Support for LateToSchool

[epistrophy]

<p>Janis Joplin and T.S. Eliot aren’t often mentioned in the same breath, but this last one from ADad brings to mind a favorite line from Eliot (which, in its own way, seems to echo not only Joplin but also some other things posted previously):</p>

<p>

You are the music while the music lasts.

</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>F.O.LTS, so you did! I should have “listened” to you then; perhaps I would be a bit further ahead by now! Excellent suggestion, I will see where that goes. </p>

<p>Epistrophy, thank you…that’s how I feel when I play Riverdance on my iPod, at the gym…of course, it helps to have had the visual - then I cool it off with a bit of Bob Dylan…</p>

<p>I’m probably also the only person in the gym who listens to TransSiberian Orchestra in the middle of the summer…</p>

[epistrophy]

<p>and speaking of music, here’s more about lung cancer survivor Hubert Sumlin (#2364):</p>

<p>

“Blues legend Hubert Sumlin to play 202 Market
The legend you never heard of”</p>

<p>Guitar icon Hubert Sumlin’s path to the Blues Hall of Fame began atop a stack of wooden Coca-Cola crates.</p>

<p>The 10-year-old Sumlin had sneaked off from home and into West Memphis, Ark., to see Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett. He said he was too young to get into the club Wolf was playing, so he snagged the crates lying around behind the joint, stacked them, climbed up and peeked inside an exhaust fan window.</p>

<p>“And me and the fan fell over on Wolf,” Sumlin said. “And Wolf caught me and the fan.”</p>

<p>But Wolf wasn’t angry. Not only did he let young Sumlin stay right by him onstage through the performance, but he also drove him home when it was over.</p>

<p>"He … told my mother, ‘Please don’t whoop him, because I may need this young man one day,’ " Sumlin recalled.</p>

<p>Turns out, Wolf did. He hired Sumlin around 12 years later in 1954. The two would play together for more than two decades – an association that played a large part in Sumlin’s induction earlier this year into the Blues Hall of Fame, in Tunica, Miss.</p>

<p>Sumlin, 76, brings his mess of blues guitar licks and groove to 202 Market, where he’ll play and sing with his touring partners, the Nighthawks, on Friday.</p>

<p>“I’m really looking forward to it,” Sumlin said in a telephone interview from his New Jersey home, near New York City. “When I play with them Nighthawks, what a group! … It looks to me like they’re getting better and better.”</p>

<p>The legend of a blues idol</p>

<p>Sumlin lost his mentor, Wolf, in 1976. Only three months ago, Sumlin’s brother and earliest guitar inspiration, A.D. Smith, died at 87. The day before this interview, his old friend and onetime Chess Records labelmate, Bo Diddley, died.</p>

<p>“He was one of the legendary guys, man, he was,” Sumlin said of Diddley. "And not only that, he was a nice guy. Nice personality, good musician and everything.</p>

<p>“He was just a year older than me!”</p>

<p>Sumlin is one of the last surviving links to the first generation of players who used electric instruments to transform Mississippi River Delta blues into Chicago blues.</p>

<p>**It wasn’t easy getting there. Sumlin has suffered lung cancer and had a lung removed. He has suffered a stroke and at least one heart attack. He has since given up drinking and smoking.</p>

<p>“But I’m OK now, man. I come to find out that everything is OK, right now,” he said. “And I feel good!”**</p>

<p>That’s good news for music fans. Guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmy Page have claimed him as an idol, citing his work on “Killing Floor,” “Smokestack Lightning,” “Shake For Me” and others as essential ingredients of rock ‘n’ roll.</p>

<p>Bob Margolin, a onetime Muddy Waters sideman and a friend of Sumlin’s, calls him “a unique and magical guitar player.”</p>

<p>“Other guitarists are inspired by him, but nobody else sounds like him,” Margolin wrote in an e-mail last week.</p>

<p>Despite the love and accolades Clapton, Richards and other have heaped upon Sumlin, most people don’t know about him, he said.</p>

<p>“Hubert’s guitar style blends heartbreak and humor, often at the same time,” Margolin wrote. “While he’s playing his guitar, nothing else matters and nothing hurts, both for him and the audience.”</p>

<p>Honing his style required change, and Sumlin had to be kicked off the stage to make it. Eight years into their association, Wolf decided that Sumlin was drowning him out.</p>

