My greatgrandfather, Manlis Randle, lived to be ninetyfour years old; my grandfather, Tom Randall,2 the youngest child of slaves, lived to be ninetyseven years old. My father, an educated black man of the twentieth century, lived only to seventynine. He died of cancer after smoking cigarettes for over sixty years. He tried to quit smoking many times. He tried to quit smoking after developing throat cancer at sixtytwo years old; he tried to quit after his brother, Arthur Randall, died of lung cancer; he tried the patches; he tried cold turkey; he tried hypnosis; he tried every smoking cessation known to man or woman; he wanted to quit; he wanted a long life; but no matter how hard he tried, he always returned to his mentholated cigarettes. The first thing in the morning, a smoke, the last thing at night a smoke. My father smoked himself into an early grave. Cigarettes deprived me of a father and deprived my children of a grandfather. Who knowswith the longevity in my family, they probably deprived my grandchildren of a greatgrandparent.

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