Can I Get a Dip?

A couple more elements of snuff culture I left out. Snuff bumming etiquette seemed to be more complicated than one would expect. With cigarettes it's easy. They're already divided into twenty a pack. With snuff, there was always gray area. "Hey, goddamnit! How much do you got there?" "I just took a little bit!"

Which reminds me of the old snuff commercials. Very instructional: "Just put a pinch between your cheek and gum..." Or am I dreaming that?

I also remember the guys whose jeans were painfully tight such that their snuff can and wallet wore white patches in their back pockets after two or three wearings. The sign of a prosperous man at my junior high was he who had snuff rings worn into both back pockets.

I think I was in ninth grade when they decided to crack down. First, they outlawed the wearing of jeans jackets in class so guys couldn't hide their spit pouches. Second, they said that they would suspend students who had visible snuff specks on their teeth. I remember clearly Tom Leasure protesting to Mr. Pete Kundrat, "What if we just ate a Chocolate Dee-Lite, and we got bits of chocolate cake on our teeth?" Kundrat responded with something like, "Well, you shouldn't be eating Chocolate Delights in class anyways."

Snuff usage became more clandestine. The dips got smaller, the spitting less frequent. How many times did I try to talk to someone, only to have them look at me and gesture, unable to open their mouth because it was full of tobacco juice?

Then, for some reason I seem to recall a lot of people pulling down their lower lips to show that either they did or did not have a dip in. Either way, it was just short of revolting.

Every once in a while, the kid with an actual chaw of chewing tobacco in his cheek would show up like a guy who wondered off the set of a western onto the set of junior high movie. Or he looked lie a lumberjack who just came to town for supplies. Always the original, Jimmy Barr talked about neither dippin or chaw, but plug tobacco. I can't remember if he had uncles or grandfathers who would cut themself a plug, but if the chewing tobacco kid seemed out of date, the plug guys might have well been working on the Erie Canal. It would have been great if I had upstaged them all by whipping out a snuff box and packing my nose like an 18th century gentleman. If only I knew then what I know now, man, I would've been the coolest guy in New Cumberland.

Dippin' Culture

One of my professors told me that when he first moved to West Virginia, he was at a basketball game in Morgantown with some guys, including a recently graduated PhD from our illustrious program. At some point the recent PhD reached down and pulled a cup up to his lips and spit into the cup, at which point my professor noticed it was half full of brown tobacky juice. He said that the sight made him literally gag.

It made me reflect on my upbringing. I never thought that I had been branded very much by growing up in Hancock County, West Virginia, until the last seven or eight years. Now, every once in a while I'm reminded of its influence...like with the dippin'.

I never got into it myself. When I was about four years old and we lived in Wetzel County, I tried a bit of Mr. Edgell's chaw -- stringy tobacco from a pouch. Hated it, of course. I doubt many four year olds take to chewing tobacco, but if any did, it was probably up there on Doolin Ridge Road.

Snuff became hugely popular when I was in junior high in New Cumberland, and I would guess that snuff use there was about four or five times the national average. It developed into its own subculture. As I think back, it seems odd that twelve and thirteen year olds were so heavily using tobacco products, "catching a buzz" in the bus on the way to school, sneaking a dip in the back of class.

Their was also a bit of artistry to dippin'. Guys would get their cans out and tamp them. To do that, they held the cans between their thumb and middle finger and swung the can with their wrist, letting their index finger thump against it. All the snuff would pack against one side of the can. Then they would carefully pinch some out and stick it in their lip. I always thought they looked like assholes with their lower lip sticking out. Every once in a while when a guy hit the big time or when he was on a bender, you would see him with a ridiculously huge dip in, and usually a big grin on his stupid face.

They certainly left their fingerprints all over the school. I remember watching a guy spit on the floor of the bus and then run his foot back and forth over the spot to cleanse it. Or save up their spit until they either spat a huge, stringy bunch of juice onto the ground outside. The best, however, was the carefully crafted notebook-paper pouches secreted away in the inside pocket of their denim jackets. It was like a magic trick where a magician pours a gallon of milk into a newspaper cone. Instead, it was snuff juice into a coat pocket. The worst, however, was a pile of snuff and spit in the water fountain---especially if you absent-mindedly leaned toward the fountain before noticing it.

Then the junior high tried to shut it down. I'll save that tale for next time.