<p>“He fired me,” Sumlin said. Wolf told him to " ‘Go home and put that pick down, please. And don’t you come back unless … you’ve showed me you can play with your fingers. That’s what it’s meant to be anyway.’</p>

<p>“That’s what he told me. Sure enough, man. I did.”</p>

<p>It was a lesson that would benefit any musician, in any style, he said.</p>

<p>“That was the best firing I ever had in my life,” Sumlin said. “By him firing me, oh man, I went home and I found myself. I found everything – my own tone, my own sound, my own everything.”</p>

<p>Before long, he was back with Wolf, at Silvio’s, on Chicago’s west side. Wolf called him up for the last song of the night and reminded his audience that this was the guitar player he had recently fired – it was time to find out what he had learned.</p>

<p>“And the house was full of people,” he said. “Man, I played ‘Smokestack Lightning’ so good till it hurt me.”</p>

<p>Getting his due</p>

<p>Margolin wrote a touching biography for Sumlin’s Web site – [Hubert</a> Sumlin Blues - Official Site](<a href=“http://www.hubertsumlinblues.com%5DHubert”>http://www.hubertsumlinblues.com). He writes there that Sumlin has gotten more love than money out of his lifetime in the blues. Fame and fortune aren’t necessarily synonymous in the blues world, he added in last week’s e-mail.</p>

<p>“The real world result of this is that even venerable legends can’t afford to retire and enjoy the pride in their achievements. They will have to play to eat until they drop or die, and then the blues world will do its best to generate benefits for their medical expenses or families.”</p>

<p>None of which has made Sumlin a bitter man. He and another blues legend, B.B. King, share the talent of supreme social grace, Margolin wrote.</p>

<p>“The two of them are the nicest humans I’ve ever had the honor to meet,” he wrote. “That’s even more rare than musical genius.”</p>

<p>On May 7, Sumlin joined King – who plays Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre on July 29 – as a member of the blues hall. The same week, Mississippi placed a marker in Sumlin’s honor on its statewide Blues Trail, in Greenwood, where he was born and spent his earliest childhood.</p>

<p>Sumlin said he loved joining the blues hall, but seeing the marker in Greenwood really got him.</p>

<p>“People were from Germany, from everywhere … for the dedication of the thing, at the foot of this river where my mother used to fish,” he said. "What a time. What a day that was.</p>

<p>“Lordy, what a week for me! I thought I was gonna have another heart attack.”

</p>

<p>[Blues</a> legend Hubert Sumlin to play 202 Market - Roanoke.com](<a href=“http://www.roanoke.com/wb/entertainment/wb/166888]Blues”>http://www.roanoke.com/wb/entertainment/wb/166888)</p>

[CountingDown]

<p>LTS – S1 listens to TSO all the time…he loves the passion! Are you back in the gym doing the treadmill again?</p>

[timely]

<p>thought this was encouraging…</p>

<p>

Faith has an apparent ridiculousness about it. You are not acting by faith if you are doing what everyone around you is doing. Faith always appears to defy the circumstances. It constitutes a risk and a venture.
George Muller

</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>CountingDown, I wish I could be back in the gym. I love my iPOD and my music and I love TSO. I am still having great difficulty even walking short distances, however, it is improving incrementally each day. I saw my #2 oncologist today following chemotherapy and he said I am doing incredibly wonderfully, considering what I am going through. </p>

<p>His head nurse said I look fantastic - like someone who has never been sick a day in their lives. She said looking at me no one would ever guess that I have cancer, or am in treatment. Amazing, considering how horrible I feel. I really, truly hope to be back in the gym very soon…I am very, very lucky that I have a baseline of excellent health.</p>

<p>If any young people/college students are lurking, please consider - if you aren’t already - making serious physical fitness an absolute, non-negotiable part of your life. </p>

<p>In youth I always worked out in gyms; in my 20’s I could bench press 125 pounds, squat 300, and deadlift close to 200. I am only 5’2" tall and typically weigh around 135 - but am a size 2 or 4. </p>

<p>In adulthood I worked off stress by taking long walks, and, later, spending more time in gyms, and then eventually competing in a very challenging sport. I am not any good at the sport - and I will never win at this or any other sport - I am a clumsy, disorganized sort of a klutz (the kind of person who gets confused and falls off the treadmill at the gym) - but I stay with it because of the exercise and social benefit. </p>

<p>In my entire life I have never had even a brief period go by where I have no t exercised aggressively. I even choose stairs over elevators, etc.</p>

