So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

^^^^^
You are exceptional in that regard. I’ve known of tobacco smokers who only occasionally partook of the killer weed, but for every one of them there are at least several hundred who smoke daily, usually several times daily.

I wish it weren’t so harmful. I loved smoking. There’s much to be said for nicotine.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^
You are exceptional in that regard. I’ve known of tobacco smokers who only occasionally partook of the killer weed, but for every one of them there are at least several hundred who smoke daily, usually several times daily.

I wish it weren’t so harmful. I loved smoking. There’s much to be said for nicotine.

When I played baseball I chewed tobacco. The nicotine kick was a great stimulant and I used it sometimes in the rest of my life for a pick me up. I haven't chewed in 20 years but I am still sometimes temped to pick up a pack of RedMan chew. Other than grossing my wife out with the spit at least I don't stink out the joint with the smell of burning tobacco.

 

[Edward]

^^^^^
You are exceptional in that regard. I’ve known of tobacco smokers who only occasionally partook of the killer weed, but for every one of them there are at least several hundred who smoke daily, usually several times daily.

I wish it weren’t so harmful. I loved smoking. There’s much to be said for nicotine.

I've noticed over the years that those of us who are recreational smokers of pipes and/or cigars tend to be much more likely to partake occasionally, whereas cigarette smokers (and now vapers) it's more a habit. I did always say as soon as the pipe became a habit rather than an occasional indulgence, I'd give it up. As it sits, I probably average a bowl or two maybe once every couple of months.... I'm still finishing off the last of 50g of tobacco I bought in 2019....

I do suspect the big difference is whether one inhales or not. It does seem to be that the habitual (particularly cigarette) smokers I know are the inhalers. Of course, that's merely anecdotal....

 

[Edward]

^^^^^
You are exceptional in that regard. I’ve known of tobacco smokers who only occasionally partook of the killer weed, but for every one of them there are at least several hundred who smoke daily, usually several times daily.

I wish it weren’t so harmful. I loved smoking. There’s much to be said for nicotine.

Weirdly, I "smoke" a lot in dreams. I've never been a cigarette smoker, never even touched one, but often in dreams I smoke. I suspect it's about the noir aesthetic in my subconscious.... though two things I'm very aware of would make cigarettes very seductive: 1]. I'm a real fidget, and having something to do with my hands is soothing. 2] I often spend time out and about on my own - moreso when I was single, but even now going to gigs or whatever on my own, work travel when I inevitably end up standing around *somewhere*, that notion of having a purpose, rather than lurking - "You're never alone with a Strand".... I've deliberately packed the pipe on a few work trips over the years for that reason. The now universality of smoking bans everywhere I go has also been an odd plus; I often try to have the pipe to hand when I'm going to a conference, or a residential activity with students. I hide it well, I'm told, but I often really struggle with smalltalk / networking, and having that 'out' of being able to step away from it all for a few minutes by stepping outside with the pipe is a huge plus.

 

[tonyb]

When I played baseball I chewed tobacco. The nicotine kick was a great stimulant and I used it sometimes in the rest of my life for a pick me up. I haven't chewed in 20 years but I am still sometimes temped to pick up a pack of RedMan chew. Other than grossing my wife out with the spit at least I don't stink out the joint with the smell of burning tobacco.

I can smell cigarette smoke from the next door neighbor smoking on his deck, probably a hundred feet away. (He’s a friend, and by the time the smoke drifts over my way it‘s so diluted as not to pose any real hazard.)

Our societal approach to tobacco smoking could be a model for dealing with other harmful substances. We haven’t criminalized tobacco, but we’ve greatly reduced the harmful effects of it on those who don’t use it.

I can smell a smoker from 10 feet away. I know the instant I step into a private residence that smoking is done there. I can only imagine how I and my home smelled back when I was a two-plus pack per day smoker.

