Congratulations, Rockcat!!
Makes me think of when my Dad quit. I was still at home. My brother and his family were visiting for Sunday dinner. Dad and Pete were in the kitchen "chewing the fat", and Dad offered him a cigarette. He rolled his own, and was apologizing to Pete that they might be getting dry, because he had rolled them just before the cold hit that he was just getting over. He couldn't smoke while he had the cold, so they just sat. As he was explaining this to Pete, the eldest granddaughter, then 9, passed by the door and heard the conversation. She stopped and said, "Please, Grampa, don't start again. It will kill you," to which, he, thinking to lighten the mood, laughed and said, "Oh, good riddance to bad rubbish." She, however, was deadly serious, and replied, "Oh, NO! Grampa, I love you!!" and the grizzly bear with the marshmallow interior, asked politely if he might have a cigar once in a while -- which he soon discovered he wasn't much interested in, anyway.
That's getting on for 40 years ago.
Makes me think of when my Dad quit. I was still at home. My brother and his family were visiting for Sunday dinner. Dad and Pete were in the kitchen "chewing the fat", and Dad offered him a cigarette. He rolled his own, and was apologizing to Pete that they might be getting dry, because he had rolled them just before the cold hit that he was just getting over. He couldn't smoke while he had the cold, so they just sat. As he was explaining this to Pete, the eldest granddaughter, then 9, passed by the door and heard the conversation. She stopped and said, "Please, Grampa, don't start again. It will kill you," to which, he, thinking to lighten the mood, laughed and said, "Oh, good riddance to bad rubbish." She, however, was deadly serious, and replied, "Oh, NO! Grampa, I love you!!" and the grizzly bear with the marshmallow interior, asked politely if he might have a cigar once in a while -- which he soon discovered he wasn't much interested in, anyway.
That's getting on for 40 years ago.