Remember when cigarettes were everywhere?

You could not avoid them in those days.

cigarettes

Tim Wilson 

Do you remember the days when cigarettes were everywhere? 

It is so different now, and I’m not saying that is a bad thing. I never smoked even though I can remember thinking as a kid that I couldn’t wait to be a grown up so I could smoke. Dumb kid. 

Turned out that with my assorted allergies, I had enough trouble breathing so I never considered taking up smoking as I became a teenager. 

But when you think about it, it’s not surprising that 10-year-old me thought it would be cool to smoke cigarettes. All the adults around me smoked, with the exception of my grandparents. Neither one of them ever worried about being cool. Smart grandparents. 

The difference between today when cigarettes are anathema and the sixties and seventies when they were omnipresent, is stark. You could not avoid them in those days. 

Think about how ashtrays were in abundance for every smoker’s convenience. They were in almost every home, store, restaurant, airport, bar, bowling alley and almost anywhere else you can imagine. Even hospital waiting rooms. But nothing tops the concept of “smoking sections” on planes, as if some magical force kept the smoke from drifting around the sealed metal tube with wings. I don’t want to hear about exhaust fans when a passenger in the next row up from the “non-smoking section” could light up at will. 

Nothing tells us more about the cigarette’s place in American culture at the time than the fact that every car had an ashtray and lighter built into the console. Smokers never had to go far to find the required implements to light up. The family junk drawer had tons of matchbooks. Complete strangers wouldn’t hesitate to pull out their lighters to accommodate fellow smokers on the street, at a ballgame or on the subway. 

Do you remember when there used to be young women walking around cities handing out free samples of cigarettes? Cigs were always in your face. Even if you weren’t in the presence of someone smoking, you still couldn’t escape cigarettes. They were advertised on billboards, on buses, on TV, in magazines and newspapers. It was as if the media was required to include cigarettes in their broadcasts or publications. I guess in a way it was if they wanted to make a profit. 

The advertising void left by cigarettes has more than been filled by pharmaceuticals. And just like cigarette commercials, the pharmaceutical ads try to convince us the product will make us so much happier. 

Another void left by cigarettes was their place as props in every movie or TV show. Butts have been displaced by coffee cups and wine glasses so actors have something to do with their hands. Cigarettes still make cameo appearances but pay attention some time to the amount of caffeine and alcohol consumed by actors on primetime TV or your favorite streaming series. 

One thing that always stumped me was why cigarettes were ever considered to make women sexy or men masculine. Sure, just wrap up a bunch of leaves in paper, light in on fire, then have a woman hold it to her lips and inhale the smoke. How could you resist that? 

I remember once walking down a street with a college girlfriend who smoked when I spotted a bumper sticker. Since I was trying to convince her to stop smoking, I made sure to point it out. The bumper sticker read: “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.” 

She quit smoking not long after that. And I never considered her any less sexy. 

About the author: Tim Wilson is a lifelong resident of Massachusetts. He is passionate about his family, Marquette University, bicycling and all Boston sports.   

#cigarettes#rememberyesterday#getting older