More bloggin!*

In one of my favorite blogs (by Jane Espensen) she refers to her readers as "gentle readers." As in: So, thank you, gentle readers, for your support. Incidentally, Jane writes about tv scriptwriting, often times discussing humor in scriptwriting. I've been trying to figure out what to call all of you who read my blog so dutifully and flood my inbox with thousands upon thousands of emails. As always, I wish I could respond to all of them.

Here's my friend Lee's favorite blog, which is called The Best Page in the Universe. I read an entry for the first time today (which I've linked to) and enjoyed it very much. But that guy only writes a blog like every two or three months. I've decided to start 2008 with MORE BLOGGIN!!* At least a couple of times a week.

Hmmm. What to write about today. Me and Mike (and non-blog reading spouses) went to see "Gone, Baby, Gone" last night. I give it 3 stars out of 4. Very enjoyable modern-day detective mystery. Afterwards, the bastards at Tambelini's gave me two beers that fell about an inch short of pint.

*More blogging means less quality.

The Secret to the Dance of Lou

I had a sudden realization today. I had a song in my head--can't remember which one but it was a country song--and I thought, wouldn't it be funny to dance to this like it's a disco song. Rolling my hands in front of my chest like I'm working bicycle pedals with them, then occasionally pointing up on one side, and then pointing up on the other.

Yes, I decided. That is what I'll do the next time the opportunity presents itself. Then it hit me. For about five or six years, possibly since Bud's wedding, whenever I've danced, it has not been in earnest. Instead, rather than actually dancing, I have parodied the act of dancing. For example, every wedding I've been too since Bud's I have slid across the dance floor on my knees at some point. I should clarify--this was at weddings that I've been drunk at. I remember returning one pair of rented tuxedo pants with small holes burned into the knees from such a move.

And I decided today that parody is the way to go from now on.

For me it's like karoke. The song needs to have a bit of ridiculousness and over-the-top showmanship. Dancing will now be the same way for me. I will assume a persona when I step onto the dance floor. But it will have to be one that I can actually pull off. For example, my persona couldn't be a kid from the streets whose whole life was the breakdance, and he just needed that one opporunity to show off his talent. Also, an ultra-suave Cary Grant sweeping the ladies off their feet wouldn't work.

Instead, I'll try to use what Will Ferrell calls "unearned confidence." I'll be the hopelessly out of date guy who thinks he can dance but has no idea what he's actually doing. There's enough of me in that part that I think I can make it work.

An Auspicious Beginning?

I spent New Year's Eve at the home of my friends Tony and Amy. They live with a family of hound dogs that are quite friendly but also very alert. When I awoke on their couch the next morning around 8 am, the slightest noise would set them off a-barkin. I decided that since it would probably be a few hours before any sane person woke up, that probably the best thing for me to do would be to leave a note and slip out before the dogs woke everybody up.

I scraped some ice off the car and headed onto the highway, snow spitting at my windshield. I pulled onto the four-lane, listening to a podcast and settling in for a long drive. That was when I was struck by the sudden realization that maybe I left too hastily. Maybe I should've used the facilities before I left.

I then went over my options. I was a little too far to turn around and go back to Tony's. Then I thought, well, I could stop at the truck stop in about fifteen miles. No, better make it the gas station visible from the highway...better yet, the next exit...even better, the absolute next place where it is legal to drive cars off of this highway.

In short order, the podcast was turned off, I was driving like a maniac, and scanning the roadside for shrubery or cover of any kind. There was a lone napkin on my passenger seat. It had no significance the night before. I didn't even know it was there. Now, I looked at it with some relief...and also horror.

Great, I thought. This is really how I wanted to start the year 2008: crouching on the roadside with my pants down, sleet pelting my face, cars roaring by, clutching a yellow Wendy's napkin. No, I was more determined than ever to start the new year with some dignity.

I sped up and breathed slowly in and out. The next exit turned onto another four-lane, but I took it. Still no decent shrubery. Ran a red light without even blinking. Turned off onto another road, and in the distance, appearing like an oasis, a Sheetz gas station. I screeched to a halt, double-timed across the parking lot, managed a smile to the cashier on my way through the store.

To top it off, Sheetz gave me a free cup of coffee in honor of New Year's Day. A free cup of coffee and a little dignity, to be spent later in the year.