<p>Once diagnosed with cancer, I continued my workouts, especially lower body and large muscle development. </p>

<p>I am convinced that my baseline of physical fitness - developed over years and years - is what has gotten me this far in this battle. Oh - that and all of the outstanding support, excellent medical care, and kindness of caregivers.</p>

<p>Since sooner or later everyone is probably going to face some sort of illness or physical challenge, it probably makes some sense to build up reserves while you’re healthy enough to do so…</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>Epistrophy, you’re amazing…</p>

<p>Timely, that is inspirational. I don’t know where my faith in my ability to win this battle comes from. It’s just sort of there. I continue to be frustrated though by the very slow progress in figuring out ways to help others.</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>latetoschool, with your permission, can I bookmark your post about the long-term value of exercise so I can direct those who whine about their PE requirements to it?
Thank you for checking in with another update. I’m glad to hear things are moving in the right direction. Keep kicking the &*#@% out of that beast!</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>BunsenBurner, please do. I cannot state how strongly I believe in exercise. It’s really, really important. I may have cancer, but I am very, very strong, and very fit otherwise. </p>

<p>I think one aversion some people have is if they aren’t “good” at a sport or whatever they give it up. A year ago I asked a friend of mine to enter a doubles race; she wouldn’t do it, saying we couldn’t possibly win. I was so disappointed. Of course we couldn’t win. I have no hope of winning anything, in any sport - I seriously am a nerdy klutz. I wasn’t even slightly interested in trying to win; I just wanted to play.</p>

[kelsmom]

<p>LTS, I agree about the value of keeping fit. My mom has had a long, never ending litany of challenges to her health over the past dozen or so years. She has battled scoliosis, beaten breast cancer, survived numerous heart issues, gotten over a cracked pelvis, etc. A year ago, she broke the top of her humerous. She is too thin & her heart too weak to be able to have it repaired surgically. The pain is constant. A couple weeks ago she had a small stroke. My mother has always kept herself fit, no matter what challenges she has faced, to the extent that she could exercise given the situation. Today, she has slowed considerably & it is tough on her (she still walks, but slowly & with a cane). However, the truth is that she absolutely would not be with us today if she had not been so dedicated to exercise before, during, & after her illnesses.</p>

[ADad]

<p>

Change becomes stressful and overwhelming only when you’ve lost any sense of the constancy of your life. You need firm ground to stand on. From there, you can deal with that change.

</p>

<p>–Richard Nelson Bolles (What Color is Your Parachute?)</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>Kelsmom I am sorry to hear about your mother, but glad she is able to pull through it. I hope she improves from the stroke. She sounds a lot like the five year survivor in Texas (he owns a ranch and breaks horses for a living) - he walked up six flights of stairs for his chemotherapy appointments rather than take the elevators. It has taken him all five of these past years to recover somewhat back to his former state of fitness, and he still isn’t quite there yet. But I do not believe he would be alive today if he had not gone into treatment in a reasonably fit condition.</p>

<p>ADad, thank you for that. Today, I had two of my caregivers tell me that I have made better people of them and they have been very enriched by this experience. I told them it was their foundation that gives me strength. No one can do this without outstanding support, of that I am certain.</p>

[epistrophy]

<p>and another (this one in New Zealand)</p>

<p>

“Golfer beating the cancer odds”</p>

<p>No one thought Jane Cowan would be alive today, let alone playing competitive golf.</p>

<p>The Albany woman was given no hope when she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in September.</p>

<p>Doctors said she would be dead in about two months and told her family they would be having a very sad Christmas.</p>

<p>Nine months later she is back to captaining a women’s golf team and playing the sport competitively.</p>

<p>“Every day to me is a special day,” she says.</p>

<p>“I don’t give up. Just because you get sick like me doesn’t mean there is no hope.”</p>

<p>Mrs Cowan found out about her illness days before she was to leave on an overseas holiday.</p>

<p>Persistent pain in her shoulder and arm prompted her to go to her GP, who recommended an x-ray.</p>

<p>The GP phoned that night in tears, saying: “I’m terribly sorry” and telling her she had small cell lung cancer in both lungs.</p>

<p>It was shocking news for the healthy living, fit and active non-smoker.</p>

<p>More tests from a respiratory doctor confirmed the diagnosis and an oncologist gave her about two months to live.</p>

