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Jewish World Review
Dec. 3, 2007
/ 23 Kislev 5768
I (cough) was a teenage smoker!
By
Dave Barry
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
As a ranking national opinion-maker (currently in 1,539th place), I would like to do my part to get teenagers to stop smoking cigarettes. Ready? Here goes:
You teenagers stop smoking right now!! There! Did that do the trick?
I didn't think so. Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as "a person who remembers when there was no Velcro."
I can understand this. I was a young person once, shortly after the polar ice caps retreated, and I distinctly recall believing that virtually all adults were clueless goobers. Exhibit A: their hats. If you young people look at photographs taken 35 or 40 years ago, you will note that the adults, no matter how nice the weather is, are wearing major formal headgearfor the men, the serious Mr. Businessman model, the kind of hat that makes everybody who puts one on, including Boy George, look like the late Fred MacMurray; for the women, all kinds of comical, ottoman-sized fashion contraptions, sometimes festooned with enough artificial fruits and vegetables to feed an artificial family of four.
We young people were not inclined to take advice from people who voluntarily looked like that. So we tended to disregard their rules, of which there were many. For example, in those days, there was a rule that you absolutely had to wait for one full hour after eating before you could go swimming, because otherwise you would get a cramp and drown. This rule was strictly enforced by wristwatch-wearing moms. Apparently, there was a required course in Mother School wherein leading medical authorities showed, with diagrams, that if a person were to eat a single saltine cracker and then wait only 59 minutes before going into the water, this person would instantly cramp up and drown, even if the water were only ankle deep.
Naturally, we young people broke this rule every chance we got. I will reveal here, for the first time, that on one occasion, when I was approximately 9, Neil Thompson and I ate hot dogs under water. We survived and we realized, as most young people realize, that we were invulnerable.
Of course, grownups in those days told us that we shouldn't smoke. But it was hard to take them seriously, because most of them smoked. Also, cigarettes were advertised on television in commercials that stressed the amazing scientific advances that had been incorporated into modern cigarettes. For example, Parliament cigarettes had a commercial wherein perky singers informed the public that:
"Every Parliament gives you . . . extra margin!/ The filter's recessed and made to stay/ A neat, clean, quarter-inch away!"
Think of it! A recessed filter! No way you could get cancer from a cigarette like that!
My first cigarette was a Kent (with the Micronite filter, whatever Micronite was). Louie Rotando gave it to me one night in the summer I turned 15. Words cannot describe how cool and mature I felt, inhaling the smoke, then exhaling it through my nose, then inhaling, then exhaling, thenin a major display of mature coolnesslying down in the dirt and retching until dawn.
That was my body's way of telling me that it personally did not care for cigarettes. But I did not listen to my body: I was determined to become a smoker. My reasoning was the same then as it is for teenagers today:
Arguments against smoking: It's a repulsive addiction that slowly but surely turns you into a gasping, gray-skinned, tumor-ridden invalid, hacking up brownish gobs of toxic waste from your one remaining lung.
Arguments for smoking: Other teenagers are doing it.
Case closed! Let's light up! That's what I did, and I eventually reached the point where not only could I tolerate cigarettes, but I actually needed them so badly that if I ran out of my own, late at night in the newspaper office, I would root around in the wastebaskets and smoke stale, stinking, spit-stained butts discarded by people I didn't even like.
Of course, you young smokers starting out today have years to go before you reach that level of coolness and maturity. Meanwhile, I'm sure you don't want to hear any lectures from the likes of me. So I'm going to just shut up now.
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Previously:
Frogs hop into the headlines
Great American turkeys
Mr. Fixit strikes again
Einstein Gap: It's all relative
Lost in space
The Trojan Twinkie Caper
MR. LANGUAGE PERSON: WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!
Feeding your worst fears
Sock it to 'em, sartorially
The rubber band man
Does public art make sense?
Needling the birthday boy
On calamities (in the sky and on your head)
Modern medical mysteries
Bored games
Dave's Field of Nightmares
Lewis and Clark stepped here!
The ultimate water gun
Poetic license, with no rhyme or reason
Great moments in science
This won't hurt a bit
One giant leap for frogkind
My visit to Nether-Netherland
Smile and say cheese
Shooting carps in Wisconsin
The perfect storm
Stickup in aisle 3
Please don't feed the tourists
Land of the Frozen Earwax
The birth of wail
Honk if you're married and can't cope with anger
Rabbit ears get poor reception
Percentage of frogs in food jumps
Night of the living roach
Mr. Language Person: Some words of wisdomality
Mind your P's and Q's and teas
Loose lips sink sequels
NOW WE'RE COOKIN'!
The right to Bear clubs
Science: It's just not fair
Road warrior specials
Where's the beef? (Low fat)
There is nothing like a male (guys)
MOTIVATE! THEN FAIL! NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS
Rooting for the midgets of the Midway
Revolt of the rodents
He can drive any truck named Tonka
All bets are off
How do you spell S-A-T?
Sour grapes and mud
Pro golf: A game of non-stop boredom
Guard-dog vigilance is nothing to sniff at
Warm and fuzzy Cold War memories
The funny side of Beowulf
HOLY HEAT WAVE, BATMAN!
Abs-olute madness
Beware of brainy bugs
I'm in a sorry state
The frog plague: The inside story
If she had a hammer….
Keeping an eye on crime
Camping and Lewis and Clark
When in Iowa, don't forget to duck
Junior takes the wheel
Growing old with Dave
Sites for sore eyes
Beware of sheep droppings
Ireland, land of bad Elvis
Mr. Peabrain's misadventures
When they're out to get you, keep cool
Mothers of invention
Kill 'em with kindness
© 2006, The Miami Herald Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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