth)

It was the last Sunday in September.  I was with my best friend Jimbo Dillashaw, and we were at the Sunday morning church services at Lower Long Cane Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church. The old church was organized in 1771.  My great grandaddy’s daughter carried lunch to the workman who built the current structure in 1856. That was a long time ago.  The event described here happened in the early 1950s.  

The morning church service had started.  Jimbo and I were supposed to be inside.  We were feeling about grown-up and didn’t want sit with our parents. Momma had given in to our plan, but I knew that her keen eyes would be scanning the back pews for me and Jimbo. I believed that it was a matter of time before she would realize that we were missing and come get us.  It would not be one of our better days when we were found out.

In the front of that church with its four Greek columns reaching skyward beneath a gnarled cedar tree was a tombstone. That tombstone sat on a rectangle of granite. And on that granite were the objects of our desires.

“Let’s do it!” Jimbo said.

“Yeah!” I said. We had long awaited the opportunity to partake of this particular sin. Because, you see, at the base of that tombstone were three cigar stubbies. My daddy, Jimbo’s daddy, and Uncle J. C. left the stubs of their cigars by that tombstone when they went into the church for services. Afterwards they’d light ‘em up again. This was the chance Jimbo and I had waited for.

“I’m gonna get Daddy’s Hav-A-Tampa,” I said.

“I’ll get my daddy’s too,” Jimbo said.

We picked  them up. They were wet from our daddys’ saliva and about to fall apart. We stuck ‘em in our mouths.

“Yuk!” I said.

“They’ll taste better when they’re lit,” Jimbo said.

“Gotta match?” I asked.

“Ain’t gotta match.  What we gonna do?” Jimbo added.

“Bet there’s one in the car!” I said.

“What if the car’s locked?” Jimbo was worried.

“Don’t nobody lock their cars at church, Jimbo!” I said. “ We’d better hurry! Momma will be looking for us anytime now!”

So we ran to the back of the church where the cars were parked. There Chevrolets, Fords, one Plymouth, and a couple of pickup trucks parked under the shade of giant oak trees.  The leaves were just beginning to change color.

“Tell you what.  You start at one end of the row and I’ll start at the other. We’ll find some matches or a lighter or something. Let’s do it!” I said enthusiastically.

I was quick about it. But Jimbo seemed to be having trouble. I had gone through a bunch of cars by the time I got to him.  He had only searched two!

“What’s wrong with you, Jimbo? I’ve done looked in a dozen cars and you only looked into two!” I was what LeRoy Collins called p-oed!

“B-b-but,” Jimbo stuttered, “You gotta see what I found!” He was sitting in Darwin MacQueen’s rusty and bent up old faded green Chevy pickup truck. Darwin was an old bachelor farmer who lived over in Winterseat. Momma said Darwin couldn’t help it ‘cause he was ugly, and that he probably had a good heart.

“It better be matches! We gotta hurry!” I said. What my grandma called my Irish temper had flared up.

“I found matches but lookie  here!” he said with a kind of excitement I had not heard before. He was holding what looked like a tattered and torn magazine. He held it up for me to see. On the page of that magazine was a picture of a young woman. She was a-layin’ on a blanket on her belly. She was propped up on her elbows. She had a big smile on her face. And that was the only thing she had on! We h’ain’t never seen nothin’ like that before.

“Lordy mercy!”  I said. And, although I had to tear my eyes off the picture, I added, “ Jimbo put that back.  We gotta hurry, Momma will be looking for us!”

He stuffed the battered up magazine back under the pickup truck’s seat and we went for the cigars. They were kind of hard to get lit and there were only five matches in the matchbook. We got the stogies lit up on that fifth match. Jimbo started coughing on his first puff and I quickly did the same. This taste of sin lasted only a few minutes.  I got to feeling sorta dizzy and Jimbo was staggering too.  We put the little used cigars of our fathers back at the base of the tombstone and went inside the church.  I saw Momma cut her eyes around at us as we sneaked into the back row.  During the next Bible song I wasn’t feeling too good, and JImbo looked like his face was turning green. As my mouth filled with the taste of bile I jumped from my seat and sprang for the door. Jimbo was right behind me.

We had passed the tombstone and were across the old road before I emptied the contents of my stomach onto the ground. Jimbo did likewise.  Momma had followed us out of the church, having heard the commotion at the back.

“What’s wrong, Son?” she asked sympathetically.

“I must have ate something that disagreed with me,” I said.

“And Jimbo ate it too?” she wanted to know.

“I donno,” I answered.

She didn’t ask anything else.  Made us wipe our mouths real good with our handkerchiefs before escorting us back into church.  I didn’t feel too good the rest of the day but was okay to go to school on Monday.  Nobody ever mentioned our getting sick at church again.  Over the years I’ve smoked  other things, but I’ve never developed an affinity for cigars!