<p>“Our lives were turned upside down overnight,” says Mrs Cowan’s husband Lyndon.</p>

<p>“I cried for half-an-hour, then I thought about my family, then I started praying to God, then I accepted it and I was at peace,” says Mrs Cowan.</p>

<p>She had a single round of chemotherapy and her family were told to prepare for losing her.</p>

<p>The bleak prognosis changed to a glimmer of hope when her first x-rays showed her cancer had shrunk.</p>

<p>More chemo followed and Mrs Cowan’s health continued to improve.</p>

<p>She suffered few side effects from the normally nauseating treatment and put on 12kg while she was undergoing it.</p>

<p>In January she started playing golf again, at first only two or three holes but gradually building up as her strength increased.</p>

<p>Now she is back to 18 holes, winning a North Shore pennants tournament with her women’s team and a pairs competition with her husband.</p>

<p>Her only treatment is a drug commonly used in countries such as Taiwan called tarceva. Mrs Cowan credits her faith in God, an acceptance of her illness and a determination to live well as helping her stay alive.</p>

<p>"I had faith despite what the doctors said that something good could come out of this.</p>

<p>“I am thankful that before I die I can see who my best friends are. I’m thankful for my life.”</p>

<p>Mr Cowan is grateful for every day he gets to spend with his wife.</p>

<p>"Everything that happens is good. Being able to come home and have dinner, a phone call is good.</p>

<p>“She’s one of the most amazing people. Full stop. She never ceases to amaze me.”

</p>

<p>[Golfer</a> beating the cancer odds - Local News on Stuff.co.nz](<a href=“Stuff”>Stuff)</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>Epistrophy, thank you for that; today was very hard - I received notice that three more people died, including Ernie Puckett (you posted the link a few months ago - marathon runner with lung cancer). I actually have email from Ernie on supplemental matters…The other people were two and three years out each, and i was so disappointed because I truly thought they were going to pull out and beat the odds…</p>

<p>Positive, happy news helps mitigate this stuff…</p>

[ADad]

<p>

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

</p>

<p>–Charles Spurgeon</p>

[timely]

<p>

Today, I had two of my caregivers tell me that I have made better people of them and they have been very enriched by this experience.

I have a friend, a 50 year old woman, who has muscular dystrophy. She is in an electric wheelchair and she can move her wrists and hands and she can slightly turn her neck. She had a caregiver crisis several months ago, and I helped her get ready for bed a few times. I am absolutely changed by getting to know her during that time.</p>

<p>This woman works full time. She has an education degree and works in a p.s. in the special ed dept. She can use her computer and has a cell phone velcroed to her armrest (and a bluetooth headset). She has a specially modified van that she drives (I know…that part is a little bit scary!). For several months, the van was out of commission. Because her electric wheelchair weighs 300 lbs., no one could pick her up and give her a ride. So, every morning she had a caregiver get her up at 5:30, dress her and strap her all into her chair. Then she cruised about 1/2 mile to the bus stop and took the bus (which involved changing buses), then drove her chair nearly a mile to her school. She worked all day (no lunch since there is no one to feed it to her) then did the whole bus thing to get back home. She has a live in housekeeper, thankfully, who makes the meals, does laundry, etc.</p>

<p>Okay, so she was practically super-human in my book, but that wasn’t what changed me. It was her absolute joyfulness. She would always talk about what she was thankful for. Oh, she had work problems, family problems, and stuff like everybody has, and she’d tell me about those things, but still…it was just different. Her attitude was one of being grateful for what she has.</p>

<p>She told me once that managing her life was like being CEO of a corporation, and I think she was right. There were her health/dr./insurance things, maintenence and repairs on her specialized wheelchair and van, management of a housekeeper and an ever-changing group of caregivers. And of course there was work and her 3 kids (young adults). She is divorced. Paying all those people along with living expenses on a teacher’s salary made finances plenty tight, too. She just said she was so glad she had such a good job with good benefits.</p>

<p>Speaking of kids…when you are that kind of person, you tend to raise really great kids, and she has. Recently her son, a 23 year old newlywed, told her that he and his wife are going to build a house and they want her to come live with them. They are having the house built with accommodations for her disability.</p>

<p>All that to say, LTS, I can tell you are that kind of person, too, and I am quite sure that you are changing your caregivers and probably lots of other people that you don’t even realize you are impacting. And that has value; it makes the world a better place.</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>Timely, that’s incredible. What a very strong person your friend must be. I cannot imagine - this whole experience has certainly been very educational. Thank you for sharing that.</p>

