Another fine memory on this special day...

This being "International Walk to School Day", (I'm serious Alexa just told me), I'm reminded of my early formative years while walking to school with one of my best friends, Bobby R. I would leave my house at one end of our block and meet Bobby at his house at the other end of the block and we would head out towards Our Lady of Mercy, a fine parochial school in Dayton, Ohio where the nuns there would try their best to break my spirit.

We worked our way one block over to Siebenthaler where we would begin the long trudge up the steep hill as we peered closely into the gutters along the busy street with one goal in mind, finding cigarette butts to smoke along the way. We hadn't yet either gotten up the courage to sneak "cigs" out of our parent's packs or maybe we just didn't know how to be that crafty yet. Heck, we were only in the third and fourth grades, respectively. But that was okay, there were always plenty of good butts along the way that would given us several good puffs before they burned our fingers.

Back then there weren't many filtered cigs and if there were, they were the sissy-menthol kind. We always went for the real thing. Luckies, Camels and Pall Malls. You could usually find a good Pall Mall in the gutter because they were a little longer and people wouldn't smoke them down too far.

As we spotted our prey, we would shout out loud and race to beat each other to the prize. Bobby always carried matches with him so he got dibs on getting the first puff. It was so great. Each of us would take a good deep inhale and then cough the crap out of our young lungs and smiling as we felt that rush of excitement and a short high.

I continued that habit, no, not getting butts out of the gutter, but smoking for most of my life. Quitting once after my first child was born and then later starting up again. Fortunately, I came to my senses about 50 some years later and finally gave up the horrible, disgusting routine.

Yep, great memories.

So as you remember back this morning when you had to make that trudge uphill both ways, in 5 feet of snow, share your story with your kids and your grandkids as they make their trudge to the family car as they celebrate International Walk to School Day.