Wolf Crooks

My Senior year of high school I became good friends with Mike C. who was a pk.  Now, for you who do not know, pk stands for "preacher's kid". There is no greater holy terror than a pk. If there is trouble to get into, the pk will find it. If you wish to be led down the path of degradation, there is no better guide than a pk. Yes, they know how to rebel in the finest way.  So one lunch, Mike tells me, lets go get some Wolf Crooks. I, having no idea what Wolf Crooks were but having to maintain my air of coolness, agree.  Ok, for those who are as ignorant regarding Wolf Crooks as I was, here is the scoop. These are cigars soaked in rum. The ad from that time states "if you were soaked in 149 proof rum, you'd be a little crooked, too." The effect of all this rum soaking is to make a smelly, nasty, rank cigar. The kind of cigar that if a man were sitting in front of you at the ball game smoking a Wolfie, you would get up and walk to the bleachers to get away from it. (I know, there is no smoking now in stadiums, but back then there was smoking allowed everywhere and especially cigars at the ball park enjoyed with a cup of draft Schlitz.)

So Mike and I take off in his dad's 1965 Cadillac. It was a land yacht. White and huge. We get the pack of Wolf's and smoke them like we knew what we were doing inside the car driving around.  Finally, it is time to go back to school.  One thing I hadn't considered is the smell of the Wolfs lingered. It was in my clothes, hair, skin and breath. I stunk like a week old ash tray. My first class that afternoon was gym. So fortunately, I could change my clothes and put on my smelly gym clothes and be home free from my lunch of degradation with the pk. As I am changing my clothes, Garry arrives. He says to me "Someone has been smoking, I smell tobacco." I freeze. I'm busted.  But wait, the muses call out to me with the greatest inspiration to occur in my life to that time. I say "Garry, I smell it too. I think we should try and find who it is."  Well we looked all over the locker room to try and find the source of the stench. I looked high and low. I sniffed locker after locker. We just couldn't find the source of the odor and we had to get to class. So we never found the smoker. I didn't tell you, this was a private school. Not just any private school, but a church school. Not just any church but a Seventh-day Adventist Church school and the SDA's do not allow their members to smoke. It is forbidden. It is one of the eight mortal sins. Ok, SDA's don't have mortal sins but if they did, this was number eight. So I survived another day with my pk buddy. By the way, I didn't take up tobacco.