When Willis, Lila and I were young kids, we often picked the “beans” from the Catalpa trees in our yard and played with them. Our dad told us how he and his brothers smoked the ripe beans when they were about our ages. Of course, this sounded fascinating, so we asked if we could try it too.
Daddy was very lenient on things like that and agreed to let us give it a try. Daddy felt it was a part of growing up. He selected a very ripe and dry bean from a tree, cut off both ends and lit one end. It was then ready to smoke. We found it very amusing and were not satisfied with smoking just one.
We pretended to be “big folk.” After several days of smoking, we were caught by mama puffing away on our new cigars. She was aghast, but most shocked when she found out it was our daddy that told us how to do the dastardly deed, and then let us experiment with smoking. That quickly ended our smoking days.
Wayne said he and his siblings tried to smoke Catalpa beans too, but they could never get them to stay lit. Daddy must have been a better teacher? Willis, Lila and I are aged now and still none of us smoke.