Guest column by Ron Tunning
My earliest recollection of an attempt on my part to smoke a cigarette reaches back to my pre-school days during the summer of 1956. Our family had only recently moved into a new home in Florence's Greenbriar subdivision, and my eldest brother had swiped a pack of Viceroy from my mom to share with some boys in the neighborhood he was hoping to impress into friendship.
There was an enormous pile of old lumber and debris stacked near the woods which bordered the rear of the subdivision, and my brother decided to use it as fuel for a bonfire, doubting that the three matches he'd brought along would be enough to ge! t us through 20 cigarettes.
I can't recall that any of us ever managed to light one of the ''coffin nails'' because before we knew it the fire had raged out of control and the volunteer fire department had to be summoned to extinguish the flames. My father was one who believed that to ''spare the rod was to spoil the child,'' so I imagine it was quite some time before we again entertained a notion to smoke.
My first purchase of a pack of cigarettes occurred when I was 14. Each summer I'd spend several weeks with my grandparents in Akron, Ohio, and my parents had decided I was old enough to travel alone by Greyhound.
When the bus stopped in Washington Court House to pick up passengers, I exited long enough to plunk a quarter in a machine for a pack of BelAir.
Before making it to Mansfield, I'd inhaled enough mentholated tobacco smoke to have created a fog throughout the bus, and I soon discovered that instead of feeling ''cool'' and terribly grown-up, I was beco! ming increasingly ill. In fact, I distinctly recall thinking I was about to die, and my desire to be perceived as an adult gave way to a childlike need for parental comfort and reassurance.
Within a couple of years of that trip I'd forgotten the ill side effects and was inhaling a pack of Marlboros per day. By the time I'd graduated from high school and entered college that habit had increased to two daily packs. A subsequent tour in the military inflated consumption to nearly three packs daily, gratefully at commissary prices.
Unlike most of my family and friends, I've yet to abandon the habit. I continue to generate healthy profits for the Philip Morris Tobacco Company, and considerable tax revenue for both the state and federal governments. Admittedly, I've probably spent enough on converting leaves to ash to have funded a small medical center.
One would be reasonable to assume that I should know better than to continue polluting my lungs and the air around me, ! and to expect that I'd have a greater regard for my health, if not an appropriate consideration for those who must share the secondhand smoke. I suspect that aside from my obvious addiction to nicotine, my reticence about quitting is an indication of a rather adolescent form of rebellion. The more I'm told to quit, and the more adamant society becomes in its efforts to eliminate smoking, the more determined I am to continue.
The recent news reports on non-smokers trying to force the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to eliminate all smoking areas, citing the ''Americans with Disabilities Act'' as prohibiting smoking in public buildings where those with asthma or other breathing disorders might be bothered by secondhand smoke, has hardened my resolve to continue lighting up, particularly in public places.
My first inclination was to file a countersuit claiming that my nicotine addiction qualifies as a disability, and as such, should be afforded ! the same accommodation offered to those requiring wheelchair lifts or non-smoking areas. If elevators servicing parking garages are required to provide Braille encoded controls, nicotine addicts should have a space to emit their socially offensive haze.
Having decided, however, that the courts are already inundated with ridiculous lawsuits, I've chosen instead to offer a compromise to those bothered by secondhand smoke. I'll avoid lighting-up in public if they'll park their automobiles.
Think about it for a moment. Would you rather inhale the smoke from my cigarette or be forced to breathe in the exhaust from your automobile? How many people can you recall having committed suicide by locking themselves in a garage and puffing away on a Camel?
I will admit that smoking is unhealthy, unsightly, and a thoroughly disgusting habit. So is cheating on your spouse or wearing spandex unless you have the body of Cindy Crawford. Tattoos and body piercing are viewed as repulsi! ve by many, and drivers with cell phones glued to their ears are dangerous.
But I'm not about to suggest that laws be passed to force people to adhere to my sense of propriety or good taste, nor do I look fondly upon those who do. In so far as I'm concerned, you can eat your Big Macs and shovel pints of Graeter's ice cream into your bulging midriff, or you can parade around in a chartreuse pants suit with spiked hair and a dog collar around your neck if it makes you happy.
And me? I'll be annoying you with my Marlboros, sans the cowboy outfit, unless, of course, you've permanently parked your car.
Ron Tunning is a former developer and freelance writer living in Florence.
Publication date: 06-25-98
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