by Nanny Lowe
The party at our house was in full swing. It was 1977 and the house was full of baby boomers, most of the people were neighbors, friends, co-workers, all of us in our thirties. We were all two income families, with two children, the house with a recreation room, and as the song said "We had freedom, we had money, in the land of milk and honey, kids of the baby boom!"
We were still full of the exuberance of youth that allowed us to play practical jokes like college kids, but mature enough to know we had children now and jobs to apply ourselves to and we did work hard. And in the seventies thoughts of RRSPs’ were still far in the back of our minds and the talk of children s’ play groups and mortgages filled our conversations. Our time off that we spent together full of laughter, and most often, full of smoke, lots of smoke. It seemed in those days the majority of us smoked, either a little or a lot, but still it was smoking. My husband simply hates the habit. He had been known to screw ashtrays in cars tightly shut, but he found that you can’t stop a smoker that way. So for the few who did not smoke, they were stuck in rooms full of second hand smoke. Smoking was in, and at a party smoking was extreme. The prevailing attitude was ‘if it feels good do it’! Oh, yes, life was good!
At this particular party the subject of smoking came up as it usually did. Studies were beginning to show the reality of the real dangers of smoking, the cancer, emphysema, and various other diseases. Even bladder cancer had been linked to smoking. The seed had been planted that maybe this was not a good thing. For some it made them determined to quit, but others would say ‘I don’t plan to live forever anyway, big deal!’ and carry on with the two pack a day habit with the cavalier attitude of the day.
In the group that night one of the smoking men challenged the smokers to quit the habit at midnight. They took up the challenge. Then they huffed and puffed as many cigarettes as they could between eleven and twelve o’clock. The air was blue with smoke and the coughing and hacking and hoarse voices were the result of the smoking marathon. I was a light smoker and could take it or leave it, so didn’t get too involved, and also being the hostess I had no intention of taking sides in this thing. Not so for my smoke-hating spouse!
Twelve o’clock came and right on a cue all the smokers tossed their cigarettes into the wood stove. Any in pockets or purses were not touched but any lying around was thrown into the fire.
"OK," said my husband, " if there is no smoking there will be no need for ashtrays!"
He went around and collected every ashtray and threw those in the fire as well. No big loss, all dollar store items and the occasional souvenir, so they would not be missed, and certainly if no one was smoking they would not be needed. And that was that, a group of non-smokers now had a firm resolve that smoking is bad, smoking hurts and they had quit, once and for always. The party carried on, and I went to prepare food and tidy up around like any good hostess. The group settled down and remained still smokeless after half an hour. Things were looking good!
Then came the shocker! I walked back into the room to find half a dozen grown men and women on their hands and knees with a poker, furiously trying to rescue the ashtrays. The whole quitting idea had met with disaster when one of the women lit a cigarette out of a fresh pack she had in her purse, announced she never said that she had quit, and with that the rest of the quitters turned into withdrawal freaks who would put their hand in a hot stove for a dime store ashtray. One ashtray was rescued. The woman passed the cigarettes around and everyone made the remark that they would start their quitting the next day. The party continued as if nothing had happened, the air turned blue again, the huffing and puffing continued and when the package of cigarettes was finished they all decided to call it a night.
I often wondered after that how many convenience stores close to my house had people in buying cigarettes at one thirty that morning. I couldn’t believe I had witnessed the best made and fastest broken exercise in quitting smoking of my lifetime thus far! I had some kind of built in little motor that allowed me to smoke a cigarette and then never touch another until whenever, whether it is the next week or next month. My friends could not all do that.
The rest of the parties that winter were still smoke filled, and often some of that smoke was mine. But one by one these people quit over the next few years, and now some of us are actually offended by even the smell of cigarette smoke.
Many of our group were health professionals, such as nurses, doctors, pharmacists and we saw the effects of smoking every day we worked. But still it took a long time for the message to reach our dumb brains that Smoking Kills. Now we look back in dismay at the photos taken at various gatherings, all of us holding a cigarette, or cigar. Feeling very invincible and totally ‘cool’. The photos make us look silly and very unprofessional now.
However, that is the story of the shortest exercise in ceasing smoking I ever witnessed and we often talked about it with such surprise. Professional people, knowledgeable health care providers, down on their hands and knees poking an ash tray from a glowing wood stove fire. Such was the power of the cigarette!
Now we have moved on. We are now fighting the battle of the chocolate and cholesterol high foods, and those we don’t have to think too hard about because now we are older, somewhat wiser and we know that if we make those decisions to kill ourselves the problem is ours to own.
No ‘butts’ about it, we get too soon old and too late smart!!
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