[epistrophy]

<p>and more (one of whom still smokes)</p>

<p>

“Overacker celebrates life as cancer survivor”</p>

<p>Christopher Overacker of Ilion recently returned to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Midwestern Regional Medical Center in Suburban Chicago to celebrate his five years as a cancer survivor. </p>

<p>Overacker was joined by doctors and the clinical support team in a tree planting ceremony in his honor. </p>

<p>When Overacker was diagnosed with Stage III lung cancer that had spread to his chest and armpit, he traveled to the Chicago area to receive treatment at CTCA.</p>

<p>This year, 105 CTCA patients are celebrating their five-year triumph over cancer at CTCA at Midwestern Regional Medical Center.

</p>

<p>[Herkimer</a> County community news - Utica, NY 13501 - The Observer-Dispatch](<a href=“http://www.uticaod.com/news/x222996362/Herkimer-County-community-news]Herkimer”>http://www.uticaod.com/news/x222996362/Herkimer-County-community-news)</p>

<hr>

<p>

“New state smoking ban has residents fired up”</p>

<p>Smokers throughout the area are voicing their opinions after the state this month banned smoking in most public places.</p>

<p>As loyal tavern patrons take their final puffs in beloved hangouts and local hotspots, the air appears heavy with bitter resentment against a choice leaving many smokers feeling helpless.</p>

<p>The law, going into effect in less than three months, will prohibit smoking in restaurants and sports facilities, as well as in bars where more than 20 percent of sales are in food.</p>

<p>Although ashtrays may soon become a thing of the past in lounges, lobbies and break rooms alike, smokers are definitely not going down without a fight.</p>

<p>Against the law</p>

<p>“If you don’t like the smoke and you don’t want to be around it, stay home,” an employee with the Sportsman’s Tavern in Rouseville said. “Something like this is going to put a lot of these little businesses like us out.”</p>

<p>Catering to a crowd of smokers and non-smokers, the Sportsman’s employee said the bar area has since been outfitted with ‘smoke eaters’ to help eliminate the presence of cigarettes altogether. While the establishment has built a loyal customer base over the years, there seemed to be a general consensus that eradicating the option to enjoy a cigarette would inevitably be bad for business.</p>

<p>“There just aren’t any rights anymore,” said the Sportsman’s employee. “Things in life should be your choice. If you don’t smoke and it bothers you, you have the right to go somewhere else.”</p>

<p>Patrons of the restaurant and tavern conceded that there are certainly more pressing troubles to worry about than how tax paying citizens should be leading their lives.</p>

<p>“There are bigger concerns we’re facing than cigarette smoke,” said Bob Mitchell, seated on a stool at the bar. “Gas will be $5, but it’s OK because our lungs will be pink. Soon we won’t even be able to drive to the bars to smoke, it will be too expensive.”</p>

<p>However, after some spirited conversation on the topic, the Sportsman’s employee simply shook her head in disappoint and added “there are a lot of people (hacked) off about this.”</p>

<p>Several miles down the road at Casey’s Restaurant and Lounge in Oil City, employees and regulars were also speaking out against a law that they think discriminates against their very right to freedom of choice.</p>

<p>“This is a smoking and drinking bar and it’s going to hurt us a lot. I’ll probably get bottles thrown at me,” said Kim Sutch, a bartender at the Seneca Street business.</p>

<p>She said she has been forewarning customers about the change, although she said at least 10 smokers she knows of will undoubtedly leave to join private clubs where smoking will still be acceptable.</p>

<p>“It’s not only going to hurt the bar business, it’s going to hurt our breakfast crowd who like to have a cigarette with their coffee,” Sutch said.</p>

<p>The dimly lit interior of Casey’s, emphasizing the various silhouettes of regulars who have been coming to the local bar and eatery for years, sat in hushed conversation over the law that will soon force them to either light-up outdoors or forgo their vice all together.</p>

<p>**“I don’t go to a restaurant if I can’t smoke,” said Sutch, mixing another drink for one of the lounge’s well-known personalities, Red Blauvelt. “I’m not happy, this is very upsetting. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”</p>

<p>Blauvelt, a longtime smoker and lung cancer survivor, still smokes at least one to two packs a day, regardless of the risks associated with the habit. And he added, after a long drag from his cigarette, that he understands the health side of the argument, but it’s just a hard routine to break.</p>