 

[tonyb]

Weirdly, I "smoke" a lot in dreams. I've never been a cigarette smoker, never even touched one, but often in dreams I smoke. I suspect it's about the noir aesthetic in my subconscious.... though two things I'm very aware of would make cigarettes very seductive: 1]. I'm a real fidget, and having something to do with my hands is soothing. 2] I often spend time out and about on my own - moreso when I was single, but even now going to gigs or whatever on my own, work travel when I inevitably end up standing around *somewhere*, that notion of having a purpose, rather than lurking - "You're never alone with a Strand".... I've deliberately packed the pipe on a few work trips over the years for that reason. The now universality of smoking bans everywhere I go has also been an odd plus; I often try to have the pipe to hand when I'm going to a conference, or a residential activity with students. I hide it well, I'm told, but I often really struggle with smalltalk / networking, and having that 'out' of being able to step away from it all for a few minutes by stepping outside with the pipe is a huge plus.

I haven’t taken so much as a puff off a cigarette in nearly 17 years, and I still occasionally smoke in my dreams. I feel a mixture of guilt and shame, and it wakes me up (which I suppose is why I remember it).

 

[belfastboy]

I can smell cigarette smoke from the next door neighbor smoking on his deck, probably a hundred feet away. (He’s a friend, and by the time the smoke drifts over my way it‘s so diluted as not to pose any real hazard.)

Our societal approach to tobacco smoking could be a model for dealing with other harmful substances. We haven’t criminalized tobacco, but we’ve greatly reduced the harmful effects of it on those who don’t use it.

I can smell a smoker from 10 feet away. I know the instant I step into a private residence that smoking is done there. I can only imagine how I and my home smelled back when I was a two-plus pack per day smoker.

Too true. I quit smoking almost 50 years ago. The first thing that struck me once the addiction aspect was done was how sensitive I was to the smell and how gross it was. I marveled at my wife's patience putting up me.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
I wonder if it’s akin to, say, living near a busy airport. It’s not that you stop hearing the airplane noise, but you come to disregard it.

Or, perhaps a better analogy is living near a dairy farm, or even just visiting one. It doesn’t take long NOT to notice the aroma.

 

[Trenchfriend]

^^^^^
You are exceptional in that regard. I’ve known of tobacco smokers who only occasionally partook of the killer weed, but for every one of them there are at least several hundred who smoke daily, usually several times daily.

I wish it weren’t so harmful. I loved smoking. There’s much to be said for nicotine.

I could smoke (always filterless) pipe a lot more, if I would want to, because it's astonishing less harsh to the throat than smoking cigar. But since I started smoking (affordable) cigar in 2010, I always felt comfortable on doing it not too often, so I just don't see any need to change my behaviour on smoking pipe.
Call it a kind of "subliminal fear" to risk something . . .

 

[Zombie_61]

...I do suspect the big difference is whether one inhales or not. It does seem to be that the habitual (particularly cigarette) smokers I know are the inhalers. Of course, that's merely anecdotal....

I suspect you're correct. I smoked cigarettes for 30 years before I finally stopped, and the thing I miss most is the sensation of the smoke traveling through my Trachea on it's way to my lungs. I've never been a regular cigar or pipe smoker, but I'm told you don't inhale while smoking either so I wouldn't experience that same sensation if I were. Knowing that, I really don't see the point of smoking a cigar or pipe regularly except for being a deliberate annoyance to the people around you.

 

[BobHufford]

I just lost a friend and neighbor to a cancer that started from his habit of chewing tobacco. He was 53 and the last 7-1/2 years were brutal.

After watching my Grandfather die of emphysema when I was in my teens I pretty much stayed clear of smoking.

Now overeating? Yeah ... I have a problem there.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I used to occasionally “walk a cigar.” Like, once every six weeks or so. Have pretty much stopped since coming to Hawaii. The place is somehow not conducive to it. Technically, it’s illegal almost everywhere… can’t walk on the beach and smoke… can’t sit in a park and smoke. Our building is smoke free. Probably all for the good. since I was only an occasional user, it’s not that big a deal. But I’m now starting to get why old people sometimes feel that the world has changed under their feet and it is no longer ”their world.” Half the debates in society seem to have nothing to do with me. Nobody reads books anymore, and nobody wants to discuss anything beyond what’s on sale at Longs. My niece doesn’t watch or listen to the news because “it’s all manipulation.” So where does she get her information? From friends and social media. She got angry when I suggested that she might be living in a bubble. Yee gads, do I sound old, or what? Plus: this has wandered into “you know you are getting old” territory.

