Up In Smoke

As I have mentioned before, I will be celebrating my 60th birthday this year.

I used to joke about being old. Now I am. I think.

Supposedly sixty is the new forty. I don't know who came up with that, probably somebody who just turned sixty.

But as you turn sixty, you start talking a lot about the past.

To me, the biggest difference between "back then" and "Now" is that "back then" everybody smoked cigarettes.

When I say everybody smoked cigarettes, I mean everybody.  Even preachers.

In Southern Evangelical terms, preachers were not supposed to smoke because the body is the temple of the Lord. It also had something to do with a holy rhyme we were given:  I don't smoke and I don't chew and I don't go with girls that do.

But still, there were some denominations which didn't care if the preachers smoked or not. I know this makes me a hick, but it always bothered me to see a man of cloth smoking a cigarette.

Legend has it that a famous Baptist preacher, J.D. Gray, smoked cigars (or as my Uncle Jimmy called them:  "Cee-gars").   I guess it was okay because Brother J..D. was tall and he was funny.  That means a lot in some circles.

Everybody's parents smoked.  My parents smoked. My parents loved smoking. I think it was their hobby.

Old Man Manis smoked Winstons.  They tasted good like a cigarette should.  Sometimes he would walk a mile for a Camel.  He was not above a pack of Lucky Strikes every now and then. The pack had written on the bottom: "L.S.M.F.T". Translated: "Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco".

Inez usually shared whatever brand the old man was into, although she did eventually get into a brand called Doral.  One time she got really wild and got into Virginia Slims, which was a "woman's cigarette".  Steve Martin, that wild and crazy guy, said each Virginia Slims cigarette had breasts.

People smoked everywhere. At work. At restaurants. At bars. At stadiums. At church, except not during worship. But that few minutes before church, the good deacons would be standing around outside taking one last puff.

You could smoke in the hospital, except while performing surgery. Maybe. (Doctor: "Scapel". Nurse: "Scapel".  Doctor: "Pall Mell"  Nurse: "Pall Mell")

You could even smoke at school. My high school, Wheeler, had a designated area called "The Smokehole", which I wrote a best selling book about it and as luck would have it is still for sale.

You can't do that anymore. I'm not certain that it is legal to smoke on earth anymore.

On top of that, a carton of cigarettes cost, at Wal-Mart, $29.39. That's an expensive habit.

This has led to the creation of something known as Electronic Cigarettes or E-Cigarettes which "are battery-operated devices that people use to inhale an aerosol, which typically contains nicotine (though not always), flavorings, and other chemicals." 

It is better known as "vaping" and is considered "less harmful" because "a study found that some toxic substances have levels 9 to 450 times lower than in regular cigarette smoke".

It is also, generally, cheaper than smoking cigarettes. Clark Howard could probably vape for $387.00 a year if he used his Costco card.

Vaping is still rather new and the long term consequences haven't been determined. And it still looks kind of New Age-ish to see somebody walking around, sucking on a pen and then watching that person disappear in a cloud that smells like waffles.

I don't know what it is about smoking, but people just like it. John Prine says that when he gets to heaven he's "going to smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long".  He'll probably have to fight Old Man Manis and Inez first.