Religion and politics are among the few subjects I can think of that are discussed more than smoking when a group of people gather and, depending on whether you smoke or not, most people have an opinion pro or con on the subject.
Smoking came up in the break room at the store where I work not long ago; the discussion included how young we were when we started smoking and when we quit, since those at the table do not smoke anymore.
The discussion brought to mind my own experience with smoking which started at the very young age of nine. In fact, two of the McCoy boys, Beryl and Veryl McCoy who were my neighbors when I lived on East Fifth Street shared this memory with me. There was an old building that sat on the alley of our home back then, and the McCoy boys and I played in it often as kids. The building had rafters we liked to climb into and discuss the problems of our world, which you can imagine were enormous.
One day, one of us came across a package of cigarettes, I don’t recall how, or which one of us found them, but I do remember they were called “Embassy” a brand I don’t believe is around anymore. So it was the three of us were sitting high in the rafters of that building puffing, and coughing away on the cigarettes learning how to smoke. I don’t recall what kind of adverse affects they had on us boys, but I can’t imagine there not being some. That was the beginning of a terrible habit that lasted until I was past 30.
I quit smoking then in the hope that none of my children would take up the habit. Smoking was in the news a lot around the time I was 30, noting cigarettes caused cancer. There were also public health messages all over the TV. One of those messages featured the actor William Tallman who played District Attorney Hamilton Burger on the popular television series “Perry Mason” at the time. The ad showed him obviously in bad health as a cancer victim. As I recall the big push to get people to quit smoking started with those kinds of messages, and were scary enough many of us paid attention to them. I’m sorry to say my efforts with my children were only two-thirds effective as one of them took up the habit, and still smokes today. After telling my co-workers this story each one of them had their own stories on the subject.
I try not to be sanctimonious about the subject because I know the habit is difficult to get rid of and took a lot of tries for me to successfully do so. The habit is always in my mind however even after these 40 plus years of being smoke free and sometimes I even dream I am smoking, something given my COPD will probably never happen. I do have to add that at least for those in our discussion we were universally happy that we no longer smoked whether that was based on the health effects or the cost associated with a package of cigarettes now. I should tell you that as part of my job as a cashier, I am required to sell tobacco products, something I do without judgment as long as the person is old enough to make the purchase. I do find myself hoping however that they will stop before it becomes a health problem for them.
