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Quitting was the hardest thing to do after suffering from acute inferior wall myocardial infarction. I knew the smoke from the stick caused it when I started coughing real hard inside my car. Oh, how I love to smoke inside a running vehicle. It must be the traffic, I guess that makes me want to light it. When the car stops when it signals a red light when the vehicle you were driving is running at fast speed. So, the car I was driving stopped, I lighted a stick. Then it came. The hard coughing as if you drowned by it. Of course, I had to close the windows. Passive smokers hate it.

All that hip. 1969. Woodstock. The hip came in throngs one after the other until it occupied a large space in sleepy town in USA. The bands came, too. Solely to entertain and get them flying high to whatever destination they wanted. Electrifying. Can`t forget Santana`s Soul Sacrifice. As the hip audience listened to the beat of conga drums, a boy started hammering his sticks on several sets of drums and cymbals. Like crazy. But the crowd loved it. Then this guy with a moustache, wearing a chalico with his guitar as if holding to a snake. It was amazing how a Latino guy can mesmerized a hip crowd that occupied three football fields. There must be a million of them who listened to the sounds of his electric gita.

All of these happenings I remembered in the 60s and 70s. It was the Aquarian age manifesting in the midst of Kaliyuga. There was war in Vietnam. US military troops sent to slaughter an alleged enemy, the Vietcong. It was an era where every view you watched seemed unreal. The psychedelic, the flower people, the rock bands, the protest songs from Revivalists. There can never be like this where the smoke is in the water. It produced Chicago, America, James Taylor, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, etc.

On stage before the show began, the millions were appeased and blessed by this man from India. Wearing a turban. With a garland around his neck starts chanting, " Ommmm..Ommmm. " Does the smoke really gets in your eyes? There were prohibitions.

Everyone who chanted believe in Karma-an avenging God who protects his devotees.

I have aged. & yet my mind is clear. That there will always be someone who tells you to quit in what endeavor you are doing. That one should quit sex and become a monk if you want to go to heaven. That one should quit alcohol. That one should quit gambling. That one should be an obedient citizen of the community. That one should..

So, whenever somebody tells me to quit I will tell him, " A quitter never swims."

I learned to smoke a cigarette stick at the age of 8. My great grand pa ( MC )a smoker whenever he falls asleep, I sneak inside his room and steal a few sticks from a pack of Matutina ( unfiltered ) cigarettes placed inside the left side pocket of his polo shirt. I do not know if he was awake when I sneaked-in or pretending to be sleeping but the euphoria I felt of being able to steal from someone who was not aware a few of his smoking sticks were gone was terrific. Yet I wondered every time my great grand pa looked at me while we were having lunch or dinner I could see this peculiar smiling naughty look on his face. My great grand pa was an undefeated mayor in his hometown, a farmer who did not wear sandals or shoes. There was even a story that he walked barefoot when he visited the President of the Philippines E. Q in Manila. If only you saw my great grand pa who was described as a steam roller.

My great grand pa after he died at the age of 103 never knew smokers would graduate in the basic course of smoking a cigarette and take a post-graduate course in smoking pot. It became popular in the late 60s when man driving an Apollo 11 vehicle landed on the moon. It was surreal to me, moon landing and smoking pot, when it embedded in my consciousness. Like someone downloading an unsolicited sci fi video in my mind from you tube. That was it. That smoking pot was a giant step for man, a leap for mankind towards quantum physics, chaos theory and yoga. It was an experiment done in the USA LAB and her subjects the American people. Even the wanna be former US President B.C smoked pot in high school.

When the smoke from cigarettes and pot dissipated after the Vietnam war are we, smokers, to blame if the killing fields in Cambodia were littered with millions of dead bodies? What about Columbia in South America whose notoriety for culturing pot, coca and poppy plants flourished into a mega scale business for American and Canadian consumers. What were its benefits that gave USA the power introducing goddess Durga into our smoking lives. What about Soma Rasa ( alcoholic intoxication ) that popularized Al Capone, Billy and Clyde in the mid 20s. I could go on and on.

And you here telling me to quit? While I am still ahead. But I have no head. I lost it in the 70s.