Jesse Taylor’s basement is filled with his collection of Camel memorabilia along with a big-screen TV, comfortable furniture and a pool table.Jesse Taylor wouldn't walk a mile for a Camel. He doesn't smoke anyMore, and even when he did, he smoked Salems. But he might walk a mile if he knew he would find a particularly appealing piece of Camel memorabilia at the end of the trail. Taylor, 71, started collecting all things connected to Camel, one of Reynolds' best-known cigarette brands, after he retiRed 20 years ago. He worked as a department supervisor in production at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. for 23 years, and he bought some pieces from the company's souvenir store. He also combed flea markets from Ohio to Florida, he said. After a while, no one had to worry about what to give him for his birthday or Christmas. Anything related to Camel would do. Last year, his wife, Bobbie Taylor, bought him a hand-carved wooden Camel made in Jerusalem. "I love to surprise him with things," she said. When the Taylors moved to a one-story house on a golf course a few years back, he had no space to display his collection. A year ago, they built a new house with a basement for Jesse Taylor and his stuff. He and his daughter's father-in-law did all the finishing work themselves, so he could have things just so. He furnished his retreat with a big-screen TV, a pool table, some comfortable chairs, a sofa, and a desk with a computer. He draped a Camel throw over the back of the plaid sofa, and he set up some of his most precious pieces in a lighted cabinet. When he started hanging his neon Camel signs and framed advertisements, Bobbie Taylor made a few suggestions for their placement. Her husband balked. "He let me know in the very beginning, ‘This is my basement. This is my stuff. I'm going to hang it wherever I want,'" Bobbie Taylor said, laughing. "This is off-limits to me. Every now and then, he will let me watch a movie with him." So he was the one who hung the prints of a pool-playing Joe Camel, a brand mascot used in Camel advertising from 1988 until 1997, behind the pool table. He hung a big metal advertising sign that Bobbie found for him at the Rockford General Store on an adjacent wall. He hung several neon signs, including one depicting a Camel and a palm tree, above the sofa. Brand history Camels made their debut as prepackaged Cigarettes in 1913, an era when most people rolled their own. Through the years, imaginative advertising slogans and Camel's blend of American and Turkish tobaccos made it a top seller. By the time Camel celebrated its 75th birthday, sales had declined, so marketers came up with Joe Camel, a cool cartoon character that quickly became a pop-culture icon. Joe Camel appealed so much to children that the American Medical Association put pressure on Reynolds to drop the character. Bobbie Taylor smoked Camels now and then in her smoking days, but she and her husband gave up Cigarettes in 1987, when doctors told her that she had early-stage lung cancer. Despite being a nonsmoker for More than 20 years, Jesse Taylor still retains fond memories of his years in the tobacco industry. Watching his former company shrink and splinter has been hard for him. "I'll tell you one thing -- it was a great company to work for," he said. "In the old days, you were people, not a number." He sometimes worked third shift, he said, and he remembers "old John Whitaker would come in at 3 o'clock in the morning and talk to employees. He knew a lot of them by name." The Whitaker Park tobacco complex was named for Whitaker, who was once chairman of the board at Reynolds. When Jesse Taylor graduated from high school in 1954, he said, it wasn't hard for someone to get a job that would set him up for life. Companies such as Reynolds, Hanes, Western Electric and the truckers Hennis Freight Lines and McLean Trucking Co. provided good jobs with good pay, and their employees didn't have to worry about mergers or downsizing. He first took a job with Western Electric, but his work connecting coloRed wiring exposed a condition that he didn't know he had -- color blindness. Reynolds was his next and last stop. He can distinguish Red from blue, however, and those colors dominate in his basement, where his colorful collection stands out against white bead-board walls. Everywhere visitors look, they see items related to the Camel brand. Marlboro Joe Perhaps the most valuable piece in Jesse's collection is an image of an ad that never got off the ground. The ad showed Joe Camel on horseback, a pose reminiscent of Philip Morris' symbol, the Marlboro Man. Other images of Joe show him riding a motorcycle, stopping by a diner and playing in a band. A lithograph of a man holding the reins of a real Camel, an image to introduce the "new Turkish cigarette," dates from 1913. Jesse Taylor also displays a cast-iron cutter for plug tobacco and old Prince Albert tins for pipe and cigarette tobacco. He is especially proud of his collection of Camel lighters, which number around 150. His older grandsons, who like to hunt deer, appreciate his Camel gear and have a special interest in the knives. He has told them which pieces will someday be theirs, and sometimes they show a lack of patience. He has heard things such as, "Well, Paw-Paw, when are you going to give me this? You might die." He and his wife have to keep an eye on their 8-year-old twin grandsons, who are prone to get into the Camel matchbooks. The Taylors have two daughters and five grandchildren. Bobbie Taylor casts a jaundiced eye at some of the retro-styled framed ads that depict Camel spelled with a "K" and pretty girls with old-fashioned hairdos and makeup. Maybe they are supposed to be "dumb blonde signs," she said. Jesse Taylor doesn't collect quite as avidly as he once did -- space is getting scarce. But he still likes to browse the flea markets, and if he finds something at a good price, he will take it. No one has offeRed to buy his collection, he said. "They know I'm not selling."