Is smoking a sort of social marker?
One of my twentysomething kids had a (mild) adventure yesterday: one of the tires on her little Kia developed a leak that seemed more than slow - she could hear the air hissing. If she was handy, and if her Kia was equipped with a spare, she could have changed the tire herself. But as neither of those conditions held true, she did what many young suburban women do in such a plight: she called dad. And I did what many suburban dads do in that situation: had her call the motor club to send over someone who actually is handy enough, and gets paid, to address flat tires.
The motor club sent over a guy in a tow truck (or possibly a flatbed; I didn't actually witness any of this firsthand). As there was no spare, her remaining option was to have the car towed to the auto repair facility of her choice. That meant climbing into the truck cab with this guy (which, for her, was pretty adventurous) and riding with him.
During the trip, he asked her if she minded if he vaped. As a matter of fact, she did; but she didn't feel herself to be in a strong position to dictate his personal habits, so she said, "Sure, go ahead". She reports that the remainder of their small talk was about autos, something about which he knew a great deal and she almost nothing. Among the car-related topics: he asked her if she was aware that Kias are easy to steal; and then proceeded to describe, in great detail, how one goes about stealing a Kia.
It occurs to me that the two occupants of that truck cab were in different social classes. I wouldn't describe the classes as economically demarcated; the driver, who apparently co-owns the business with his dad, may well make more money than my daughter, who is a young public school teacher at the lower end of that school district's pay scale. But his conversation topic - how to steal a car - and even his smoking, strike me as social-group markers. My daughter is a suburban professional woman with a college degree. I would be willing to bet that there is not a single smoker in her social circle.
Even my generation, which has had more than its fair share of smokers (including me in my idiotic youth), is pretty smoke-free, at least in the circles I travel in. Nobody in my family, or even my extended family if one extends it to cousins of the first degree, smokes. I can only think of one friend who smokes; he shared my idiotic youth with me, then quit like me but then, unlike me, started up again many years later. My friends, like my daughter's friends, are college-educated suburbanites. Even those friends who don't live in towns big enough to have suburbs, live in homes that are indistinguishable from homes one finds around here in the suburbs. We have lived in this house for over 30 years, and the only person I can recall someone trying to smoke here was my mother-in-law on one occasion. She knew her daughter didn't want anyone smoking in the house, so when she thought we weren't looking, she pulled a portable ashtray out of her purse, lit up, and tried to blow the smoke out through a nearby open window. She looked like a 15 year old trying to smoke weed in her bedroom.
When I started my work career, during my idiotic youth, I was a smoker. In those days, in the early 1980s, it was acceptable to smoke in the workplace. I had an ashtray at my desk, next to the computer terminal. So did many other workers. At some point during the 1980s (I think it was), a sort of anti-smoking social revolution swept America, and smoking became banned in offices. Smokers had to go outside. They huddled against the wall of the building, near the doors. I had quit smoking by then, so I looked at smokers as an outsider, trying really hard not to be one of those reformed-sinner anti-smoking zealots. The little knot of smokers near the back door looked kind of shabby, but there was a real shared community of smokers - some actual social capital developed. Business got done during those smoking breaks. Then, sometime in the 1990s or 2000s, things became even more draconian: smokers had to sit in their cars, or even farther away. At the company I worked for, smoking wasn't allowed anywhere on the property, even inside an automobile. The smokers sat on the curb, looking even more disheveled than in the huddled-near-the-back-door days.
I guess I see smoking as a social marker. The tradition in which I grew up was: smoking was glamorous. People with social ambition smoked. For a guy, it was a sign of toughness, even if one wasn't a street brawler; up until the Vietnam era, many American men had served in the military, and smoking apparently was a part of that macho culture. In the pre-feminist days, a gentleman would light a lady's cigarette and then hand it to her. Now smoking has experienced a sort of reverse polarity. It's become grubby. It's not done by a certain type of person. (Unless that person happens to be an immigrant; I think the social distinctions in other countries may be different than they are here in the US.)
