01-06-2012, 02:55 AM
When I started smoking a kid could buy them from a machine for 50 Cents (a full pack of name brand smokes). When I was a little younger my stepmother would give me a note to send me to the corner store with 40 cents to buy her a pack of Belair. Didn't really need the note....
People smoked everywhere, there was smoking and nonsmoking sections at restaurants, even the guy who pumped your gas had a smoking cigarette dangling between his lips as you told him 'fill it up'. Of course this is back in the day when they checked your oil and washed your windshield as part of the deal of buying gas.
Nearly everyone smoked, we all knew tobacco was NOT addictive, and many of the adults knew that smoking was good for you, as per the ads they grew up with:
![[Image: Doctors-Smoke-Camels.jpg]](http://www.naturalnews.com/Images/Doctors-Smoke-Camels.jpg)
That BTW is my official brand, I have been smoking a pack a day since I was turned from Marlboro (Big Red) back when i was working on a company tobacco farm. The Farmer (my boss) handed me a pack and said 'This is what we smoke around here'.
That's 30 years ago.
My Parents smoked, my Father smoked Big Red, my mother smoked Kools (100's with that great menthol taste - yuck). My Mother's mother smoked Chesterfields (that's right, none of that filter stuff for her, she was a real smoker).
Why Chesterfields? Because that is what Lucy smoked:
![[Image: 1950s+CHESTERFIELD+Lucille+Ball+vintage+...moking.bmp]](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OJRwHE_EszA/SxVBwGujxnI/AAAAAAAAFQU/n1G3KxqTivg/s1600/1950s+CHESTERFIELD+Lucille+Ball+vintage+cigarettes+advertisement+hollywood+smoking.bmp)
My Grandmother died at age 78 due to a heart attack. Was it smoking - nope, fear not, her vertebra started breaking down after an accident when she was 23. By the time she died she was nearly doubled over, her lungs, heart, and other organs had struggled for decades being compressed. Her body went to medical science because she should have died in her 30's from that much injury.
My Grandfather was a smoker too (Chesterfields, his wife insisted) He died at age 33 - lead poisoning (too many bullets at one time) War is dangerous.
Their parents lived to see 100 +. My Great Granny smoked a pipe and cigars, her husband 'rolled his own'. Both smoked like smokestacks and both remained active and healthy until their body's gave out. He at 102, she at 105. Smoking didn't kill them, time did. On the other side my great grandmother (She was posh) smoked some brand that came in a gold fancy box and hers were always on cigarettes holders - she had many of those holders, long thin fancy tubes. Like I said, she was posh. She kicked it at age 106 - though she claimed to be 112, there was no birth certificate for her so the 'official' age is an unknown. No, she didn't die from heart disease or lung disease. Alcohol is what got her. I guess 90 or 100 years of drinking bourbon, vodka and god only knows what other alcohol on a daily basis is too much for the liver.
Her Husband died at the young age of 81, his diabetes caught up with him. No He never smoked, no drank....
My Father's side is also long lived, lots of smokers - again they did die, most 95+ years of life, none from 'smoker's lung' or from heart disease linked to smoking.
His mother died from lung cancer - mesothelioma, but then she worked the factories during WWII where she handled massive amounts of fire-resistant coating composed of Asbestos. His father silently passed sitting in his favorite chair at the age of 99 (a month before hitting 100), he closed his eyes and died sitting up right. His heart just stopped. He smoked 2 packs a day.
Aside from structural damage (torn joints, blown/herniated disks) smoking has only given me a morning cough - and most mornings that doesn't exist.
I am hard pressed to buy into all of this 'smoking kills' propaganda. My extensive family tree (When we start throwing aunts, uncles, cousins) has lots of smokers who lived a very, very long time without heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, and the like.
My sampling of the population tells me that while smoking is an expensive, and dirty habit (smoke ruins everything) it isn't the killer it is reputed to be.
People smoked everywhere, there was smoking and nonsmoking sections at restaurants, even the guy who pumped your gas had a smoking cigarette dangling between his lips as you told him 'fill it up'. Of course this is back in the day when they checked your oil and washed your windshield as part of the deal of buying gas.
Nearly everyone smoked, we all knew tobacco was NOT addictive, and many of the adults knew that smoking was good for you, as per the ads they grew up with:
That BTW is my official brand, I have been smoking a pack a day since I was turned from Marlboro (Big Red) back when i was working on a company tobacco farm. The Farmer (my boss) handed me a pack and said 'This is what we smoke around here'.
That's 30 years ago.
My Parents smoked, my Father smoked Big Red, my mother smoked Kools (100's with that great menthol taste - yuck). My Mother's mother smoked Chesterfields (that's right, none of that filter stuff for her, she was a real smoker).
Why Chesterfields? Because that is what Lucy smoked:
My Grandmother died at age 78 due to a heart attack. Was it smoking - nope, fear not, her vertebra started breaking down after an accident when she was 23. By the time she died she was nearly doubled over, her lungs, heart, and other organs had struggled for decades being compressed. Her body went to medical science because she should have died in her 30's from that much injury.
My Grandfather was a smoker too (Chesterfields, his wife insisted) He died at age 33 - lead poisoning (too many bullets at one time) War is dangerous.
Their parents lived to see 100 +. My Great Granny smoked a pipe and cigars, her husband 'rolled his own'. Both smoked like smokestacks and both remained active and healthy until their body's gave out. He at 102, she at 105. Smoking didn't kill them, time did. On the other side my great grandmother (She was posh) smoked some brand that came in a gold fancy box and hers were always on cigarettes holders - she had many of those holders, long thin fancy tubes. Like I said, she was posh. She kicked it at age 106 - though she claimed to be 112, there was no birth certificate for her so the 'official' age is an unknown. No, she didn't die from heart disease or lung disease. Alcohol is what got her. I guess 90 or 100 years of drinking bourbon, vodka and god only knows what other alcohol on a daily basis is too much for the liver.
Her Husband died at the young age of 81, his diabetes caught up with him. No He never smoked, no drank....
My Father's side is also long lived, lots of smokers - again they did die, most 95+ years of life, none from 'smoker's lung' or from heart disease linked to smoking.
His mother died from lung cancer - mesothelioma, but then she worked the factories during WWII where she handled massive amounts of fire-resistant coating composed of Asbestos. His father silently passed sitting in his favorite chair at the age of 99 (a month before hitting 100), he closed his eyes and died sitting up right. His heart just stopped. He smoked 2 packs a day.
Aside from structural damage (torn joints, blown/herniated disks) smoking has only given me a morning cough - and most mornings that doesn't exist.
I am hard pressed to buy into all of this 'smoking kills' propaganda. My extensive family tree (When we start throwing aunts, uncles, cousins) has lots of smokers who lived a very, very long time without heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, and the like.
My sampling of the population tells me that while smoking is an expensive, and dirty habit (smoke ruins everything) it isn't the killer it is reputed to be.
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
