You smoke, I smoke, we all smoke . . . .
As Dylan confirmed, “the times, they are a-changin’.” Reflecting on my childhood, I realize how pervasive smoking was. Lucy and Desi smoked. Everyone in the movies smoked. Athletes smoked. John Wayne smoked. People smoked on planes, in restaurants, in the car. My mom started each day with a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. Remember the Marlborough man? Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name? Smokers! I still have a beautiful hammered bronze and enamel box of my grandmother’s. I played with it as a child and filled it with treasures. In reality, it was a cigarette box.
When I was in junior high school, my grandparents and my great aunt came to live with us. They were no longer able to maintain a home on their own, and my parents built a house that could accommodate all 7 of us. Every one of them smoked. My aunt was a chain smoker. In fact, when my grandparents were getting ready to sell their house, the walls of her room were so yellowed with smoke, they had to be scrubbed and repainted.
Anyway, my brother and I grew up around smoking, but we never gave it much conscious thought. It was just the way life was. When we went to Las Vegas, a welcoming gift from a hotel always included ashtrays engraved with the hotel’s logo. My mom was always buying fancy ashtrays for our house. In fact, I still have some beautiful crystal ones she bought in France. They sat out on end tables in her living room for years as part of the décor. Now they are stored forgotten in a box of collectibles.
For a while, cigarette holders were the rage. Everyone (mostly women) loved waving their hand around gracefully looking glamorous with their elongated cigarette. I remember my Aunt Francis, my godmother, Kay, and my mom using them. I know they thought they were very fashionable. My grandfather walked around doing his gardening chores or cooking spaghetti sauce with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, the long ash at the end bouncing up and down as he talked. I still recall when I was sick in bed with strep throat my senior year in high school, Helen Bonfils coming to visit my grandmother. She came in her limo, in her fur coat, with her enormous diamond ring, AND, with her cigarette in a long, jeweled holder.
When my Grandpa Manna died, my grandmother quit smoking. Cold turkey. She said it was too expensive. She never smoked another cigarette! Remarkable for a woman who had been smoking for 50 years! A few years later, my father announced he was going to quit smoking, as well. “If mother can do it, I’m sure I can, too.” And that was it. He didn’t smoke again. What a testament to their strength of will. Rob and I no longer lived at home, so the impact was less on us, except that we thought it was great for their health.
My dad encouraged mom to quit, as well, but she was an unwilling disciple. She announced for all to hear, “I love smoking and I’m never going to give it up, and nothing you say can make me.” That was pretty much it. She smoked for many more years until, after a serious bout of pneumonia, her doctor told her they were shadows left on her lungs. She finally gave up smoking, but often reminisced about how much she missed it. Unfortunately, the damage was done. Breathing became an increasing struggle and when COPD took her life at 93, she was having to use external oxygen.
Interestingly, my brother, Rob, and I never took up the habit. And, of course, today, smoking doesn’t enjoy the popularity it did in the ’50s and ’60s. We laugh now every time we watch an old movie where everyone is puffing like a locomotive. We gag when we walk into a smoky room. We recognize the potential health dangers associated with cigarettes. Everything changes. And often, change is a good thing.
You are not going to get away with smoking anywhere near me. As a nurse practitioner I am a member of the smoking police. And if I find your lighters or cigarettes lying around they are going in the trash. In speaking to you and noting various aspects of your appearance, I can be pretty sure you are a smoker. One of our then teen sons was going to a pool hall on occasion. He once returned and I smelled cigarettes. He claimed it was because he was around smokers. I told him to take a deep breath then blow in my face. There it was—-the odor from deep in his lungs. His siblings descended on him, telling him that he was an athlete and giving him various other strong messages. It worked like a charm and he was done. In the hospital, when you are rounding with smoking staff members, you wonder how they can stand over their patients with the odor of cigarettes on their bodies. I had a patient in a nursing home who was sitting in his wheelchair smoking while on oxygen and there was a small explosion. When I was working at a small hospital in Maine, the smoking staff members would have to go outside in freezing weather to have a puff. I once read an article that stated if health care providers would just spend a few minutes with smokers pleading with them to quit and telling them all the reasons why, they would be more likely to quit. In my mission for the cause, I have even taken virtual strangers aside and plead with them to quit. I am part of a study regarding a possible hereditary factor in lung cancer. A buccal swab was taken. I don’t know the results. I am dumb though. I can remember occasions, such as at a party or at an Octoberfest, when my daughter would disappear and I would wonder where she was. Dah—she was off smoking. Once my daughter and I passed like two ships in the night at the airport. I was arriving to care for her kids and she was leaving for her service duty. She announced to me she had quit smoking. I said that was great! She’s still trying. She did not smoke during her pregnancies. Her kids are beautiful.
My aunt in Ohio used to hide my uncle’s cigarettes in various places, including the hedge by the front door. Was it a game they were playing? My dad, a physician used to smoke cigarettes, a residual habit from WWII when they passed cigarettes out like candy. When the word came out about COPD, he quit. However, he did still smoke pipes. He had a wooden pipe stand and had quite a collection, including a Meerschaum pipe, made from a soft white clay material. He later in life had a lobectomy for lung cancer. He was going to have a repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He had felt his aorta pulsating. A pre-op chest X-ray was done. Of course, my dad read it. He was the one who found the small spot on his lung, not the radiologist. He had the repair done, then said to his physician that they should address the spot on his lung. There is a picture of my brother on horseback, looking so handsome and with a cigarette in his mouth. He looked like the Marlboro Man. I remember in high school there was a smoking area for the students behind the school. I guess that beats causing a trash fire in the girls’ bathroom. In college I had a very early class one semester. The guy next to me had a strong odor. I thought it was aftershave or something. I was dealing with this each class. I am 74 and just recently realized it was the odor of a smoker. So again, Dah!! Dumbbell. I have often gone to store managers telling them they need to stop people from smoking at the entrance to the store. I am on a mission of sorts but have not always succeeded.