<p>“It’s not a good habit, but neither is driving too fast or driving too slow,” Blauvelt said. “Rules change throughout life, but I don’t want somebody telling me how to live the rest of mine.”</p>

<p>Casey’s, peppered with various ashtrays supporting limply held fingers and the burning embers of dying cigarettes, evoked an attitude of betrayal for the small businesses that will inevitably be affected by the law.</p>

<p>“It’s a crutch and I know that, but society cannot legislate morality,” said Blauvelt, pounding his fist to the bar. “I don’t answer to anybody, I answer to myself.”**</p>

<p>Echoing those thoughts exactly were employees and customers at the Grant Street Tavern and Grill in Franklin.</p>

<p>“We’re already in competition with clubs over pricing and now with this ban, more people are going to go to clubs than ever. It’s going to hurt business,” said Lisa Garris, an employee at the bar. “I mean, why don’t they just quit making cigarettes then?”</p>

<p>Garris went on to add that many smokers feel the law is unfair because it doesn’t remove tobacco products from inside buildings. She also said that owners should have the right to determine if their establishments are kept smoke free or not.</p>

<p>“I choose to come here even though I don’t smoke,” said Mary Novak, who had been a smoker for 40 years. “But I think it’s wrong. What else are they going to take away from people; their noses are where they don’t belong.”</p>

<p>Those seated in the bar area - some with cigarettes to their lips and others without - all agreed, smokers or not, that a personal right has definitely been stolen from underneath them.</p>

<p>“Even people that don’t normally smoke will smoke when they have a drink,” Garris said. “And when you take that right away people are truly offended.”</p>

<p>For the law</p>

<p>However, there are those who believe eliminating smoke in all the aforementioned places would in turn be a good thing.</p>

<p>“I’m not afraid to admit it, I think it’s a great idea,” said Marji Eismont, a waitress at the Log Cabin Restaurant in Seneca. “More than half of our customers now don’t smoke.”</p>

<p>The restaurant is separated into a smoking and non-smoking section and employs a ventilation system to help control the amount of smoke that fills the space. However, employees agreed that many customers don’t care to even smoke in the building at all.</p>

<p>“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Eismont said.</p>

<p>Eismont, working in the smoking section every weekend, said customers usually choose seating based more on their waitress preferences and less on where they can find a place for a cigarette.</p>

<p>And most employees and patrons agreed that taking cigarettes outside wouldn’t be that much of an inconvenience, mainly because many already follow those rules now.</p>

<p>“The smoking ban I don’t mind a bit,” said Karen Hepler, co-owner of Yesterday’s in Oil City. “But it should be that every public place should not be allowed, including private clubs and bars. There should be no exceptions”</p>

<p>Hepler said she doesn’t expect the restriction to limit customer flow, because many of her regulars don’t smoke at the bar to begin with. She said the restaurant’s smoking area is the most requested for seating, due to its proximity.</p>

<p>“If people want to smoke, go outside,” Hepler said.</p>

<p>She also noted the number of people who just choose to either never start smoking or give it up all together due to the boundaries and limitations already in place.</p>

<p>“It’s getting to the point that if you smoke, you are considered out of place,” Hepler said.

</p>

<p>[The</a> Derrick](<a href=“http://www.thederrick.com/stories/06232008-1004.shtml]The”>http://www.thederrick.com/stories/06232008-1004.shtml)</p>

[mommusic]

<p>Smoking. Ugh.</p>

<p>But I came here to post a great quote that reminded me of lts and others who give life their All. It’s from the late writer Hunter S. Thompson:</p>

<p>“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”</p>

<p>:)</p>

[latetoschool]

<p>The five year survivor is perpetually shocked by lung cancer patients who continue to smoke. He won’t even talk to such people. </p>

<p>It’s impossible to stop big tobacco, and, people are going to do what they’re going to do. I am still stopping people and asking them to not smoke, but not as aggressively as I was before, mostly because I don’t believe anyone really is influenced by these interactions. I think they feel really, really bad when they’re talking to me, but then they go home and keep right on puffing.</p>

<p>I think the bigger issue is the environment, what we’re doing to it, and all of the factors that go into the causation of illnesses - all cancers and serious diseases…</p>

<p>Edited to add: I read somewhere - JYM626, HAPPY BIRTHDAY :)</p>