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Smoker’s Rights

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I know this is less likely than it used to be, thanks to laws that govern public smoking and second hand smoke exposure. But have you ever been stuck sitting near someone who insists on lighting up?

Apparently it still happens, particularly in Alaska.

Pavlov_volcano

And the worst part for the unfortunate geologic feature caught in this awkward situation – everybody says “just move.” But it’s not that easy when you’re a mountain!

Been involved in any public smoking conflicts?

61 thoughts on “Smoker’s Rights”

  1. Good morning. As an older person, I have lived through many years when there were no laws restricting smoking and I am not very bothered by people smoking near me. I don’t smoke currently and never did a lot of smoking. However, if I am visiting with a smoker, I don’t mind very much if they light up. Of course, I am aware of the dangers of smoking and of breathing second hand smoke. However, having lived for many years when there was no restrictions on smoking, I don’t react very strongly to people smoking near me even thought that isn’t what I would prefer.

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      1. I do understand your trepidation, PJ, but I have to say that I’ve already gone in and announced it to Nonny and danced around. I even woke up the Teenager to tell her. And then I danced around some more.

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        1. Well, vs, a little dancing is never wasted, so no harm done. I just find it hard to believe that someone who had Presidential aspirations not too long ago, is calling it quits in politics. I’m afraid she has some other sinister plan.

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    2. And the only smoke involved with the witch is that coming from her ears! I propose a statewide celebration and dance in which we all sing the song together.

      Who knows. Maybe jail time for her will come next–even better than her smoke and mirrors. Her mouth should drive the guards to madness.

      YIPPEE.

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    3. MB and Sarah Palin are truly sisters in their politics. Neither one has any stomach for the grueling work of politics, but they got into it because it can be so easy to be the adored princess of the far right. When the mad applause died down, both showed how little grit they had.

      MB will stick around and will continue to say goofy things. But the progressives have suffered a real loss today, as MB was the best recruiting force for progressives.

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      1. i am hopeful that the talking points of the party will be able to be played back with sound bites from mb sp and carl, rush and the other leaders of the right gone wrong.
        i am a bit concerned for jim graves. he has to be prepared for a conservative that isnt mb as an opponent. he may rue this day but i hope all right thinking people not just right thinking righties realize the underlying issue here and vote for reason like they did with amy and vote for al and jim our boys in the 2014 election

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  4. i hope michelle bachmann will find as much satisfaction in quitting politics as i did in quitting smoking. i used to think smoking was a good thing and i discovered it kind of took over my life, i think michelle found the same thing. it started out being a cool thing to do and a way to hang out with friends and then bacame a horrible idea that was doing damage to me and everyone around me. i think michelle must have realized after she got into the business of poliitics that she was in way over her head. what do you do when you are asked to live as a talking head for a bunch of twits? leader of the twits may have been an ideal role for her but it still had to be hard. i still have a cigar every now and again and ill bet mb will still pop up as a rabble rouser for the moral voice of america but i believe she will find once she gets away from it far enough for withdrawl to be complete, that no on e rreally cares about you and your addiciton. go carry on with your life mb and find a new place to peddle your fish.

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  5. Like Jim and other OTD baboons, I’ve lived through a very long time of no restrictions on smoking, but, unlike Jim, I hated it. Both of my parents were heavy smokers so there was simply no place to escape it in our house. My sister started smoking when she was 15, and still does. Visiting her is an extremely unpleasant experience. Despite her washing her curtains and scrubbing her walls in anticipation of a visit from me, her condo still reeks. She’s always very considerate, and doesn’t light up indoors while I’m there, but I’ve become so sensitive to smoke that within 24 hours of staying with her my sinuses are all stuffed up, my throat hurts and my eyes are watering. I don’t do well around smokers, consequently we know very few people who smoke.

    Yes, I’ve been in involved in public smoking conflicts. When smoking bans were initially issued for movie theaters in Minnesota, it was not unusual for some people to ignore them. If they were seated anywhere near me, I’d ask them to put out their cigarettes, and if they refused, I asked to have the smoker removed from the theater.

