Things sure have changed 'round here...

[twgbonehead]

Yeah, the first milestone for me was "When cigarettes go over $1/pack, I'm going to quit".


Just sad, in retrospect.....

 

[Tempesta]

I remember working as a proofreader in the 70s, in an office where half the people smoked. I remember smokes selling for a quarter in the 60s. I remember riding on Greyhound buses where almost everyone was puffing away. We hardly noticed.

The last time I was in England, 3 years ago, people were still smoking everywhere.

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Got me to thinking... So many folks smoked "back then".. Then why are these same people still alive and threatening my SS checks in the next 16+ years? LOL
Seriously.. Second hand smoke then was walking into Any place.. We didn't keel over from the Second hand exposure, and many of us took to 1st hand..
Which is why most of us are vaping now...

Well...to be truthful about it, a lot of those former smokers ARE dead, as are many others. Social Security depends, in fact, in a large part upon a certain percentage of the population being dead before they reach an age where they would begin to receive it.

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Yeah, the first milestone for me was "When cigarettes go over $1/pack, I'm going to quit".


Just sad, in retrospect.....

Yeah, my Daddy said that every step of the way up in price too, until he got some fierce indefinable raging infection they loosely diagnosed as "pleurisy" and lost the majority of one lung. Amazingly, he lived for 20 more years...largely crippled, but he lived.

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Yeah, my Daddy said that every step of the way up in price too, until he got some fierce indefinable raging infection they loosely diagnosed as "pleurisy" and lost the majority of one lung. Amazingly, he lived for 20 more years...largely crippled, but he lived.

My mom weakly raged about "one more cig price hike and I'll stop" all the way until age 53, when, most likely, a combination of menopause pharmaceuticals with her 2.5-pack a day habit (which had been shown to dramatically increase cardiovascular events) dropped her with an aneurism, she never regained consciousness and therefore nobody got to say good-bye...well, we said it, but all medical indications were that her brain was dead about 30 minutes after she hit the floor.

So I guess really, both my parents quit smoking...it's like that morbid old joke, "EVERYBODY quits smoking eventually."

I wish they had had vapes back then, I could have done with having parents a little longer.

Oh, and my Grandpa shuffled off this mighty coil when I was only 8, following his fourth heart attack. (Yes, fourth.) That's the one that stopped HIS smoking...

I miss them all.

 

[Stosh]

...Cigs were .40 a pack when I started. I'd just buy them from the cigarette machine right in front of the grocery store. I was 12.

If you were 12 today and smoking, you would only have to continue 6 years before being old enough to vape and quit...makes no sense...

When I was 12 we got a hold of one of my uncle's cigars, 1/2 dozen of us tried it out, 5 turned green, I was the one "just give it to me I'll finish it" ....doomed from the start.

 

[Burnie]

I remember picking up cartons for $2.15 at the PX in Italy. When I was 14 years old...
We had a smoking area at the high schools I went to in the States.
Anyone else remember military C Rations with the little mini packs of smokes in them?

I got them for $2 a carton in Germany in the late 70's early 80's, Woops, Telling my age...

Vape On

 

[Penn]

I remember my first cigarette. As with many here, I am old enough that kids were supposed to be outside if the weather was nice. It had rained that morning so I didn't get out till late morning. I was walking down the street and a pack of cigarettes was right there on the ground with a a pack of matches tucked in the cellophane with the flap out (I know many of you know what I mean). The were recent since they were dry and the rain stopped less than an hour before this.

I picked them up. I don't remember the brand but they were soft pack and at least half the pack was still there. A few steps ahead was a huge evergreen tree that had a small external opening that lead in an angle to the center of the tree. Inside it was like a tepee, nice opening and the branches were above my head. I went inside the tree like I had so many times before but this time I fired up a cigarette.

I was 10.

 

[Nermal]

Yeah, I remember all that. And when we were done, we butted them out wherever and whenever it suited us.

Back of the plane? Un huh. Then the Yuppies heard that the back of the plane was the safest place to be in a crash, so no more smokes. Wonder how many yuppie lives were saved by the rearward migration. I've had some turbulance, but nary a crash.

 

[bones1274]

I was a senior in high school in '92 and they had a smoking area for students on campus. At least 50 kids there between each class. Bought cartons on base in '93 for $6.00. Ah the good 'ol days......

 

[Whosback]

Well, I'm a bit of a kid round here at 32, but I do remember people smoking near me when I was out and about. Those cigarette burns you would get from passing strangers heh. My dad was in a band so I got to spend a lot of time in bars and dance halls back in the 80s. No rules on smoking in those places.

Cost when I started was about 2.25 (I was a mere boy of 12) and every dollar it went up was "time to quit".