 

[GHT]

I just lost a friend and neighbor to a cancer that started from his habit of chewing tobacco. He was 53 and the last 7-1/2 years were brutal.

After watching my Grandfather die of emphysema when I was in my teens I pretty much stayed clear of smoking.

Now overeating? Yeah ... I have a problem there.

Maybe we should have a thread titled: "Mea Culpa." It means "through my fault" in Latin, and is recited as a prayer of confession in the Catholic Church.

Mea culpa is a phrase originating from Latin that means "my fault" or "my mistake" and is an acknowledgement of having done wrong. The expression is used also as an admission of having made a mistake that should have been avoided.

The stories of addiction, if that is the right word, have been an interesting and fascinating read. But whether it's tobacco, alcohol or even food, Bob, nothing comes near to, Glynn Wolfe (July 25, 1908 – June 10, 1997), also known as Scotty Wolfe, he was an American Baptist minister who resided in Blythe, California. Wolfe is best known for having the largest number of monogamous marriages, having married 31 different times, although one of his marriages was annulled. Perhaps Wolfe never learned the expression: "Yes dear!"

 

[Tiki Tom]

It exhausts me to contemplate multiple marriages. The record for marriages among people I know is five.

 

[GHT]

It exhausts me to contemplate multiple marriages. The record for marriages among people I know is five.

My sister-in-law had nine kids, now that has got to be exhausting. You wouldn't believe it though, she is such a slim little woman. Probably down to running after all those kids throughout the years.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Those who follow the Era Day by Day thread are well aware of one Tommy Manville, asbestos heir and confirmed practitioner of serial marriage. He treated marriages like other people treated potato chips, much to the hilarity of the tabloid press. If there was such a thing as the New York Daily News Page Four Hall of Fame, a life-size statue of Tommy, on the phone with his divorce lawyer, would greet you as you entered.

"Hey, whatta ya doing tonight? Wanna get married?"

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^^
I gotta wonder that if in generations past sexual relations outside the bounds of holy matrimony were so scandalous that people married with little concern for compatibility beyond those carnal attractions. People, especially young people, really wanna get laid, and not everyone was into slipping off to a no-tell motel a couple counties over. What if Mrs. Squareheels on the school board found out, Miss Second-Grade Teacher?

In my time, and in my world, there was nothing extraordinary in having had 31 serially monogamous relationships, a la the Baptist minister Mr. Wolfe, whom our friend GHT alluded to above. (There comes a point where a person loses track. Does seeing only one person for, say, a solid month, count as a monogamous relationship? Thirty-one, then? Izzat all?) The difference is that I and my friends and associates weren’t so constrained by the social conventions regarding such matters as were our parents and grandparents. Reputations and future professional and personal prospects weren’t ruined by it.

I’ll always remember my late sister-in-law telling a mutual shirttail relative of ours, a fellow who was considering running off to Vegas to get hitched for, like, the fourth or fifth time, “John, don’t you know that if you get married again that means you’ll just have to get divorced again?”

Liberace went to his grave denying his gayness. Many a gay celebrity found, or had found for them, a piece of arm candy with the other kind of plumbing. Appearances often count for more than reality.

 

[Rmccamey]

When I played baseball I chewed tobacco. The nicotine kick was a great stimulant and I used it sometimes in the rest of my life for a pick me up. I haven't chewed in 20 years but I am still sometimes temped to pick up a pack of RedMan chew. Other than grossing my wife out with the spit at least I don't stink out the joint with the smell of burning tobacco.

