Here in Big Thicket, we’re still enamored with Prince Albert. In case you are too young or too innocent, Prince Albert was ground up into tobacco and doled out in a red can with a hinge lid.
This is the same Prince Albert that children were referring to when they phoned their local drug store and asked, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” Because the woman who answered the phone was not born yesterday but did her store-clerk duty and answered, “Yes, we do.” She knew full well the punch line,” Well Don’t you think you better let him out?!” was coming amid giggles of laughter and a kerplunk as the phone slammed in her ear.
The Prince Albert that I am referring to here is pipe tobacco and is mild enough to be used for cigarettes.
When I was growing up my juvenile delinquent cousin rolled his own. E.J. loitered at my grandfather’s house when he wasn’t loitering around the domino tables at the courthouse or pulling up his baggy blue jeans that he wore down around his hips.
He had those thin cigarette papers that he would gingerly take from the pack, crease in a little trough between his fingers that he filled with Prince Albert tobacco so that before you could say, “Dude, that looks like a doobie,” he was puffing away.
With the price of cigarettes these days, E.J. could probably take all the money he has spent on cigarettes and pay for Kate Middleton’s shoes. I was going to say E.J. could have paid for the wedding, but even E.J. never smoked that much.
I confess I have to watch the wedding. I am somewhat of an expert at weddings, since I have gone to the altar more times than one should. I want to see if I can gage how long it will last from the ceremony. Sorta like reading tea leaves. If I could have just figured out from the beginning how long before the end, I could have had an entirely different life.
I wish Kate and William all the best, as if that will help them survive what can only be a nightmare way to live with all the scrutiny and publicity.
Now we can see why Prince Albert wanted to stay in the can.
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