I used to be a big smoker. I'm not really proud of that fact. Absolutely nothing good came from me smoking for almost 10 years. NOTHING! It was something I wanted to do when I was younger, and I did it so much when I was younger.....I wanted to continue doing it when I got older. Obviously, there was the chemical addiction, but truthfully, I just really liked doing it. I liked hanging out with other people, when they were smoking. I liked to have one after a stressful day at work. And most importantly, I loved having one when I was drinking. In fact, I would go out of my way to make sure I had a backup pack on hand, when we went out to the bars. Not necessarily because I planned on smoking them, but there were the handful of times a lady would ask me for a cigarette....yes, I used cigarettes at times to open with the ladies. To sum it up though, I just loved smoking.
Then in the summer of 2005, while I was living in Chicago, a story broke on the local news that they were going to ban smoking in restaurants, and other establishments where, if the main source of income wasn't from alcohol....you couldn't smoke in that establishment. Needless to say it caused a huge uproar. The idea behind the new policy was that it would help bring out some of the people who wouldn't go out, and to downtown hot spots that would usually be clouded with cigarette smoke, and spend downtown entertainment money. That, and breathing air that doesn't have a lot of toxins in it, is obviously better than breathing in air that does. One of the big protestors of this new policy was a Chicago hero of sorts. Mike Ditka. In addition to being a hall of fame football player, and taking the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl and winning it, he also owned a restaurant/cigar shop in Chicago. So, if people weren't allowed to smoke indoors anymore, it would seriously put a dent in his cigar sales profits. Other owners of several other like establishments complained....but to no avail. The ban went into effect, and now there is no smoking in any establishment, bar or otherwise.
Chicago has always been referred to as the Windy City, but it has another lesser known nickname-The Second City. Like New York is the first city, and Chicago isn't as big as New York, but it tries to be (according to some). So, because the other two big cities in the U.S. banned smoking in all establishments, Chicago couldn't be left behind. At first, I was pretty bummed. As a smoker, I visited some family in Los Angeles in the winter of 2004. I stood out back at The Dresden, to smoke. Which in Los Angeles, the weather in January is pretty mild, but still....it was a nuisance nonetheless. So, I joined the other citizens of Chicago in despair. "What the hell are we going to do now?" Truth be told, I actually quit smoking before the ban took effect. I have some Puerto Ricans to be thankful for that. My roommate and I lived in, what you would call, the highest populated Puerto Rican area of Chicago. You would go into the grocery store to get food, and unless you spoke and read Spanish, you wouldn't know if you were buying creamy or chunky peanut butter. There was a public park, a few blocks from our apartment. My roommate and I would go down there to play basketball. Now, I am a pretty competitive guy. So, when some 15 year old Puerto Rican kid is running circles around me on the playground, because I can't keep up with him because I am wheezing.....I knew that they all were going to have to start smoking, or I was going to have to stop. So, I stopped. I also moved back to Missouri. I had quit for sometime when I moved back. When I got back, a group of friends and I, decided to go out on the town. We went to some karaoke bar, and had a good time. When I got home that night, and took off my clothes to go to bed....they smelled like an ash tray. I had noticed the strong smell, when I walked into the bar that night....but it quickly faded away once I had been there for a few minutes.
The more I think about that, it scares me. If cigarette smoke can attach itself so strongly to my clothes in that short of a period, what has it done to my lungs? The bottom line of this post, is that the city of Joplin needs to follow suit with the larger cities in the country.....and put an end to smoking in public establishments. That, or pass a law that makes everyone start smoking.
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