I smoked cigarettes for about 10 years. I loved rolling my own. I went through periods of smoking Kools menthols and Camel filterless. I loved to smoke with a drink or a cuppa coffee, before and after some demanding task. As a shy person, I valued that cigarettes gave me entree into a community, especially when I traveled foreign lands. Gotta light? Spare a smoke? My brand is OPs (Other Peoples’ – Von Anderen, auf deutsch). I smoked when it was cheap to smoke. When I quit, I was smoking more than a pack a day.

My uncle couldn’t quit, even when he needed to prop himself up on the kitchen counter to clutch a cigarette in trembling hands. His elbows bled from that effort, despite the foam pads his accommodating wife cut for him.

An old friend didn’t have time to quit. He died of a massive heart attack at 37 after smoking two packs a day for 20 years.

My buddy quit in order to get on the lung transplant list. She’s not quite sick enough to be at the top of the list. That would amaze you if you saw her struggle to cross a room or witnessed one of her oxygen-starved attacks (even with an oxygen tank).

I quit for love. None of my friends smoked by then, but it took my girlfriend to give me reason to save my own life. More than 25 years later, we’ve been married for years. Thank you, darling.

And after all this time without cigarettes, I still feel the pull. Nicotine is powerful and I believe one is never really free of it, although one can overcome it and construct a smoke-free life with the help of friends, family, and community.

You have the right to kill yourself, if you can do so without endangering others. You may have the sense to save yourself. It’s your choice. As for the recent controversy over UNM’s smoking ban: if the ban helps one person quit or, better, keeps one person from this suicidal addiction, it is a success.

One of my favorite bloggers recently made a ridiculous remark about the impact of Baby Boomers on our society. Rather than quarrel with him in the comments section of his blog as his guest, I’ll use my own blog to make a few observations.

The original blog posting and comments appear at http://dangerousmeta.com/site/comments/you_couldnt_wait_just_five_minutes/ .

Garret Vreeland had my sympathy in his complaint about some idiots who ruined the recently painted lines on his street. I feel for his frustration with impatient idiots willing to ruin anything. These are the same pigs who toss trash out their car windows. But, in conclusion, Garret blames the Baby Boomers. In the comments, he goes on to explain that it doesn’t matter whether these idiots were themselves Baby Boomers – the Boomers destroyed all decency forty years ago and everything bad today is their fault. (I’m paraphrasing. He’s welcome to backpedal and tone down such nonsense.)

Garret comments:

The behavior pattern started in the late ’60’s … I was around to notice the sea-change in our culture. Other generations since have adopted the same behavior, thinking it is ‘normal’. I feel justified in blaming the Boomer generation for the mindset (of which I am a member, BTW, though thankfully the very tail end).

Many sources agree the Boom ran from 1946 to 1964. Presumably, Garret was between 4 and 8 in the Summer of Love. Right there on the front lines of that sea-change with his thumb in his mouth.

Recently, Winthrop Quigley wrote a very thoughtful piece on Vietnam, following McNamara’s death. Quigley observed we are still fighting Vietnam nearly 40 years later. Some of those with strong opinions about Vietnam weren’t even born until after it was over. A similar strong vein of dislike for hippies, peaceniks, and Boomers lives on, even in people who wore diapers when Boomers helped to change the world. Were all those changes for the better? Clearly not. But, I won’t suffer lightly a fool blaming me for other fools’ bad behavior. You won’t change anyone’s behavior by insulting an entire generation. But, it is easier than doing something constructive. But, don’t blame Garret – he’ll claim it’s the Boomers that made him a whiner. peace, mjh