I chewed for about a year when I was 20. The tobacco and sugar rotted most of my back teeth very badly and I've lived with pain and poor teeth ever sense. A year of acting "grown up" taught me a valuable lesson.

 

[Edward]

I suspect you're correct. I smoked cigarettes for 30 years before I finally stopped, and the thing I miss most is the sensation of the smoke traveling through my Trachea on it's way to my lungs. I've never been a regular cigar or pipe smoker, but I'm told you don't inhale while smoking either so I wouldn't experience that same sensation if I were. Knowing that, I really don't see the point of smoking a cigar or pipe regularly except for being a deliberate annoyance to the people around you.

Funny thing, that. I've always been careful with the pipe to keep it away from other folks (I never smoked inside even when it was an option), but I've always found people tend to approach, say they like the smell (I stick to aromatics), and so on... The pipe seems to have a cuddly image not even Joe Stalin could dent, whereas cigarettes have the obvious negative connotations, and cigars have long been cinematic shorthand for unpleasant businessmen types. All down to media portrayal, of course.... but I do think the more pleasant smell of the pipe to a non-smoker greatly helps here. Perhaps also the fact that - at least for those i their forties and up now - many people remember fondly a grandparent who smoked a pipe?

I used to occasionally “walk a cigar.” Like, once every six weeks or so. Have pretty much stopped since coming to Hawaii. The place is somehow not conducive to it. Technically, it’s illegal almost everywhere… can’t walk on the beach and smoke… can’t sit in a park and smoke. Our building is smoke free. Probably all for the good. since I was only an occasional user, it’s not that big a deal.

Smoking has been slowly dying out here in the UK for many years (from a WW2 era peak when a third of women and half of all men smoked cigarettes), noticeably so even in my lifetime. I suspect the smoking ban had a big impact. Not only with social smokers (I know many, particularly women, who would have the odd cigarette when they had a drink in the pub, but weren't bothered to go outside and that hassle gave up when the ban came in), but also people who used to smoke at work. Back in the eighties, my dad had a colleague who was on sixty a day until their company went (twenty years or more ahead of the ban) over to no-smoking buildings with a single, small smoking room at the other end from the offices. (When she then gave up, she was forever remarking on how much money she suddenly had.) Of all the smokers I know now, I can't think of any who are even close to twenty a day. Partly expense now, but also with noone being able to smoke at their desk, or in public places, who would have the time and the space to smoke twenty a day now...

^^^^^^
I gotta wonder that if in generations past sexual relations outside the bounds of holy matrimony were so scandalous that people married with little concern for compatibility beyond those carnal attractions. People, especially young people, really wanna get laid, and not everyone was into slipping off to a no-tell motel a couple counties over. What if Mrs. Squareheels on the school board found out, Miss Second-Grade Teacher?

I grew up in a religious Northern Ireland where about the only thing you ever hear from the Church (protestant and more evangelical denominations even more so) about relationships is "you have to get married before you have the sex". I've seen many times younger people getting married because they were desperate for a shag whether they were suited to the long term or not. Many of them did manage to make a successful go of it, even if they had their relationship challenged by being married much earlier than they were ready for. Personal morality is personal morality and I certainly don't think it my place to deny consenting adults their own choices in relation to when (not) to exercise their sexuality, but when you see the effects of a hard line on this area, especially considering that when some of these rules originated people would be married as soon as puberty kicked in, rather than, as is increasingly a norm now, their middle thirties....

 

[Edward]

^^^^^^
I wonder if it’s akin to, say, living near a busy airport. It’s not that you stop hearing the airplane noise, but you come to disregard it.

Or, perhaps a better analogy is living near a dairy farm, or even just visiting one. It doesn’t take long NOT to notice the aroma.

Certainly. Years ago I worked for a guy who owned a big yacht and sailed competitively. I remember him talking about a couple in the club who had been heavy smokers, gave up, and then about six months later when they'd gotten past the stage of the cravings and liking the smell, they suddenly experienced it as others around them had, and were forever apologising profusely to all around about it.