Update 2008-01-25: So Now That I'm An Ex-Smoker, What The Hell Do I Do With My Hands?

Smoking cigarettes didn't get a bad stigma until the early 80s. Prior to that, it was perfectly acceptable to smoke in locations you wouldn't dream of smoking in today. My younger readers probably won't be able to comprehend how we older folks were able to do the things we did.

When I was growing up, people used to smoke inside grocery stores, restaurants, airports, bus terminals, passenger planes, buses, and everywhere else you could possibly imagine. Some of the planes and buses still have the ashtrays in the armrests. If you want to see a historical perspective, watch two movies: Pendulum (1969) and Millennium (1989).

At my first duty station in the military, where I served from 1979 to 1981, we were required to have a large amber ashtray on every desk, just in case an officer (which I wasn't) walked by and wanted to put his cigarette out. Later, a federal building smoking restriction was put into place which curtailed smoking inside federal buildings, but not eliminating it altogether. That came in the 90s.

I started smoking (very little) when I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. I never really quit in what has been more than 30 years. I was never a heavy smoker, even when I was in the military and out in the field for days at a time. I was very active — the U.S. Marine Corps kept us all active whether we wanted to be or not. The so-called detrimental effects of smoking never seemed to affect any of us (me and others that smoked).

As federal and state taxes started getting piled onto the costs of buying cigarettes in the United States, many people cut down on how much they smoked because they couldn't afford to pay the outrageous prices. Sin taxes are what they called it. Just like the tax on beer, wine and liquor. It didn't affect me much because I didn't smoke a lot to begin with. Imagine my surprise when I moved to the Philippines last year. A pack of cigarettes (the brand I smoke) costs the equivalent of about 15 cents in American money.

A lot of you reading this might think that I'm an idiot for not quitting in order to sustain my health. Listen, I had to have a complete physical before I left the U.S. in order to become a resident here. One part of that was several x-rays of the chest area (to prove I wasn't affected by tuberculosis, which is very common here). Out of curiosity, after I got all of my test results back, I had the doctor examine my x-rays and tell me what he thought. He said they were perfectly normal. I asked him why he didn't say anything about me being a smoker. He said he didn't know I was one because my x-rays showed absolutely no signs of me being a smoker. Perhaps the reason they didn't show anything is because I don't smoke like a lot of smokers. I only inhale until I feel the smoke enter the top of the lungs and then I exhale. I've watched people smoke and inhale deeply. I tried that once and it made me gag.

I've been told over the years that smoking will take X number of years off of my life. Hmmm… My grandmother died in 1986 at the ripe old age of 90. She used tobacco of various forms (mostly chewing tobacco and snuff) her entire life and it wasn't what killed her. She died like George Burns (who smoke a cigar for most of his life and lived to be over 100) did, by falling down and not really recovering from it. I don't know how old I'll live to be. With the increased hostilities in just about every country in the world, I could get taken out as an innocent bystander at any time. There's one thing, the most important thing, that I've learned about life so far. I'll never get out alive.

I have only one vice in my life (well, one unhealthy one that is) and if I give that up, it will be because it's my choice to do so. I will not be forced into doing so by government regulations purchased by lobbyists of special interest groups.

A lot of blog authors will never come out and tell you that they're smokers because they're afraid of losing readers due to the anti-smoking stigma that seems to be so prevalent these days. As I said when I started writing my autobiography, I have absolutely nothing to hide. If what I do on the other end of the "tubes" bothers you to the point that you won't read my blog anymore, then so be it. I'm not going to apologize for something I still enjoy doing just because labels have been attached to it.