It would take another seven years before Gore Vidal showed me the way to freedom. At 19, I was up to two-and-half packs a day, (unfiltered Camels) when I came across Vidal's Playboy interview. For some reason, his sneer about smoking -- a "psychological crutch" -- leapt off the page. "Gore, you're right," I said and crushed out my last cigarette in an ashtray overflowing with butts.

Eleven years after my first illicit smoke, I had kicked the habit, and it's been clear breathing ever since. Sort of. There was one endless night of nausea in 1971 when I was a foolhardy Peace Corps volunteer in French West Africa and sampled an Italian brand on sale in the village shop. And then there was marijuana, but that's another story. Even so, it's been more than 15 years since I've let anything but second-hand smoke invade my lungs. Depending on the active ingredient, I've been an ex-smoker since 1969 (nicotine) or 1984 (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol).

I worried about lung cancer, but as each year passed, I felt a little less paranoid, comforted by the message from health officials that quitting, no matter when, lessened the chances of smoking-related illness. As the distance between me and my life as a smoker grew wider, I imagined my lungs growing stronger, the cilia in my bronchial tubes waving like Kansas wheat, all my respiratory systems strengthening their resistance to the carcinogenic properties of my youthful indiscretions.

But this December I turn 50, part of that baby boom bump in the demographic snake. And along comes word -- in a new study published this month in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that links childhood smoking with genetic damage that may bring on lung cancer no matter how long ago you quit -- that all those smoke-free years may not matter.

Because what seemed to matter most in the study was not how much or how long you smoked, but how young you were when you started. Those weren't just smokes back then, four-inch crutches propelling me through the crucible of adolescence; researchers believe they may be cancerous time bombs. God, I hope they're wrong, because while I used to be relatively relaxed about my smoking past, right now I'm scared shitless.

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