In 1970, as an 18-year-old college freshman in Boston, living away from home for the first time, I started to smoke cigarettes. A pack a day grew in short order to two packs a day, or a cigarette about every 30 minutes.
I choreographed my life around my smokes, puffing away after every meal, taking a drag with a drink and blowing smoke rings as I wrote, usually late into the night. I needed no pretext for smoking, but found plenty; every occasion fit the bill.
Oh, I loved smoking all right. I loved the cedar taste of tobacco, the earthy smell, the whole elaborate ritual. But most of all, I savoured the sights: the flash of flame to kindle my cigarette, the amber glow at the tip, the tendrils of vapour coiling under a reading light like some primordial fog. It was like self-hypnosis.
I went on like that for the next six years, straight through college and on into my first job. All along, I saw myself as pretty damn cool. I knew inhaling nicotine down my throat and absorbing it in my bloodstream was bad for me, unhealthy in the extreme and potentially cancerous. Yet I had no plans to quit. Why would I? I was 24 years old and therefore invulnerable to bodily harm, my immortality guaranteed. Plus, I was stupid.
Until I met Elvira.
It was a blind date, and we got serious fast, boyfriend and girlfriend within weeks. Elvira had a good heart and an even temper, in both respects every inch my opposite. She was also competent and sensible, attributes I lacked in spades. It never hurt that I found her gorgeous, too.
Elvira and I got along well except for one catch: she hated my smoking. Hated it! She was so adamantly opposed to my 40-a-day habit that she forbade me to smoke in her presence. She even banned my smoking in my own apartment, banishing me to the sidewalk outside.
And once, unforgettably, she told me straight out that kissing me was like licking the inside of an ashtray. That turned out to be the deciding factor for me. If my kisses disgusted my darling, surely our romance was doomed. Who wants to kiss an ashtray?
So I quit smoking. Oh I tried more than once. I challenged family and friends to lay bets against my going cold turkey and I wound up losing hundreds of dollars. One time, I got the brilliant idea of smoking nonstop for a full day. I lit up one cigarette after another, rapid-fire and uninterrupted, from morning till night. My hypothesis was elementary: if I made the act of smoking sufficiently revolting to myself, I would have no choice but to stop and spare myself further insult to my system.
But the next day, I reverted back to my trusty Salems.
Finally, on 1 January 1977, about 14 months after meeting Elvira, and as a long-overdue new year resolution, I quit cigarettes for good. Nine months later, we moved in together. Seven months after that, I asked Elvira to marry me and she accepted. Another eight months later, we had our wedding.
Bob and Elvira on their wedding day in New York City in 1979. Photograph: Courtesy of Bob Brody
And that was just for starters. Four years later came our son, Michael, and five years hence, our daughter, Caroline. Today, we have a grandson, Nicola, and a granddaughter, Lucia.
What would have happened if I’d kept smoking over the past 48 years? What if I had defied Elvira, common sense and modern medicine alike? How differently would my life have turned out (provided I survived my addiction in the first place)? How would I feel? How would I look? How well would I function?
This much I know for sure: all that tar and carbon monoxide would have done me no good whatsoever. My skin would have likely turned the texture of parchment, my complexion a grey pallor. My blood vessels would have narrowed, slowing my circulation, and my damaged lungs would probably have deflated and given out on me.
Bob and Elvira with their son Michael and daughter Caroline in 1995. Photograph: Courtesy of Bob Brody
But quitting smoking gave me a fresh start. And because I quit, I had enough wind in my sails to play pickup playground basketball in New York City, often with kids half my age, for 45 years. These days, I still have sufficient breathing capacity to race around a park with our scampering grandchildren, now two and seven.
But best of all, because I broke my habit, I won my bride for life. Ever since that pivotal moment, I’ve gotten the opportunity to kiss Elvira, now my wife of 47 years, day and night, without tasting like an ashtray.
Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age by Bob Brody is available now (Heliotrope Books)