Of course, smoking isn't freely chosen. Tobacco is addictive. I think we non-smokers need to look with compassion on smokers. All smokers understand the health risks, and some are defiant about them, but some others wouldn't mind stopping - but they can't.
As far as I can see, you want smoking to be a moral marker between the people like you who virtuously quit or never started, and the immoral people who vape and talk about things like stealing Kias.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, the self-congratulatory bourgeoisie stuff that gets touted in this group is too much. I really need to leave you people alone and look for Jesus elsewhere.
PS, maybe teaching your daughter to change a tire and buying her a spare could be added to your list of virtues? Christ knows it would save her from having to ride in truck cabs with the proles.
I see smoking as an era marker as much as a social marker. Growing up when I did I certainly knew a lot of smokers. I barely know any now. Um, one reason is that some of them died. My dad was never a smoker, because that would really be suicidal for an asthmatic. But he did chew tobacco, pretty much all his adult life. And lived to be 93, go figure. But nicotine is really, really addictive. Some people say that it's harder to quit than heroin (I wouldn't know, about either of them!) I had a neighbor lady who was a heavy smoker. She had leukemia, not lung cancer. But her doctors said she absolutely had to quit smoking. I would sometimes pick up Nicorette for her at Walmart, because she had switched to the nicotine gum instead of cigs. She eventually passed away, but I don't think the Nicorette shortened her life, maybe it helped her get through the tough stuff a little.
ReplyDeleteThere was a woman at work who would quit smoking when she was pregnant, but would go back to smoking after the baby was born. Said she did it outside. But it mystified me how she could quit, and then go back, it must have been some kind of endorphin thing.
Of the smokers I am acquainted with, it's singular how many of them are veterans. They may have some degree of PSTD from the action they went through. I can't be too judgy if it helps them deal with it.
DeleteJim, don't feel too bad about your daughter not knowing how to change a tire. I'm an old farm girl who actually does know how to change one, but have skated through life without actually doing so. I always figured if I could get someone else to do it, so much the better. Besides, I haven't any confidence that I could get the lug nuts tightened enough that the wheel wouldn't fall off.
I’m around 15 years older than you are Jim. In my youth, most of the cool kids smoked. I was hopelessly uncool, but when I worked as an elf in high school, I started smoking in the employee lounge during my breaks because all the other kids working there (most of whom were cool crowd) smoked. I continued to smoke in college. I’d say that about half the girls in my Catholic womens college smoked. Most of the boys we dated did also. I quit when I got engaged because my husband wasn’t a smoker. In the early years of our marriage (our 50th is tomorrow) about half the people we knew smoked. Lots of smoke at social events. Now we don’t know anyone who smokes. Over the years everyone we knew who smoked quit. The word about smoking and cancer gradually spread. It became harder because of the bans in buildings, restaurants, stores etc. Those forced no smoking areas did help a lot of people I knew to quit. But one friend didn’t quit until she got mouth cancer at about age 60. She was the last of our neighbors to quit. But most quit on their own. My mother smoked her whole life. My father smoked until he got emphysema. Since smoking is now banned in most places here where people congregate - malls, restaurants, etc, I seldom see a smoker these days. I honestly don’t even know what vaping is! I guess I’ll Google it.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I agree with Jean about teaching your daughter to change a tire. When my husband and I were dating I went on a road trip to Boston with a friend. It was winter. I got a flat tire (I did have a spare) on the highway in a rural area in western Massachusetts. It was winter, no cell phones, far from towns, and traffic was sparse. A highway patrol car stopped and the cop changed my tire. And yes, he did flirt with us a bit while doing it. But it was harmless flirting. I suppose these days even that would be considered suspect behavior. When I told my now- husband about it he was very upset and taught me how to change a tire. He felt that having to simply wait in a car (in freezing temps) was dangerous both because of the cold and because it made me vulnerable to any nut job who might stop seeing two young women stranded, nothing but forest all around, and cars passing by only every few minutes. Now there are cell phones, but having driven coast to coast a half dozen times, I know that sometimes there are some long stretches of highways with no signal for cellular. Suburban Chicago would have consistent coverage but if she ever ventures beyond suburbia the coverage might be spotty.