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    1. No one in my family smoked so I usually didn’t spend extended periods of time around smokers. Also, I don’t seem to be very sensitive to smoke and don’t suffer in the way you do, PJ, from the presence of smoke. However, while I can put up with smoking, I am glad that we now have laws that limit the places where people can smoke.

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  6. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    It has been a very long time since I was involved in or witnessed conflicts about smoking. The events PJ remembers about movie theaters were so common though. This is now difficult to believe.

    My dad would always smoke his pipe in the car. In a closed space I would become nauseated the minute he lit the pipe. Although I was crazy about my dad, his smoking was a problem, especially as his MS progressed and he became shaky and physically unstable. He would drop his pipe and start fires accidentally.

    I did myself a favor at age 19, when I got drunk and smoked a lot in one night, giving myself a double hangover that did not disperse for 3 days.

    I wish I had been available to write and chat on Memorial Day. I was in Iowa sorting through family papers from generations–this was its own kind of Memorial Day. We have such a great Memorial Day family tradition of grave decorating and remembering soldiers and all other family who have gone before us. I also find Dale’s tender memory of his brother touching. Thanks Dale.

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  7. i remember being both on the offending end of the equation and the offended. i was in milwaukee as the non smoking concept was introduced at a family pancake spot. i was smoking and was seated on the edge of the smoking section with the non smoking section begining 3 feet away with linoleum floor as the barrier between us. no special filter sucking the smoke out of the non smoking half. just an invisable line. the lady on the non smoking side was real upset that i was smoking on my side of the barrier. she got real ugly and proclaimed that she was seated in a no smoking area and was being assulted with smoke wafting across the linoleum. i told her i was open to being seated further into the smoking area so it would have 10 feet further to go and suggested she look into being placed further into the no smoking zone. that was the first time i was made to feel real uncomfortable for smoking as i had become accustomed to doing for 30 years at that point.
    i remember the guy who i traveled to europe and china with booking the seats on the flight up in the front of the plane instead of in the back where smoking was allowed. i asked him why he didnt book our seats in the back seeing as we would certainly smoke 15 or 20 cigarettes over the course of the flight and he pointed out quite correctly that all the people sitting in those rear seats looked miserable because of all the people coming back to smoke in the assigned area. they couldnt get away and the smoke was pretty intense. then as it turned into no smoking on flights we used to fly airlines that would allow smoking. lufthansa was ok with smoking when others were not so my lufthansa frequent flier mileage went up with the tar and nicotine accumulated in my lungs. the hardest leather seats i ever sat on. i still have an invention in my files that looks like an underwater bell helmet or a space suit that would allow smoking in an office setting without imposing it on others for the addict with an aversion to getting out of his chair every 15 minutes. i have heard the non smokers in office enviorments wonder how it is fair that the smokers get to go out on numerous smoke brakes while non smokers are expected to keep their noses to the grindstone.
    roll you own cigarettes in the old vw van going across the canadian border made for some interesting moments. i was the recipient of the evil eye but upon closer inspection i was allowed to go buy canadian cigarettes and drink labatts and molson for my summer holiday. rolling export a’s was a uniquely canadian experience.
    kind of like watching michele bachman is uniquely a thinking persons experience. 2:30 am will now hold a new special place in my heart when it comes to remembering crash and burn tactics. no one will ever know……..

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    1. As a child I watched my grandfather drive a pick up with one hand and roll his own cigarette with the other hand, lick the paper, seal the cigarette and light up. To a 2 or 3 year old child it was fascinating. And I loved the smoky, Vitalis, Old Spice smell of Grandpa.

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      1. yep i smell the odors of hairbrush every now and then and smile. my mom says the cigar smoke smell i create every now and again remind her of her dad. old spice was my dad too. the marlboro smell i can get along just fine without but even after 10 or 15 years off the damn things i still had a dream the other night where i was smoking. and it tasted good.

