I think most of us can safely say we did not know what to expect when we started smoking. Those of us who saw people smoke in our own homes thought it was fairly normal behavior. Other folks saw TV or movies where the bad guys (only ever the bad guys) smoked. Street hustlers, purse-snatchers, and other low lifes smoked cheap cigarettes. Oil barons and Wall Street wolves smoked cigars. A good guy might smoke a pipe. I’m thinking grandpa in the rocker on the front porch, but other than that, the media showed smokers as criminals.
I was never worried that I would become a criminal. But I also didn’t worry about becoming and addict, either. Addiction is another thing that only happens to the bad guys in movies. Addiction happens to bad people and rock stars and high school athletes that don’t listen to their coaches. It wouldn’t happen to me. My daddy smoked, and HE was a Navy Aviator, certainly the model of probity.
I didn’t realize I would never stop coughing. Coughing didn’t make you a bad guy in the movies; it meant you were a poor coal miner. Or, if you were a pretty, young woman, coughing was caused by “consumption”.
Women who smoked were either home-wreckers or man-eaters; neither of which sounded appealing to me.
I didn't realize that I would become a sneak. I never thought I would stink.
Real life is not the same as the movies
