another teacher from the history dept. overheard our conversation about rabbit-tobacco and immediately began to recount the time in his childhood when friends and he had smoked rabbit-tobacco

Reminds me of the time when a bunch of us 15 year olds at summer camp started to smoke something we called "Bumwado Cedarettes".

We took strips of bark off the cedar trees which were everywhere and ground them up in our hands into something that looked like tobacco. Then we hand-rolled them in what was known as "bumwad" from the Kibos and lit them up.

And I do mean we "LIT" them up. When the flame hit the bumwad, they flared like a butane lighter on wide open gas. But then they would settle out to a raspy smoke that lasted perhaps 5 minutes or more.

Voila! Bumwado cedarettes.

It was more of a style than a substance thing, you know.

It was a little disconcerting to see all the dust come out of the cedar strips when we ground them up. But that was in the days before we knew anything about all the crap in regular tobacco.

No-one's ever died of a "Bumwado Cedarette", as far as I know. And no durn government ever put a tax on it.

Hell, no tabaccky company ever made a puff of profit from our cedarettes. And there ain't a billboard nowheres boostin' them to kids.