I was an organizer in the Food, Agricultural and Tobacco Workers Union down in North Carolina.
The tobacco companies and snooker were as thick as thieves.
My unworldliness, even at 21, was abnormal. Not only had I never smoked tobacco nor touched alcohol of any description, but I had never yet set foot inside a theatre, or gone to a race course I had never seen, nor held a billiard cue, nor touched a card.
It is time for Congress to provide relief for tobacco farmers. Since the 1930's tobacco production has been regulated by a quota system, which required farmers to purchase quota in order to grow tobacco.
The culture is about moving to a place where tobacco and smoking isn't part of normal life: people don't encounter it normally, they don't see it in their big supermarkets, they don't see people smoking in public places, they don't see tobacco vending machines.
The greatest job I ever had was working on my family farm. Each morning my father would come into my bedroom around 4:30 am and command me to get up and work the fields. I would spend the next two hours before school slopping pigs and cropping tobacco.
I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I haven't had time for tobacco since.
When I was young, I kissed my first woman and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. Believe me, never since have I wasted any more time on tobacco.
I learned early to drink beer, wine and whiskey. And I think I was about 5 when I first chewed tobacco.
We had a great many horses, of which we gave Lewis and Clark what they needed, and they gave us guns and tobacco in return.
