Spittin' Image

I was born there, and I still lay claim to her as my original home. Plucked, up and away, to Bellingham, from Billings, when I was just four; the subsequent biannual drives, there and back, are etched deeply onto my memory. Montana is vast, and driving for hours, between points just inches apart on a map, lends a scale to the Earth that still inspires both awe and a little terror. Sawtooth mountains reach above the weather, ever on the horizon, as you slowly creep across the valley floors. There is no dust, no water in the air, and when you crane your neck, peering straight up, your gaze penetrates the stratosphere, to the edge of space.

A promotional pamphlet, published in 1895, touted Montana as The Treasure State, a reference to her abundant gold, silver, and especially copper, production. This name stuck until 1961, when, life imitating art, a representative of the state advertising department asked A. B. Guthrie, the author of The Big Sky, at his remote ranch, permission to use the title as a catchphrase to promote tourism. He reportedly agreed on the spot. The Big Sky sounds more like an ancient, reverent name for a holy place than a best seller about the fur trade, and for years I assumed it was. That Guthrie's editor suggested the title shouldn't prejudice your appreciation for the poetry in the words.

But the sky. The blue, blue sky. So deep, so rich, so full of promise, serenity, happiness, optimism, and over-arching love. I have various snapshots: bucking hay, driving the Beartooth, Christmas '76 - the sky is exactly the same, a perfect indigo that grabs me by the glands and whispers, "Welcome home." The landscape in Montana is writ with the American mythologies of Cowboys, Indians, of liquor and tobacco. The road to my Grandma's house is writ with irony, plastered onto a billboard.

This is my confession: I am a tobacco user. Not cigarettes, not anymore, not for a long time- I flirted with those in college, and gave them up easily enough when a certain young lady expressed interest, although I flirted with them for a while during the divorce - a sort of a relational bookend. I'm talking smokeless tobacco... the rough sawn, hard luck, boom town cult of chewin' tobacco. Chaw. Snoose. Yuck, yeah, right. Gross.

The fire service is thick with chew enthusiasts. More than you might expect. For every firefighter you see with a Cope ring on the back pocket of his jeans, there's several that have a habit they maintain covertly. The rationalization goes like so: "At least I can run the stairs." And they can. It doesn't affect their pulmonary function; they're not inhaling tar and all the lung-clogging crap associated with burning tobacco. But it will probably eventually affect their health.

Some guys always have a dip in, but it might be so small as to not require the signature spitting. Others just suck it up and swallow the poison. Might be the spouse, might be a private shame, but people, in general, frown on the whole spitting thing. Which I don't quite understand. Smoking exposes other people to your smoke when you exhale, but spitting in a coffee cup, or even on the asphalt, can be pretty benign when gracefully executed. The first time you empty a garbage can full of someone's tobacco spit, however, is a memory to savor and share.

At the state fire academy, I took a righteous stance against my fellow recruits' use of chew, and composed an anti-dippin' cadence. When they sang it I convinced myself that I was helping them, but no one quit dipping.

tell me when you've had enough /
eatin without teeth is rough /
why don't you have a nuther snuff?

the scariest thing I ever saw/
was the cancer that killed my grandpa/
why don't you have a nuther chaw?

I can't tell you what to do /
but I don't think you'll be able to sue /
why not have a nuther chew?

'fore you go I got a tip /
I don't think you need your lips /
why not have a nuther dip?

My friend, Dave, has probably been dipping for thirty or more years. He's my age, but only I started chewing tobacco less than a year ago, spurred by the boredom and privacy of working on my rental home. Ennui and a convenient 7-Eleven conspired to deliver a tin of Kodiak to my mucous membranes. I've known dozens of smokeless tobacco, chew, users, but I never understood the compulsion to pack the dip in the lower lip until I tried it.

There is a learning curve, and I advise the curious to avoid dipping while driving, during the early stages of skill acquisition. Retching in a cup, at sixty MPH, eyes streaming, is probably slightly more dangerous than talking on a cell phone while driving - with your eyes closed. -with no hands. -from the passenger seat.

Remember the blue, blue, blue, Big Sky of the Treasure State? That's the color of nicotine. That's the promise, the optimism, the warmth, friendship, and love that the drug vowed to me. For a while. Then I started to dip more, and it never again lived up to the initial promise of happiness. The tin of chew virtually buzzed in my pocket, reminded me of the lost euphoria, like fading Kodachrome vacation slides. The indigo existed outside my daily experience, and to even conceptualize the indigo required nicotine. Indigo became unobtainable. The world started to render in shades of brown, tans, washed-out slate tones.

I missed the indigo, and so I haven't had a dip in almost two weeks. The physical pain of nicotine withdrawal is really just a few days discomfort: headache, tension, grouchiness. Ibuprofen and beer help. So does exercise. It helps that dipping is a private endeavor; there's no second-hand smoke to taunt you when others indulge around you. I found it easy to refuse the offers of a shared dip. When asked if I was "packing", I explained how I was on the wagon, and had none to share. Don't come round here, no more.

I have my motives for staying off tobacco, but, foremost, stuffing carcinogens into my mouth seems ill-advised, given my family's history of cancers. I don't want my kids to take up tobacco, in the way kids inherit their parents' behaviors and values. And I don't like that I respond so easily, so willingly, to a nagging, whining addiction voluntarily carried in my pocket, with my change.