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  8. Even in my conservative state, I hear no one lamenting that they can no longer smoke in any public place. The anti-smoking people took it slowly and gradually to eliminate smoking in more and more places, and it worked. I rejoice with all you Minnesotans over MB’s announcement.

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      1. Our local university is tobacco free, not just smoke free. I don’t know how the university rodeo team is handling the change.

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  9. Hard to believe, but the one incident I can remember happened early in the life of the s&h (he has no real memory of public indoor smoking). My mother was in town and we decided to go out for pizza.

    Smoking or non-smoking? Non-smoking, of course. So imagine my surprise when the people on the other side of the booth we were in lit up. I hate making waves, so decided to let it go, but it was also spring (allergy season at our house), and the s&h started coughing, quite a bit.

    The “gentleman” of the family lit into me like you would not believe for bringing a coughing toddler out in public!!!! His daughter (young adult with them) has a very compromised immune system and can’t be around that sort of thing!!!!! I should take my germ ridden, child elsewhere!!!!!

    I asked the waiter to move us-and my mother, far less concerned about wave making than myself, put in her 2 bits about the smokey-ness of it all. Waiter told us we should not have asked for smoking then. Really?? really???

    Did not tip the guy (possiblly the only time in my life that has happened) and have not set foot in that establishment from that day to this.

    So glad to live in a smoke-free state. Now, with less Bachmann too!!!!

    OT-taking delivery on the new range today, let the scone baking commence!

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      2. It’s all in the timing-BBC has a way of falling on my working Sundays. So far, I am finding the “newness” intimidating.

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  10. I did have one very negative experience that involved tobacco. This occurred when I lived in a dorm where there was a guy who used snuff and he gave me some of it to try. No one told me not to swallow the juice from the snuff. I found out that you can get very sick if you do swallow. That experience caused me to lose my interest in using tobacco for a long period of time.

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  11. I was a non-inhaling pipe and cigar smoker for most of my adult life. I tried to like pipes but they were like a blowtorch on the tongue, so I smoked cigars. I was always painfully aware of how odious cigar smoke is to others, so I took great pains to smoke at times and places where I would not offend others.

    It was one of several serious miscalculations in my life. As a person who has self esteem problems, it isn’t smart to have a habit that makes you constantly worry that you are disgusting others. When we bought this house in 1976 my erstwife banned cigars except in the basement. That was fine with me, for I loved the cool air of the basement anyway, but that set up a dynamic we didn’t see at first. The house belonged to Kathe. I increasingly became the guy who lived downstairs, down there with the computer and the TV and the cigars. A wise man would have seen how that imperiled my relationship with my wife, but we didn’t have a wise man living here at the time. Just me.

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      1. Bill Kling scared the crap out of me yesterday, sending me an email titled “Garrison Keillor.” I clicked on it thinking that the Old Scout had had his final heart attack, but it was a plea from Kling that I write to support Keillor for Kennedy Center honors. Whew!

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    2. One of the founding fathers of the first accounting firm I worked for, Larry Hendrickson, bought a new Cadillac every couple of years. He would usually sell his “old” one to someone within the firm, and give them a very good deal on an almost new car with very few miles on it. One year he offered it to me. I politely declined. Not only couldn’t I envision me driving such a big, fancy car, but it reeked of stale cigar smoke to boot. I probably would have declined even if he had offered to give it to me.

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      1. My erstwife finally had to sell her beloved blue Honda Accord after a dozen happy years of good service. Some hippy-ish kid answered the ad and handed over the cash. He then got in the car and lit up a cigarette before driving off. I thought Kathe would have a fit. She was hopping up and down, shrieking in fury. I had a heavy cigar habit when we owned the Isuzu Trooper. Even I could tell that the interior of that car was disgusting. My current ride, the Outback, has never been smoked in.

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  12. Nonny took a few years to finally quit smoking and at one point, my sister and I almost urged her to start again – it was a nasty withdrawal. So why in heaven’s name, with that in my memory, did I start smoking in college? I have no clue. I mostly quit in `86, although did a few “social” ciggies with a friend every now and then. Last cigarette ever was smoked on July 8, 1995, the night before I left for China to pick up the Treasure.

