June 2009: Jim Edwards' '08 Shelby GT
| 31 May 2009
Cigarettes and Shelbys—An Unlikely Tale
A little background first. I was born six-plus decades ago on a tobacco farm in eastern rural Pitt County, NC. My father was originally a farmer, my mom came from a farming family, my grandparents were farmers, my uncles and aunts were farmers and with few exceptions, all of my classmates lived and worked on family farms. In those days, farms were small and family-owned and operated and the biggest cash crop was tobacco. In fact, Pitt County held the distinction of being the largest tobacco producing county in the nation. And it was clearly reflected by the plethora of tobacco warehouses in the town of Greenville. Tobacco was KING!
Smoking was simply a given. Everyone I knew smoked; my teachers, my parents, my preacher and all my classmates. In fact, at our rural school we had a covered area adjacent to the incinerator that was called the “smoke pole” and regardless of your age, if your parents consented, you could smoke at school. At each end of the upstairs hall of this small school was a teacher’s lounge. During recesses if you walked past either one, smoke wafted up and out into the hallway.
At the annual Halloween carnival held at the school, one of the attractions was packs of cigarettes sitting on a board. You paid $.05 to shoot at the packs with a cork-gun. If you hit the pack of cigarettes, you won that pack of smokes. A husband of one of the teachers always ran that concession and was a friend of our family. So on the Friday afternoon before the Friday night Carnival, I’d go by and Bruce (his name) would let me practice. So on Friday night, I’d take $.25 cents and with absolute precision, I’d win five packs of smokes. I’d put them in a large tin can where at the age of 10 or 11 I’d retrieve them surreptitiously and smoke them. I guess I somehow thought I was fooling my parents, but as I found out later, I never did. The point here was that smoking was not viewed as harmful, unhealthy and in those days, such things as second-hand smoke were not even contemplated. By the age of 14 I smoked openly in front of my parents.
In short, everyone smoked and so did I ! And smoke I did…for nearly 50 years and I was no slouch. I chain-smoked three packs or more per day. That is, until some three months ago. I laid them down! I told myself that if I could make it three or so months, then my new habit would be NOT smoking and that I’d reward myself. Between increases in the costs, plus raised taxes, even here in the Tar Heel state one can pretty much count on a $5.00 per pack cost! Three packs per day times 30 days equals $450.00 bucks and that’s NET after income taxes.
So, some three months later and not smoking, I decided that I now had a place and a reason to spend that $450.00 bucks per month so I just purchased my second Shelby GT. This time it is a ’08 Shelby GT-California Special in Grabber Orange. One of 219 made! And what’s so very, very cool is that NOT SMOKING is paying for that car. I told ya this was an unlikely tale but we all have interesting ones related to our Mustang love affairs and this is just one.
