Stories of Cigarettes

The best part about visiting everyone on the weekend was listening to all of the stories. Gramma, Auntie Iris and Mom all talked about things from their past, people and events -- it was all so interesting. I love to hear about it because, as you may know, I'm working on a family tree. I try to write everything down so that I may use things later.

Most of the stories are not connected and usually have years between so it will be a task to incorporate them all. Two of the tales told last weekend however, were related in context as the two situations were similar, so I combined them.

When Iris was young, she would take Grandpa Whitehead's rolling papers and hide them. She either didn't want him to smoke or just thought herself to be pretty funny. He would usually discover them missing after the Macey's had left so he'd have to go without smoking until he could get some more papers. He would laugh and laugh because it was Iris and she was such a cute little grand-daughter.

About seven years after Grandpa Whitehead passed away, Iris took up smoking herself, but she hid it from her Dad, Harold, because he wouldn't want to see his little girl smoking. David was just a toddler at the time and Iris used to babysit him. One night, everyone was over at Daryl and Delaine's, sitting around visiting. David decided to go into Iris's purse, take out her package of cigarettes and hand them to her, right in front of her Harold. She was absolutely horrified that her Dad had to find out that way.

I wonder if Grandpa Whitehead was guiding David at the time, a little game of get even from the other side. I'll bet that Grandpa Whitehead laughed and laughed.