Up In Smoke

I caught myself holding a pen like a cigarette the other day.  It was an absentminded move that, when conscience of it, I found more than a little strange.  How long had it been since I smoked?  With the exception of a couple of lapses, it has been more than forty years since I fired up a Lucky.

Remember candy cigs?

That got me thinking about how much change we've seen in our collective attitude toward tobacco in America.  Being a Boomer I remember growing up surrounded by cigarette smoke in the 50's and 60's. Everybody smoked!  At least it seemed that way.  My dad smoked as did my friend's dads and lots of the moms did too.  Adults lit up everywhere and nobody gave it a second thought.  Houses, schools, stores, just about everyplace had the smell of stale tobacco.  New car smell lasted about thirty seconds in the middle of last century.  I grew up thinking that long trips in the family car came with a headache and never once associated dad's chain smoking Camels with the malady.  He smoked all the time.  Dinner wasn't over until he had stubbed out a butt in his mashed potatoes or what was left of a piece of pie.  It was a way of life.  I remember buying candy cigarettes and school pens that looked like filter-tipped cigs because my pals and I all aspired to be smokers just like our pops.  Some of the girls did it too.  In the army the government was happy to provide a pack of five smokes in every C-ration they doled out to those of us serving our country.   After choking down not so culinary delights like "ham and MF'ers" the cigarettes were often the highlight of the meal.  Who knew that Chesterfields left over from WW II would keep until 1969?

College life in the late 60's and early 70's was filled with cigarette smoke.  There were machines in every building (even the medical school) that offered a plethora of brands and nearly every classroom had a stack of ashtrays on a table by the door that you could take to your seat.  On exam days the smoke hung in the air as an oppressive reminder of the importance of your grade.  There were some pipes and cigars but mostly we all smoked cigarettes.

I'm not sure of the actual date when I quit smoking but I remember that it was sometime after an extremely unpleasant bout with bronchitis.  I think a pack cost less than a dollar at the time.  I was working in radio and one of the other announcers wondered aloud how I could be stupid enough to smoke knowing that it would play havoc with my career.  He had a point.  I quit and was amazed at how much better I felt and how much more I could drink, which is a story for another time.  

When I married and had kids we became one of those couples that had NO SMOKING signs in our house.  Lots of folks thought it odd and some were put off by it.  We didn't care.  Our house smelled great and the kids had far fewer colds and respiratory problems than their friends.  Maybe there really was something to this idea that tobacco smoke was poisonous. 

How different it is today.  I can't remember the last time I was in a car or home where people were allowed to smoke.  There is no smoking in offices, on planes or trains and nearly every place that people gather.  Even bars!  Now days smokers are treated like convicted felons or child molesters and pay somewhere around ten dollars for a pack of this misery.  Every time I see a couple of freezing smokers huddled against the wind standing in a designated area OUTSIDE a building I recall how not that long ago they could light up anywhere and nobody gave it a second thought.

Change is what happens when you're not looking.  It has been more than forty years since the surgeon general told us that cigarettes kill people and it seems as if we have finally taken this advice to heart. There is less cancer and fewer heart attacks.  People are living longer and saving themselves some serious coin. Maybe Winston really did "taste good like a cigarette should" but  the world smells a whole lot better in 2015.

Coffin nails