As far as smoking being a social marker these days, it does seem to be the case. The dividing line isn’t income, as you note, but now seems mostly correlated with the level of education a person has completed. Education is the same thing that is a major divider of Americans these days in politics, religion, TV show preferences, the divorce rate, unwed pregnancy rate, food preferences, and a host of other things.
Jean, please don’t give up on us. Maybe consider hanging in with us a penance that you can «offer up ». Points for heaven.
Anne, I agree about education being a divider. I've described the college experience before as a finishing school. It's an experience which is shared with millions of people - and not shared by millions of others. It may be an in-the-club / not-in-the-club divider.
DeleteSmoking was modish when I was young. When it came to peer pressure versus burning useless unpleasant crap in my mouth and lungs, the peers could take a walk. Perhaps ending up a non-smoker was a benefit of being an outsider outlier exile.
ReplyDeleteFor the record: I know how to change a tire. I have actually changed tires, although not for many years. Given the choice between changing a tire myself or having someone do it who does it professionally, I'll choose the latter, 100 times out of a hundred. The roadside service is tossed in as a perk with our car insurance, so it's available to us.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about jump-starting a car. Although we did do that within the last six months, at the parish. It took about eight of us + Youtube videos to make sure we were attaching the right cable ends to the right spots. Eventually we got it figured out, and it worked without any explosions or injuries. But dead battery service is another part of the roadside service we already are enrolled in, so why not have a guy who does it all day do it, rather than me, who does it once every 10-20 years?
Agree completely - as long as one can either afford to pay the person directly or has insurance AND has a cellphone signal to call for help! Even my car expert husband has called AAA to change tires!
DeleteBut, it could be problematic for a person on an isolated road in an isolated area of the country without a phone signal to call for help. We are all so used to living in high density areas that we sometimes forget that huge parts of this country are pretty empty. Even if driving on I95 to New England or to Florida - extremely high density areas and tons of traffic on one of the busiest highways in the country - we carry blankets (winter), water to drink, water for the car radiator, snacks and definitely a spare tire at all times. And a phone charger for the car so we can call for help and not have to change the tire ourselves!.
My sons both live in Iowa. Driving from the Chicago area to where they live, there are a couple of dodgy cell phone service areas - one in Illinois and at least one in Iowa. I am sure, as one goes farther west across the US, the open, dodgy-service areas get bigger.
DeleteWe haven’t driven through Iowa. There are areas of Kansas that I70 goes through where you don’t see anything but crops for miles and mikes. But we always had cell phone coverage. But there were big areas out west - Utah, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming where we lost cell phone coverage at times. There was one stretch of empty highway with a sign that said “No services next 130 miles”. IOW, make sure you have enough gas and anything you might need if your car breaks down and you have a very long wait for help. No cell service on parts of that road. I once drove with a son from the SF area home via Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota before hitting the much more populated Midwest . When driving the 3 hours from Cody WY to Sheridan, we saw only four other cars until we crossed the mountains to I90 about 20 minutes from Sheridan. Spectacularly beautiful country- but I was glad the car didn’t break down!
Delete"Given the choice between changing a tire myself or having someone do it who does it professionally, I'll choose the latter". Me too, Jim. It's one thing knowing how to do something if you get stranded out in the middle of nowhere. But given the opportunity to have someone who actually knows what they're doing, I'll gladly step aside for the professional.
ReplyDeleteMy sole experience of smoking was when my husband and I were dating. I was eighteen, and K and his brother were lighting fireworks on July 4th with cigarettes. I decided to borrow the Kool Filter that K was using and take a drag. I coughed and choked for several minutes, to the amusement of the onlookers. I decided that my body was trying to tell me something.