    I have said several things to people about their smoking over the years… folks smoking in non-smoking places mostly… although I did once say “You’ve got to be kidding me” to someone who dumped their ashtray out of their car window when I was gardening in my front yard. When they just drove on, I did yell an epithet in their direction.

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  13. Morning-
    In Jr High a friend shared chewing tobacco. I tried some (to show I was cool) but then being scared too, rather then ‘spitting’ I spit the entire thing out and they ridiculed me. So the next day I bought a plastic baggie along to get more and show them how cool I was, but he didn’t have any more. And that probably saved me from a chewing tobacco addiction.

    I was in a play where my character had to roll a joint and smoke it. Oregano was used in place of the real stuff. Smells similar… but has a more oily taste (so I’m told….). Afterward it was rather funny as a few people told me I wasn’t rolling it right and they gave me lessons! Yeah; where were you during rehearsals! 🙂
    I also had to smoke a couple actual cigarettes; took a while to find something I could tolerate. The cheap gas station cigs were the worst. I think I finally settled on Malboros. They weren’t ‘good’ but at least they weren’t ‘terrible’. Good thing it was a short run.

    Kellys parents both smoked heavily. Smoke has always bothered her; she gets a stuffy nose and headache.

    I work with a guy who is big on cigars. When he brings his equipment in for certain events it all reeks of stale smoke. And after a day the entire booth stinks. I’ve hassled him over it and he’ll even give up cigars for lent. AND admits how he feels better without them! But Easter morning; he’s got a big ol’ cigar lit up and he claims it’s one of life’s pleasures. Whatever.

    I have an annual date with a good friend of mine. We spend the afternoon on our deck each with a quart of ‘Ben and Jerry’s’ Ice cream, one of those tiny little liquor bottles and a cheap cigar. It’s sort of the principle of the thing… Take our picture, throw out the cigar, save half the ice cream for later and if we try really hard, we can usually finish the tiny little bottle of liquor.

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    1. Besides not having any talent, the other reason I used to say I couldn’t be an actor was that I didn’t smoke. In those days, people were always lighting up on stage and screen. I guess that’s come back with Mad Men (though I’ve only seen half an episode).

      I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I lit one for someone once (with the cig in my mouth) because we were driving on the freeway to college interviews. She was driving and I preferred to light it for her to having her multi-task. Seems funny now with all that people do while driving.

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        1. I have always had this pride and goody-two-shoes thing about never having smoked. I used to dream that I was smoking and was furious that I had ruined my perfect record.

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        2. Lisa, I don’t think that I have a perfect record of anything. I’ve just never like the smell of cigarette smoke, and where I grew up, I was absolutely surrounded by it constantly. My uncle Børge, who I’ve written about on this blog before, came to to visit when his daughter, who had spent one year living with us, graduated from high school. I had told him that no smoking was allowed at our house. He had tried quitting smoking numerous times, but always failed. He decided this was his opportunity. He quit cold turkey when he arrived at our house, and has never smoked again. He now suffers from congestive heart failure, and the last time I visited he said he knew he’d have died years ago had he not quit. I do feel good about that, although I can take no credit for it, but with the proper motivation and circumstances, he was able to break what head been a very costly habit since he was a teen and gained a few more years of life.

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  14. I have a sort of smoking story that is hard to tell. It’s a little complicated. I spent 11 years working and teaching at the U of MN, then left to edit a magazine. When I came back, 7 years later, I felt like I didn’t fit in as well as I once had. Everyone was young and healthy, and almost nobody smoked. That made me self conscious about my cigars. so I became a furtive outdoor smoker who was plagued with guilt.

