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As I sit here enjoying my 69th
celebration of Veterans Day, I cannot keep from being thankful to God
for giving me a long and prosperous life. I have a wonderful wife, four
great kids, and 8 rambunctious grandchildren.
Looking back on my military service, I
realize I served at a very crucial time in history. Our country
experienced the "Bay of Pigs", the Pueblo Incident, the Cuban Missile
Crisis, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My grandkids
are reading about these things in their history books, and they look at
me with the "sure Papa" look in their eyes when I tell them about these
events.
I am writing to express a very serious
concern I have about my country. I am afraid we are gradually having our
individual rights taken away from us one at a time. Our country was
settled by adventurous individuals who experienced many tribulations in
order to find a place where they could be free to be themselves. If we
study the biographies of some of our greatest leaders, we find that they
had many habits and personal vices which are not acceptable in our
society today (i.e. cigarettes and whiskey and wild, wild women). I
could provide a list of our great leaders and their habits, but anyone
who studies them knows of these flaws. It is hard for me to picture
F.D.R. without his cigarette in the long holder or Winston Churchill
without a big cigar in his hand or mouth.
In the 20's our government decided to
purify the population with prohibition. All of us are aware of the
results of this movement. God gives us the choice of doing right or
wrong, but our "religious right" sure doesn't. They have risen above
God's dictates and the 10 commandments, and evidently they feel they
have reached a state of purification which allows them to cast the first
stone regarding anything they disapprove of. It would not surprise me if
we started burning witches again!! Thank God they have not found a way
to do away with the "wild, wild women"!
Our medical profession does not help
either. In the good old days most of the deaths were attributed to "old
age" or consumption. As we became more enlightened, we came up with a
name for anything we cannot cure. We call it cancer and blame smoking
for causing it. As the number of smokers decreased and cancer did not we
came to the conclusion it must be caused by second hand smoke, so now we
are endeavoring to do away with that. What will we blame it on when we
no longer have smokers? I was raised in a house full of smokers and have
smoked over 50 years myself.
To those who are taking away my smoking
rights I offer this challenge. I will assemble as many smokers as
necessary to fill up their garage and we will all smoke continuously for
an hour with all the doors and windows closed and sealed, if they will
sit in that same garage for an hour with their car running. Get the beam
out of your eye before you start worrying about the splinter in mine.
By now I expect you have figured out I am
writing to protest the new smoking laws passed in Washington. I realize
this letter will probably achieve nothing, but I hope it might expand
your viewpoint on this problem. I will no longer participate in jury
duty because I cannot go that long without a cigarette, and if I did I
would probably recommend the lethal injection for a J-walker or create a
"hung jury" because I no longer respect the laws of our land the land of
the free.
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