Smokin'!

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Cigar smoke gives me a literal headache, Aleshanee. I don't know if those men on that boat were stupid or awfully brave!
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i never understood it.... even after my dad explained it to me - though he thinks they are stupid for doing it too.... but he was a deep saturation diver himself many years ago... and he says in that world a diver can die at any time for an unlimited number of reasons.... most of which are not even their fault or due to a mistake they made.... .. and in most cases death will happen so quickly they will never see it coming or know what happened... .. ..so having a chance to tempt death and cheat it on their own terms is actually a comfort.... ..... he was and still is very brave... but i am pretty certain he never smoked a cigar in the decompression chamber himself... he says he never did... and says the permanent damage deep saturation diving does to your body is bad enough without making it worse...... .
 
Smokin' cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo....

 
My parents both smoked (at least two packs of Marlboro's) and I grew up in the era where most back windows didn't roll down.
It was suffering to the nth degree. I reeked of smoke, but didn't realize it. My friends tried to get me to smoke when I was 11 years old, but I refused. Both my parents died well before their parents age. Dad died at 56 from a heart attack, and he had lung cancer and throat cancer. His mother passed at 95 and his dad made it to 76. My mother died from tonsil cancer at 70 years of age...the tumor hemorrhaged and she drowned in her own blood. Her mother made it to 88 and her dad passed at 76.
Smoking has taken two of the most meaningful people in my life.
 
I never liked cigarettes (thankfully), but I used to enjoy a rare cigar back in the day. On some years for my birthday, we’d drive south to an area of Tampa called Ybor City and go to a cigar bar. They specialized in expensive coffee and, of course, cigars. It’s probably been over a decade since I’ve burned one.
I used to smoke anywhere from a pack to two packs a day, but I quit on March 21, 2000. It's been 25 years. I liked cigars as well. But, I NEVER liked chewing tobacco or snuff. My wife's grandmother used to do snuff.
 
My wife's grandmother used to do snuff.
I spent the night in a hurricane shelter and sat near an old woman who didn't have a tooth in her head.. she had a chaw in her mouth and a spit cup in her hand. All through the night, "ppt-too"... 😖 By 4am I was praying someone would come over and shoot me.
 
I used to smoke anywhere from a pack to two packs a day, but I quit on March 21, 2000. It's been 25 years. I liked cigars as well. But, I NEVER liked chewing tobacco or snuff. My wife's grandmother used to do snuff.
I dipped long cut and pouches for probably 20 years. Quit tobacco quite a few years ago but still use nicotine pouches, mostly Zyn.
 
I snuffed as a kid. My dad found my stash. He didn't berate me or punish me. He simply said " I know you've been snuffing son, when that stuff rots your lip off. Don't ask me to pay for the doctor to put your face back together". 😳

That did the trick. No more snuffing from that day forward for me.
 
I started smoking at about age 10. I started inhaling about age 11. Smoked regularly till I was 17. Then I started chewing snuff, and did that pretty heavily till the Lord called me to himself in college at 21. It took me some time to quit. It was on and off for a couple years. Copenhagen is powerful. The nicotine enters your system almost immediately. Then from 1986-2007 I quit drinking and using tobacco. I think I smoked 10 times in those years. Then I started smoking daily again and did that until about 2020. It wasn't hard to quit, I just enjoyed it. I never got to the pack a day kind of habit, since I quit when I was 17.

My dad died at 58 and my step dad died at 58, both from lung/heart problems. But both were heavy alcoholics as well. Now my brother is an alcoholic, but quit smoking 10 or so years ago.
 
I was about 18 years old playing baseball. Somewhere in the outfield was my position.
Someone gave me something that looked like a big fig bar, but it was plug.
They said, take a chomp out of this but don't swallow, just spit.
I took a big chomp and went running out to the field.
I did nothing but swerve around and want to puke.
Thankfully it was quiet for us during that inning.
That cured me of any of that mess.
That and the memories of my uncle's spittoons filled with his mail pouch remains. o_O 😵‍💫🤪
 
I had my first tobacco at about 27 or 28, a celebratory cigar at a buddy's bachelor party. I've had maybe a half-dozen stogies since. I like them fine, but I don't want to be a smoker. I don't see either sin or vice in the occasional smoke, but I also don't see any reason to make a habit of it (in either sense).
 
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