    I used to look forward to a cigar when I got to my car at the end of day. I’d light up in the confines of my car and feel I was back to being me. It cost 90 cents a day to park, and I would usually hand the attendant a dollar. One day I lit my end-of-day cigar, rolled up to the attendant’s booth and handed over my dollar. But my cigar smoke was wafting out the window and into the attendant’s booth. I moved the cigar to my right hand, which I never used for smoking, so the smoke wouldn’t bother the attendant. He gave me my dime, handing it to my smoking (left) hand. Without thinking, I popped the dime in my mouth. For a long time, the attendant and I had good eye contact. He couldn’t believe what I’d done. And I had the choice of fishing around for the dime in my mouth with my left hand or just driving away, which I did, giving the attendant one of those waves where you hold up your hand and just wiggle your fingers.

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  15. When we got a new van two years ago, daughter couldn’t figure out what one of the pull-out draws was on the front dash. She thought perhaps it was for gum and candy wrappers. Remember how people used to have artistic ashtrays in their homes? I suppose there are many chuildren, like mine, who don’t know what an ashtray is.

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    1. I think I bought my mom an ashtray for a present one year. Even though no one smoked in my house. But it was orange and sort of shaped like a sideways ‘V’; like the flying guitars. It was really cool!

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    2. Just did a quick Google and it seems a lot of new cars no longer come with ashtrays. Recently was in a new Volkswagen and saw that what used to be the lighter is now designated as something else (can’t remember what they called it, but it reflected the fact that most people use that port to charge devices with now).

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      1. I have a 2004 model and it has lighters (which we use quite a bit for charging phones while driving) but no actual ashtray!

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  16. Well, I suppose this wasn’t exactly a public smoking conflict, but it’s the one that sticks in my mind.

    My dad smoked a pipe and I like the smell of that; I think my siblings did, too. Well, one summer he tried some cigars. We were on vacation, going somewhere or other in the VW van, when he lit up a cigar, None of us four kids liked the smell of that! In fact, we hung out of the open windows to try to get fresh air, made loud gagging noises, yelled P-U! at the top of our lungs, and generally acted as if we would puke or something, if he didn’t stop smoking the thing. I’m sure my dad was ticked, but what could he do against four obnoxious kids? He put it out and peace reigned again (well – relative peace – if you’re traveling with 4 kids who have no scruples against saying exactly what’s on their mind, then I’m pretty sure the adults would never have said the ride was “peaceful” unless we all happened to fall asleep at the same time).

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    1. I kinda like the smell of pipe smoke too.

      Your post reminded me of something we still laugh about in our family.

      I’m sure you all remember the days when cigars were given out by the proud father when a new baby was born. I seriously doubt the “It’s a Boy!” cigars were any good-Dad never ever smoked, but they accumulated on my parent’s dresser-for awhile.

      We grew up in Coon Rapids, IA, home of Roswell Garst, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_Garst
      It was a small town and everybody knew everybody. Mr. Garst had a laryngectomy and spoke through a stoma with little amplifying device that he could make sqwack at kids, just to make them jump. He did this to my little brother, following it up with the statement, “young man, don’t ever smoke”.

      That was it for my brother, he later snuck into my parents’ room and broke every one of those new baby cigars into unsmokeable bits.

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  17. I’m not sure how old I was when I went with my family to visit my Uncle Jake’s family. My cousin Tom and I were the same age and he came up with the idea of making our own cigarettes. I think we might have been about 10 years old. We went off by ourselves and used paper to roll up some fake cigarettes using some kind of plant material as filler. We lit up our smokes and managed to puff away on them more or less as one would if one had a real cigarette. I see my cousin from time to time, but I have never reminisced with him about our early experiments with smoking.

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    1. My brother smoked grass when he was in middle school. No, not “grass” but real grass. I don’t even know if it was dry, maybe just plucked it out of the lawn. I gather it wasn’t very tasty.

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      3. That’s funny Lisa.
        My folks tell a story about one of the foster kids they had who was a teenager with a troubled past. We have wild hemp (marijuana) growing in the pastures and somebody referenced that and Dad nudged the guy so as not to give the foster kid any ideas. A few weeks later mom could smell something in his room– and it was a box of moldy hemp leaves. All I remember about this kid is that he came with a little dirt bike. Guess he didn’t last long at our house.

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