<p>It’s wonderful this is a habit that’s on its way out. At least in certain circles, in certain parts of the world.</p>
<p>Took my young S somewhere one time, on a chilly Fall morning and saw a small group of young smokers shivering outside in the chill, not looking too prosperous, and a couple with more tatts than teeth.
I said to him: “Wow! All the cool kids smoke.”</p>
<p>I also remember discussions with smokers as more and more employers and restaurants required smokers to go outside. Many a smoker didn’t like it and voiced that they were being treated like a second class citizen. So many just didn’t realize that the second class citizen was the non-smoker who for years may have had to breathe in the smokers’ cigarette smoke.</p>
<p>It was a different time. I remember when the movie Pearl Harbor came out, one of the criticisms was that the PC police must have vetted the movie, as it took place in 1941, it depicted many, many young men, and nobody smoked! That just wasn’t realistic.</p>
<p>Dad smoked from age of 14 to age of 56–quit, but still developed smoking related lung cancer and died from it at age 71. Makes me think about all the second hand smoke I inhaled while growing up.</p>
<p>I remember flying on an airplane for the first time, back in 1964 when I was 9, going to Miami Beach with my family. I think it was Northeast Airlines. There was a miniature cigarette package, with a few cigarettes in it, on every food tray. Including mine!</p>
<p>I grew up in a household with two two-pack-a day smokers. As a young child I was constantly sick with upper respiratory infections–one at age 4 that developed into pneumonia and a two-week stint in the hospital (I can still remember being rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night hallucinating from a very high fever). I missed tons of days of elementary school and drank buckets of a chalky, chocolate-flavored liquid antibiotic. My parents, pediatrician, and ear nose and throat specialist all clucked clucked over my bad luck and no one once suggested that my environment might be sickening me–secondhand smoke just wasn’t on anyone’s radar in the Fifties and Sixties. It wasn’t till years later that the gigantic “DUH!” hit me.</p>
<p>Twenty-five years ago I took an Iberia flight to Spain. The smoking and no-smoking sections were separated along the vertical axis of the plane, right down the middle of the 4-across seating center section. Really! So I sat in non-smoking, next to someone smoking, and couldn’t do a thing about it. It was insane. I’m very grateful now that I can fly, eat out and work without exposure to smoking.</p>
<p>Such a big change, and I had forgotten all about it – except for one experience, about 10 years ago. My kids and I were visiting my father, who took us out to dinner at a private club he belonged to. Because it was a private club, not a public facility, smoking was allowed in the dining room. The smell was repulsive and irritating, and I worried all evening that it might cause problems for my daughter, who has mild asthma. I can’t believe that I grew up in such environments (both of my parents smoked, even in the car) without really noticing it.</p>
<p>I grew up in a household where my father smoked about 2 packs a day and he did that until he had a heart attack at age 60 when he quit cold turkey. He now says (as an 80 year old with emphysema) that smoking was the biggest regret of his life.</p>
<p>When my children were young I volunteered a lot in their schools and you could often tell which kids had parents that smoked. Their coats often smelled of smoke and when they opened up their book bags it was often as if a puff of smoke came out with the books because the smell was so strong. I realized that as a child that was probably the smell that my sister and I had on our clothes. Yuck!</p>
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<p>As a teenager, I was a candy-striper (remember those?) at a local hospital and I worked in the gift shop and also pushed a cart along the patient floors so they could buy sundries. I’m pretty sure we sold cigarettes off that cart!</p>
<p>My high school in the early 80s had a “smoker’s caf”. They didn’t let kids smoke inside but just off one cafeteria was a very nice covered smoking area. Even in junior high school there was a smoker’s island where the buses dropped off and kids would go to smoke before school. My kids think that’s just crazy. They know of maybe a handful of kids who smoke, and it’s rarely seen around school.</p>
<p>My D and I went to see the movie NINE. Main character smoked throughout the entire film and my 17 year old non smoker was disgusted. It turned her off to the whole movie. Of course I grew up with ash trays on every table and 2 smokers in the house. I vowed I would never smoke and haven’t.</p>
<p>My mother graduated from Ohio State in 1937; when she developed emphysema in her late 70s (she quit smoking at 75), she told me that one of her deepest regrets was a job she’d had as a student, pushing cigarettes. She was paid to smoke and to give away cigarettes to her fellow students, especially the women; at that time, it was still considered unfeminine for a woman to smoke. The actresses in the movies who smoked were often doing it as part of the script, to sell cigarettes.</p>
<p>There was widespread smoking in the office I worked in while in grad school, which didn’t change until years later. I can recall when my older Ds were in elementary school, the teachers smoking in the staff room. Where you live will largely determine your perception of smoking now. I read an article this weekend about smoking now being banned in restaurants and bars in NC, and this is something new there! Only about half of the states have statewide bans on indoor smoking, unlike Canada where it is banned in every province and territory. We don’t even allow people to smoke in their cars if there are children under 16 present. No displays of tobacco in the stores either, here in Canada.</p>
<p>So many people talk about the “good old days,” but not smoking is one of the ways the current timeframe is sooooooo much better!!!</p>
<p>I grew up with a father who smoked from about 14 till 47–which is when he died of smoking related disease (oral cancer complicated by chronic bronchitis). He smoked 3 packs a day. Every piece of furniture in our house had burn marks. </p>
<p>It was tough losing him–we were 17, 14 (me) and 12 at the time. Sadly, my younger sister smokes; you can hear the cough developing.</p>
<p>So sorry, garland.</p>
<p>I went to a dermatologist in the 1970s who examined you with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Periodically, the ash would fall off. She was the best in town, otherwise, and yes, she did die of lung cancer.</p>
<p>It’s embarrassing to think of all the places I smoked. I had some of my first cigarettes in movie theaters! Yesterday my son commented on a woman next to us in traffic who was smoking with the window down (it’s bitter cold). Yup, I did that, too. The smell went with me everywhere, but hey, that’s what Shalimar was for, wasn’t it? Fortunately, I didn’t smoke for long, and the disgusting odor was one way I got myself to stop.</p>
<p>I do periodic overnight visits to a family member who still smokes in her house. The minute I get back to my house I strip off my clothes and jump in the shower, and all clothes in my suitcase (even the ones I haven’t worn) go in the washer.</p>
<p>I don’t usually over-react to a little personal discomfort, but I can’t stand the smell in my hair and my clothes. My husband always crinkles his nose when I come home from that relative’s house.</p>
<p>I grew up surrounded by smokers and never noticed any smoky odor. Now it screams at me the minute a smoker is nearby. It amazes me how things have changed.</p>
<p>Is anyone else here the type who can smell if someone in the car in front of them is smoking – even when windows are closed? My H and I can both pick it up, instantly.</p>
<p>^^^That good I’m not!!</p>