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Abstract

hey can no longer smoke in public indoor places they do light up in outdoor cafes.When Mayor Bloomberg passed legislation in New York City early in the 21st century making it illegal to smoke in public places you could hear the shrieks of horror and indignation in Hoboken. This would kill the restaurant industry! No one would go to bars anymore! Entertainment would be annihilated! It was the end of the world!!!Except that it wasn’t.After a relatively short time smoking in public places seemed indescribably filthy and disgusting. There was even a brief minute or two there when smoking became a very uncool thing to be seen doing among the young. That’s over but it was nice while it lasted and may have gained some of them a year or three of extra time on the planet.Growing up it was understood that grownups smoked. Even grandparents. My mother’s father started every day coughing so hard you’d think he was going to vomit. It was accepted. Everyone did it. My parents got incredibly cranky about my ear infections and Missy’s yearly bouts of tonsillitis all the while lighting one cigarette from the butt of the one they were about to put out. And it’s not even as if the information wasn’t readily available that smoking was killing them.The days of Chesterfields brand cigarettes being recommended by wise-looking doctors had ended decades before.But we’re talking addiction here and that is one insanely powerful force. And nicotine puts heroin or Oxycontin to shame. Add to the incredibly addicting attributes of nicotine the fact that for centuries it was not just socially acceptable, it wa

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s socially sanctioned. Only boring nincompoops didn’t smoke. Lily-livered sticks in the mud. Cool people, tough people, in-the-know people smoked and what’s the matter with you that you don’t? Loser.But then again there are any number of things that people used to do as a matter of course that is just not done so much these days.Drinking and driving come to mind. Firing women when they got pregnant. Only giving mortgages to white people. Sending children to work in factories. Putting people into debtors’ prison. Only taxing the middle class. Oh wait; that last one still seems to be acceptable.Of course, now we have vaping. The companies behind this trend want to sell vaping as a safe alternative to smoking but the evidence isn’t clear. What is clear is that people sucking on their funny little cartridges look ridiculous. Vaping is not cool. It makes you look like a toddler with a funny-shaped pacifier.I like to think I was ahead of the curve on this one; not going along with the what the cool kids were doing. But really I was just being a brat. Who knew it would save me from dying from emphysema which, by the way, is a particularly horrifying way to die. It’s not that you can’t suck air into your lungs; it’s that you can’t exhale to get another breath. Think about that for a second.But then again there’s always someone like my great grandfather who smoked and binge-drank and lived to be 104. So, yeah, it’s your life. Smoke ’em if ya got ’em but not anywhere around me, please.That shit stinks.© Remington Write 2019. All Rights Reserved</article></body>

Smoke ’em if Ya Got ‘em

Or….not

I guess I owe my younger sister, Missy, a great big thank you because she’s the one that kept me from picking up cigarettes. Thanks, Miss, but I’m sorry you wound up being the one hooked.

Missy, two years younger than me, copied everything I did and it made me crazy. When I was 16 and she was 14 she started smoking cigarettes and I was damned if I was going to copy her! (Now, let the record reflect that it was never really about health because I smoked pot, hash, and opium for nearly 20 years)

Although I’d watch the elegant curls of smoke whispering out of my mother’s bright red lips and think: that can’t be good to have inside your body.

It’s hard now to remember the world of smokers.

Ever go to the bathroom on a 747 and see the tight little fold-out ashtray? Yes, indeed, people used to smoke on flights. They smoked at work and in cars with the windows rolled up in the winter time with the back seat filled with little kids. They smoked in restaurants and often put their butts out in the leftover food on their plates. Thousands of them would smoke at concerts or movies or baseball games. Can you even imagine?

We were recently in Spain and Portugal where people still smoke a lot. While they can no longer smoke in public indoor places they do light up in outdoor cafes.

When Mayor Bloomberg passed legislation in New York City early in the 21st century making it illegal to smoke in public places you could hear the shrieks of horror and indignation in Hoboken. This would kill the restaurant industry! No one would go to bars anymore! Entertainment would be annihilated! It was the end of the world!!!

Except that it wasn’t.

After a relatively short time smoking in public places seemed indescribably filthy and disgusting. There was even a brief minute or two there when smoking became a very uncool thing to be seen doing among the young. That’s over but it was nice while it lasted and may have gained some of them a year or three of extra time on the planet.

Growing up it was understood that grownups smoked. Even grandparents. My mother’s father started every day coughing so hard you’d think he was going to vomit. It was accepted. Everyone did it. My parents got incredibly cranky about my ear infections and Missy’s yearly bouts of tonsillitis all the while lighting one cigarette from the butt of the one they were about to put out. And it’s not even as if the information wasn’t readily available that smoking was killing them.

The days of Chesterfields brand cigarettes being recommended by wise-looking doctors had ended decades before.

But we’re talking addiction here and that is one insanely powerful force. And nicotine puts heroin or Oxycontin to shame. Add to the incredibly addicting attributes of nicotine the fact that for centuries it was not just socially acceptable, it was socially sanctioned. Only boring nincompoops didn’t smoke. Lily-livered sticks in the mud. Cool people, tough people, in-the-know people smoked and what’s the matter with you that you don’t? Loser.

But then again there are any number of things that people used to do as a matter of course that is just not done so much these days.

Drinking and driving come to mind. Firing women when they got pregnant. Only giving mortgages to white people. Sending children to work in factories. Putting people into debtors’ prison. Only taxing the middle class. Oh wait; that last one still seems to be acceptable.

Of course, now we have vaping. The companies behind this trend want to sell vaping as a safe alternative to smoking but the evidence isn’t clear. What is clear is that people sucking on their funny little cartridges look ridiculous. Vaping is not cool. It makes you look like a toddler with a funny-shaped pacifier.

I like to think I was ahead of the curve on this one; not going along with the what the cool kids were doing. But really I was just being a brat. Who knew it would save me from dying from emphysema which, by the way, is a particularly horrifying way to die. It’s not that you can’t suck air into your lungs; it’s that you can’t exhale to get another breath. Think about that for a second.

But then again there’s always someone like my great grandfather who smoked and binge-drank and lived to be 104. So, yeah, it’s your life. Smoke ’em if ya got ’em but not anywhere around me, please.

That shit stinks.