Saying Goodbye To An Old Friend
XaK Bausch
Issue date: 5/4/05 Section: Back Page
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I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm going to try for the kingdom if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a needle into my vein
Then I tell you things aren't quite the same
- Lou Reed
For most people, college is all about forming new relationships. For me, college was a way to jettison the people from my life that I didn't really care about. A way to whittle my life down and remove extraneous relationships in the hopes of finding happiness. As a result of this, all of the people who were in my life took on roles of greater importance. My relationships became more profound and more significant as they became scarcer. But despite this increased import, I feel confident in saying that no single person at Washington & Lee has been as important to me as smokeless tobacco. Or as I affectionately refer to it, dip.
My relationship with dip before college was a strong one. It's an indispensable element in the cultural framework of baseball that I have been involved with for virtually my entire life. You cannot turn on a game of baseball, even in today's vehement anti-tobacco world, and not see a fat lip or a conspicuous circle in someone's back pocket. It was baseball that introduced me to tobacco and now I find it both opportune and poetic that the resignation of my habit should coincide with the end of my playing career...if only it were that easy.
To say that dip has been there with me through it all does not really convey the rock that it has been throughout my life. Aside from the act of sex, there is not a single thing in my life that I have done without involving tobacco at some time. I have sat in the front row of lecture halls spitting into an empty bottle. I have sat in the back row of movie theaters spitting into a cup of ice. My two essentials for any road trip have been stimulating music and a tin of Skoal. I was especially proud when my protruding lip was photographed for my most recent driver's license.
But I'm going to try for the kingdom if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a needle into my vein
Then I tell you things aren't quite the same
- Lou Reed
For most people, college is all about forming new relationships. For me, college was a way to jettison the people from my life that I didn't really care about. A way to whittle my life down and remove extraneous relationships in the hopes of finding happiness. As a result of this, all of the people who were in my life took on roles of greater importance. My relationships became more profound and more significant as they became scarcer. But despite this increased import, I feel confident in saying that no single person at Washington & Lee has been as important to me as smokeless tobacco. Or as I affectionately refer to it, dip.
My relationship with dip before college was a strong one. It's an indispensable element in the cultural framework of baseball that I have been involved with for virtually my entire life. You cannot turn on a game of baseball, even in today's vehement anti-tobacco world, and not see a fat lip or a conspicuous circle in someone's back pocket. It was baseball that introduced me to tobacco and now I find it both opportune and poetic that the resignation of my habit should coincide with the end of my playing career...if only it were that easy.
To say that dip has been there with me through it all does not really convey the rock that it has been throughout my life. Aside from the act of sex, there is not a single thing in my life that I have done without involving tobacco at some time. I have sat in the front row of lecture halls spitting into an empty bottle. I have sat in the back row of movie theaters spitting into a cup of ice. My two essentials for any road trip have been stimulating music and a tin of Skoal. I was especially proud when my protruding lip was photographed for my most recent driver's license.