Me, Terrel and the Viceroy

You know, it's funny how people have friends that they have been doing things with all their lives but can't
remember exactly how they met or what it was that brought them together. That was not the
case with my very first friend Terrel Louiviere. After high school we drifted our own seperate ways and I
understand he is now living in Kentucky but the other day I came across a photo of us kneeling on either side
of my brothers basketball in front of our basketball goal sporting our goofy hats with ear flaps drooping down
and one hand on the basketball and the other holding a Grapette soda. Terrel's brother Eldrige was
standing on side of him and my brother Percy was standing at my side. The photo looks like it might
have been taken in the winter of 1952. I'm pretty sure there was no particular event associated with this
picture, I think Momma just decided to come outside and take a picture of us. I guess Percy talked
Eldrige into bringing his little brother so I would have someone to play with and would not interfere with their
basket ball game. Anyway, that's how I met my first friend. Later Terrel and I became friends with Paul
Boudreaux and Terry Baudoin who also lived in the neighborhood and the four of us became inseperable.
However, let us go forward from the photo of 1952 to about the summer of 1957. A very good year,
Chevrolet came out with the classic '57 BelAir and Ford had a cool looking Thunderbird or as some
people would say a "tundabird". Also at that time billboards, TV and magazines were full of cigarette ads
portraying images of macho men like the Marlboro Man. I guess with all this machismo floating around
like puffs of smoke Terrel and I decided it was time to become cool. Boy, how cool would it be to brag to
Paul and Terry that we started smoking, the advertising world gave us the thumbs up. Terrel and I were
sitting on the back steps of his house when he got up, went in the house and came out with a knife and
one Viceroy cigarette (no filter) that he took from Eldrige's pack. We cut the cigarette in half and began
our journey to coolness. We put each a half of that cigarette between our lips, looking like James Dean,
and fired them up. I took a pretty long drag from that cancer stick and was already beginning to feel
dizzy when I heard Terrel say something about keeping our mouths shut and blowing smoke through
our nose. As my head was spinning I was wondering where that smoke was going because it sure was
not coming out of my nose. Thats about the time things started getting hazy and I'm pretty sure I was
turning green. I turned to look at Terrel and I could tell from the look of horror on his face that he was
having a difficult time getting oxygen because his eyes were about the size of quarters. About that time
I guess we had enough of looking cool, we bolted for the water hose. Terrell turned on the faucet and we
took turns sucking on the end of that water hose like a calf on an udder. At that time I didn't know what
would be worse, asphyxiation or drowning. Anyway, we decided not to tell Paul and Terry how cool we
looked gasping for oxygen and sucking on that water hose. I don't guess that ever happened to the
Marlboro Man.