An Elementry Lesson

I was talking on the phone to my sister this evening and I was trying to tell her how to find this blog on the web. I suggest that maybe she should just Google my name as I was sure this blog would come up. After all I have a very unusual name so it’s not like I have lots of competition on Google. Anyway as we talked I typed in my name on Google and sure enough there it was, but I also noted that I was mentioned as one of the authors in a book of short stories that was published in 2004. So, I decided to post that story here on line from Growing up on Memory Lane. I might post a few other stories I have had published too if I can find them. Here is the story:

An Elementary Lesson

By Marcel LaPerriere
copyright 2004

Back in the 60’s when I was incarcerated at the Sedalia, Colorado Elementary School every cowboy I knew chewed tobacco. Chewing tobacco was as much a part of being a cowboy as his boots or hat. There was nothing I wanted more than to be a cowboy. I dreamed of riding the range amongst a big herd of cattle. I dreamed of being part of a big roundup riding my old trusted horse Paint. I dreamed of sleeping out on the ground next to a campfire with nothing but a bed roll between me and the earth. I dreamed of waking up in the morning to the smell of cowboy coffee, bacon and fried eggs cooked over a pine fire. Yes, I wanted to be a cowboy. I already had the hat and boots, now all I needed was a plug of tobacco in my cheek. My friend Mike Martin could help. His dad was a real cowboy, working as the foreman for one of the largest ranches in Douglas County. And, Mike’s dad chewed tobacco. Just before music class started Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out some of his fathers Pay Day chewing tobacco. It looked and smelled like a candy bar to me. No wonder that cowboys liked tobacco. If it looked and smelled like candy it must taste like candy too. So, when Mike said “bite off a bit and give it a chew,” I did just that, taking an extra large bite. Yuck, it didn’t taste like candy; it tasted worse than anything I had ever put into my mouth. However, if I was going to be a cowboy I had to chew. Immediately the tobacco kicked our saliva glands into high gear. Suddenly our mouths filled with water faster than Plum Creek did during the spring thaw. We couldn’t just spit on the floor of the music room. Leaving the room was not possible. So we swallowed. That’s when the music teacher asked us, “Why aren't you boys singing?” Both Mike and I simultaneously answered with a gulp, swallowing not only the saliva but all the tobacco. Less than a minute later we both ran for the bathroom. The tobacco must have affected my eye sight too, because I noticed that Mike had turned green enough to make a leprechaun jealous. And talk about dizzy, nothing would stand still. Not even the toilet bowl that I was puking into. For the first time in my life I was sick enough to wish I was dead. Mike and I both claimed we had instantly been overcome with flu, a very bad flu. The teacher knew exactly what we had done, but she never said a word. She didn’t have to. She knew the tobacco had punished us more than she ever could. It might have been that day that I decided I wasn¹t cut out to be a cowboy. Or maybe it was years later after I had been thrown from a horse for the umpteenth time that I heard the sea calling me and I moved to the west coast be near the ocean. Sedalia Elementary School may not have prepared me for adult life, or even given me the skills for higher learning. However I did learn a valuable lesson that day in music class. Never again did any tobacco product pass my lips. Maybe every Elementary School should offer a course in chewing tobacco.