As I walked across the parking lot, I noticed a fellow standing off to one side behind a tree. It seemed a little odd that this fellow, well dressed as he was, might be found behind an evergreen.

It's the sort of place one might expect to find a mugger, but not a man dressed more like a preacher than a criminal. Then again, there are a lot of people out there who dress nice and steal more than any mugger. Bernie Madoff comes to mind here. And there are plenty of people out there seeking to fleece the flock whenever possible, wolves in preacher's clothing. But most of those folks don't live in this neck of the woods, thank goodness.

At any rate, I noticed as I got closer to this man that he was smoking a cigarette. "Has it come to this?" I thought as I looked in his direction and he seemed embarrassed that he was there smoking. He gave me a little slightly embarrassed nod and a half-hearted wave, helping me realize suddenly that I was looking at him a little too intently. In fact, by looking at him I was probably making him think that I had a problem with him smoking—likely the reason he was behind the tree to start with.

As a former smoker, I'm somewhat surprised at the way things have gone for tobacco products in the past few years.

Not that I'm complaining.

The worst people for a smoker to be around are former smokers. They are usually more critical than those who never smoked at all. It may be because, somewhere deep down in the addicted parts of our brains, smokers who have quit still have that desire to be smokers. It's like an albatross one never really sheds from about the neck.

Not that I'd ever want to be a smoker in the conscious part of my brain. That's the most ignorant idea I could ever imagine. Cancer, shortness of breath, bad odor in the clothes and car, expense, fire hazard, ash trays, health problems, hypertension, poor circulation and second hand smoke are all things that don't appeal to me. Neither would being a bad role model for my children.

Even with all that said, I feel sure that, even today, were I to smoke a few cigarettes, I'd likely be a fully addicted cigarette addict again by tomorrow.

Why would I think that?

Maybe because I had to quit nearly 30 times before it ever really 'stuck.' I always quote Mark Twain, who said, "Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I've ever done. I've done it a thousand times."

He was exactly right in that assertion. I feel sure that it is only because of my children that I finally managed to quit for good. I had purposed in my heart that no child of mine would ever see me smoke anything—no pipe, no cigar, no cigarette.

That way, when I give them that talk about not doing it later for obvious reasons, they can't say, "Well you did it."

Of course, social pressures really seem to be going in the other direction these days. In my younger years, it seems that more than half of the world smoked something with tobacco in it. I just read in a regional newspaper that the last RJR facility in Winston-Salem is closing. That would have been considered impossible just a decade ago.

And think about the end of the burley allotments in these mountains and all the other changes that farmers now face in trying to make a living and pay the taxes on their land at the same time.

When I first came to Alleghany County, smoking was the norm. You could do it in the newspaper office (right at your desk), the county offices, the courthouse, the Sheriff's Office and nearly all of the businesses.

I can remember thinking it was odd when one really big store in nearby Virginia opened and didn't have ashtrays throughout the store.

My family used to go to the store and both my parents would smoke as we shopped. My father smoked until I was grown, often sitting in the car with my taking long draws off unfiltered Lucky Strikes one after the other until my mother came back out with the groceries or whatever it was she had gone after.

I remember seeing cigarette vending machines all over the place where any five-year-old could have bought all he or she wanted, given they had enough quarters. A lot of television shows had smoking on them, including family shows. It was just normal, every day life for everyone.

I remember my Dad sending me in the store as a youngster with a dollar and letting me pick him up a pack of smokes and a few pieces of candy. I even remember smoking in hospital rooms being very common and most rooms having ashtrays.

My kids won't even be able to imagine such scenes as these. It will seem as antiquated to them as some of those Norman Rockwell paitings of old timey soda fountains with the attendant wearing a smartly folded paper hat.

Most cars don't even come with ashtrays standard these days, as hard as that seems to comprehend given what a standard item an ashtray and a cigarette lighter were in cars ever since the 1950s.

I have two vehicles made 10 model years or more ago and both have a lighter and ashtray. The one newer car at my house has neither, instead adding on a 'power outlet' in the front and back of the vehicle and 20 cupholders instead of front and back ashtrays.

My pickup truck has one ashtray in the front and two in the back, while the car has one in the front and one in the back.

Remember the local restaurants where the staff and customers all seemed to be smoking at once, leaving the air filled with a fog of grease and smoke? Now there isn't a restaurant in the state where a person can legally smoke indoors, to my understanding.

That's why these days smokers are only seen in private homes, in cars and now and again hiding behind bushes.

Knowing this, I try hard to be decent about it.

Were I still a smoker today, I'd have been behind the bush with him. Just a few years ago, we'd have been inside somewhere or right beside the door and no one would have given us so much as a second glance.

My how things have changed for tobacco products and the people who use them. It's just one more good reason to be glad that I quit doing that—as if $5 a pack isn't enough.
 

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