ReplyDeleteStanley, you handled being an outlier way better than did. I think that being the ONLY outlier among the cool kids at my weekend job helped push me into smoking. Trying desperately to fit in. Of course, it didn't help. But my parents smoked, my older sister did too, so I fell in with the crowd.
DeleteKatherine, when I started smoking I coughed and coughed. I actually practiced in front of a mirror to learn not to cough and to adopt the cool hand position.
Being allergic to cigarette smoke, I was never tempted to start smoking. Back in the smoking ages, my life was pretty miserable.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that helped in making me into an introvert. When I was young, I did make some effort to be more sociable. But it was not very rewarding to be with smokers or go to places which were filled with smoke, e.g., bars and eating places. Looking back on my life, I do not number any smokers among my close friends.
Smoking is self-medication for many people. A very high percentage of persons with severe mental illness also smoke. Most of my relationships with the mentally ill occurred in the context of mental health board activity so I did not have to endure smoke. Some of my mentally ill friends may have been smokers without my being aware of it.
I feel sorry for smokers, drinkers and those who use drugs. I suspect most of them have genetics that make them more vulnerable that I and the average person.
I am salt sensitive for high blood pressure. If a lived in a low salt using culture and a lower stress producing culture, I may never have had to deal with a blood pressure problem.
I see smoking, drinking and drug use as societal as well as personal problems.
When the Mental Health Board became responsible for Alcohol and Drug services, the board and staff adopted lifestyles more compatible with non-use of alcohol and drugs. We ceased to have a bar at our annual dinner. We senior staff ceased to drink in public although we continued to use beer and wine in our homes. All this was done voluntarily by everyone. It came out of a process of getting to know those who had alcohol and drug problems as human beings better.
The area of town where I worked has several manufacturing plants. My employer allowed smoking in the parking lot. The plant across the street from our building didn't allow smoking anywhere on the premises. Probably because they were a manufacturer of medical equipment. One of my bosses was from India. I have heard that Indians do a fair amount of smoking. But this guy was very health conscious. Since the people who worked at the place across the street couldn't smoke on their premises, some of them would come across and smoke on our parking lot. Which drove my boss crazy. He spoke to one of our HR people, and said, "Can't you do something?" They replied, "What can I do, fire them?" It struck me funny. I think they did end up putting up a no trespassing sign.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, that's pretty interesting about the plant across the street. Honestly, I think the anti-smoking movement has pushed things too far. If smokers are diligent about not leaving their used butts in the parking lot, what can be the harm in letting them smoke on the property outside?
DeleteFor the last 10-15 years, I've also seen two-tier pricing for corporate health plans: one set of insurance premiums for non-smokers, and a higher set of premiums for smokers. The smokers can get moved into the lower tier by attending smoking cessation sessions, which as far as I can tell consist of listening to a chipper young health nut on the phone chirp to you about wonderful everything would be if you didn't smoke.
It occurred to me that my daughter's tow truck driver could be a Trump voter; based on the two or three things I've heard about him second-hand, he struck me as fitting the profile. So I poked around on Google for a few minutes to see if I could any surveys or research illustrating that Trump voters smoke more than non-Trump voters; smokers I've known have the sort of defiant, f-em-all attitude I would associate with one strand of Trump voters.
ReplyDeleteI did find a research paper that reported that Republicans actually smoke less than Democrats, and are healthier than Democrats. But that was from 2009. I think the party memberships have shifted since then.
So I decided to do a little surfing around on my own to see how f I could find anything on differences with tobacco use between parties. The results were inconclusive. I did however find an interesting little tidbit. One survey said Democrats have more sex, but Republicans have better sex.
DeleteAnd I did come across a factoid, Trump himself neither smokes nor drinks.
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ReplyDeletePrayers for a safe trip for them! Yes, there is reason for hope.
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