Free money! My decision to choose where to go to college and what to study was easy to make. I had some scholarships from Montana State in Bozeman to assist me in getting a Civil Engineering degree. As I was walking past Safeco Field, a fairly new baseball stadium in Seattle it reminded me of decisions I made about college. I looked at the huge metal structure and thought of the minds that designed and built it. After a year of engineering school I found I had no real interest in Engineering and knew I had to pursue something else. I didn’t entertain the possibility of taking time off from college and getting to know myself better and maybe find out more about what might interest me. It was just the assumed next step that if you got fairly decent grades then you were going to college. Now I had a greater dilemma because I was quitting Engineering school, didn’t know what to switch my college major to and I was not going to get free money!

I knew I wanted to switch to the U of Montana in Missoula. I didn’t have any idea what to study. I also wanted to pick a major so I wouldn’t wander from course to course trying out different majors and be wasting my time on courses that didn’t count towards my degree. I moved to Missoula and weeks of indecision went by. I read through the catalogue over and over. The School of Pharmacy kept getting my attention as I thumbed through the catalogue. I had an interest in science, sports and health, but something else finalized the decision.

A few years ago I was talking to a man and I realized what the clincher was. What was the real decider? It was the pack of Pall Mall cigarettes in his shirt pocket that was the giveaway. My dad smoked Pall Mall cigarettes and would send me to the corner market a few blocks away. I never liked that he smoked but I always walked to the store and got his ‘smokes’ as he called them. A store named ‘College Pharmacy’ was there as well and I would usually go in and look at ‘stuff’ then hurry home to deliver the ‘smokes’. The subliminal message of College…Pharmacy left strong imprints from being the delivery boy for many years. How many of our ‘free will’ choices are made in the undercurrents of our mind?

Could this be the ‘butterfly effect’ theory that everything matters? That even the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can cause a typhoon halfway around the world. That a pack of cigarettes would ultimately lead me to a path of unique research and discovery. It is fascinating how small causes can have momentous effects. I believe this principle also applies when subtle electrical changes are induced by various materials, or the mind resulting in obvious and measurable physiological changes.

I was not aware that the Pall Mall brand was the first “premium” cigarette introduced in 1899 in an attempt to cater to the upper class. Pall-mall, a game similar to croquet, was introduced to England in the early 17th century by James I and in 1630 London had its first pall-mall court. And here I am in Montana with a “premium” product originating in London that I get to hand deliver to my dad. I wonder if my dad even knew this! They are named after a popular street in London where the game was played. Pall Mall was the number one brand in America in 1960 until it was edged out by Winston cigarettes. No brand could compete with their advertising campaign “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”. The slogan Pall Mall used was “OUTSTANDING …and they are MILD”, but they would never regain their position. Probably had something to do with the tune that went with the Winston jingle. You’re probably already hearing it inside your head or maybe singing it by now if you were alive during that time.