[Leica] Smoking

[msmall at infionline.net (Marc James Small)]

I have been a pipe smoker for 37 years.  I am happy with my vice.  Having
grown up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the High Days of the steel
industry, I have absorbed enough soot and smog to kill me already:
anything I inhale from tobacco fumes has to argue with some REALLY
cargenogenic stuff to make an impression.

My family is relatively immune from cancer.  My folks generally die in
their 80's from terminal nastiness:  my own mother passed five months back
at age 82, loyal to her box of wine and carton of cigarettes a week up to
the end  She had a peaceful heart attack and death over a three hour
time-span.  I can only hope that we all pass on as peacefully as she did.
(My non-drinking and non-smoking father, by comparison, had a stroke and
lingered on for 11 months in a comatose state, something his worst enemies
would probably not have wished on him, though Dad was capable of making
some REAL enemies.)

In the end, genetics does more that anything else in determining longevity
and, even then, lifespan is a crapshoot.  (I am enough of a Christian not
to fear death but, then, I am enough of a Christian to understand the
virtues of having that finest advocate of all time on my side in explaining
my sins in the hereafter!)  Scions of even the longest-lived of families
can die young for no explicable reason -- my own sister died of cancer at
age 31 some 29 years back.  Those whose family members die young can live
long.  Still, genetics seem to count for more than anything else.

Secondary smoke has been shown to not be a real issue save for extreme
conditions:  it can be shown, for instance, that twenty working years of
exposure to a co-worker smoking constantly and sitting within ten feet may
add to the risk of lung cancer but, other than this, the issue is of no
merit and the Federal Courts readily disposed of the rather dubious EPA
study of the early 1990's.  

At its heart, objections to smoking by the majority who are non-smokers are
simply a matter of style.  Non-smokers do not want to inhale tobacco while
in public places nor do they wish to do so while in restaurants.  So be it,
and this is a reasonable request.  But the merchant is torn in two:  the
majority of those who populate bars are smokers, while the majority of
diners are not.  In the end, the owners have sought an absolute ban by the
government so that they are not forced to make decisions which might prove
unpopular.

Obviously, accomodations have to be made.  When I am around non-smokers, I
do not smoke -- in truth, the couple with whom my wife and I are most
likely to go out with are non-smokers and I accede to the majority rules
without a problem.  When I have a visitor who is a non-smoker, I work with
them for mutual comfort.  Common courtesy, we call it in these hustings.

And do not forget the salutary effect of nicotine:  those of you who are
former smokers will recall the effect you first felt when you lit up that
first smoke in the morning.  Inhaling nicotine provides a burst of
approximately ten IQ points to the average citizen.  Smokers can handle
complex problems more readily than non-smokers as a result.

In my office, there are two rules of decorum:

First, do not throw your cigarette or cigar butts on the floor.  The
ashtrays are there for a reason.

Second, please remove your hat on entering this office.

I have far more trouble enforcing the second than I do the first.  I have
lost one (1) client over twenty-five years because I allowed smoking in my
office, and so be it.  I offer my legal abilities for sale, not my
lifestyle choices.  (The small and medium-sized law firms in this area of
western Virginia are generally non-smoking:  the large firms all allow
smoking as their clients, the executives of companies, generally smoke.
Again, go figure.)

I will die of something, someday.  I am not going to greet death willingly
but there is a time and place when I shall pack it in and go on to the
hereafter.  If the current pleasure of smoking brings me to a briefer end
than a more unhappy existence here would bring, then, so be it:  I am going
to die someday and whether it be today or tomorrow or in fifty years, there
will come a point at whcih I am to die.  I am 54 at the present and can
accept death today, though there are many things I have yet to do -- those
books on Voigtl?nder, Kilfitt, and Novoflex remain unwritten! -- but others
can fill in the gaps if my time comes soon.  If not, I intend to remain
productive until that point.

And, yes, as a smoker of Latakia blends, I, too, find most cigarette odors
blandly offensive.  The stuff I smoke clears out entire city blocks and
engenders EPA Red Alerts.

Marc

msmall@infionline.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!