 

[katann23]

I wanted to smoke from the time I was about 4. Neither of my parents smoked, but they would buy me these gum cigarettes that were coated in powdered sugar or something, so when you puffed on them a little cloud of powdery "smoke" would come out. I decided right then when I was old enough I would start smoking.

I started smoking when I was 15. Promised myself I'd quit when they hit $2. I think they were close to $6 a pack when I finally started vaping two years ago.

I am still convinced I would not have wanted to smoke as badly as I did were it not for those damn gum cigarettes.

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

I remember my first cigarette too. I was 15. I had grown up in a cloud of smoke but had never considered doing it myself...then in a moment of frustrated teenage angst I decided to secretly "get back at everybody" by having a cigarette. It wasn't hard to steal one of my mom's, she had packs in drawers, packs on the counters, cartons on top of the fridge, packs in her coat pockets, packs in the car. I lit up and took my first puff in my bedroom and felt totally fine. I never coughed and never got ill. I felt a tiny bit light-headed with my first few drags.

I "needed" at least a pack a day within the month and within a few months I was stopping between every single class bell to draw desperately on butts in the girl's room.

 

[mackman]

+1

I remember my dad would send me up for a pack of camels, a bottle of orange juice and a bottle of vodka. the guy at the liquor store used to say, here ya go Billy, say hi to your dad for me. i think a pack was like 60 cents or so. at this time you also paid more for 100's because they had more TOB in them lol

back then we would cut grass for money. pumping gas into a gal plastic milk jug lol

I remember the doctor who gave me stitches having to put his cigarette out on his desk

I remember saying when a pack goes to 60 cents I'm quitting. Well I did for good at $7.40.

 

[CommaHolly]

Yeah, the first milestone for me was "When cigarettes go over $1/pack, I'm going to quit".


Just sad, in retrospect.....

omgosh, I remember saying that,,,,,,,

and I did quit,,,,,,,,,,,and started again,,,,,,,,and quit again,,,,,,,,and started again,,,,,,

 

[CommaHolly]

My mom weakly raged about "one more cig price hike and I'll stop" all the way until age 53, when, most likely, a combination of menopause pharmaceuticals with her 2.5-pack a day habit (which had been shown to dramatically increase cardiovascular events) dropped her with an aneurism, she never regained consciousness and therefore nobody got to say good-bye...well, we said it, but all medical indications were that her brain was dead about 30 minutes after she hit the floor.

So I guess really, both my parents quit smoking...it's like that morbid old joke, "EVERYBODY quits smoking eventually."

I wish they had had vapes back then, I could have done with having parents a little longer.

Oh, and my Grandpa shuffled off this mighty coil when I was only 8, following his fourth heart attack. (Yes, fourth.) That's the one that stopped HIS smoking...

I miss them all.

One of my dearest friends had a massive aneurism at 60, survived the surgery, but was brain dead,,,,,,,,

pretty much the same issue.

She's the reason I vape today,,,,,,

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

One of my dearest friends had a massive aneurism at 60, survived the surgery, but was brain dead,,,,,,,,

pretty much the same issue.

She's the reason I vape today,,,,,,

I am so very sorry for the loss of your friend.

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

omgosh, I remember saying that,,,,,,,

and I did quit,,,,,,,,,,,and started again,,,,,,,,and quit again,,,,,,,,and started again,,,,,,

I actually never really told myself this. I was so good and well addicted, I KNEW I'd be selling off a kidney before I'd be quitting cigs based on the price.

It was health that eventually got me quit.

 

[tj99959]

I tried to quit so many times that quitting became a habit.

 

[pianoguy]

Ha, yup. That looks like maybe the late 60s? (Not sure...do you know?)

In the 70s there were cigs everywhere...and I do mean EVERYwhere. Doctors smoked in their offices, teachers smoked in the teacher's lounge and our science teachers smoked in the little mini-storage room that separated each of the lab rooms. My mom was present at every school concert in the back with her cig, among all the other moms with their cigs...she always felt put out when she couldn't smoke in clothing stores at the mall because of the fire hazard, she had to actually leave the store and smoke right outside it in the main part of the mall.

People smoked while pumping their own gas, they puffed away walking the grocery store aisles. Parents smoked in the school parking lot, they weren't allowed to bring their cigs into the school, now THAT would have been unheard of, LOL. Although of course the fact always annoyed all the parents...I remember people going from smoking anywhere in the movie theater, to smoking "just in the back three rows," and I remember the strange irony and uselessness of "smoking sections" at the back of an airplane, LOL...yeah, huge help there...

I remember the first restaurants to offer "smoking" and "non-smoking" sections, to separate those was considered amazingly forward-thinking and fashionable.

I can't tell you how many times as a child I had a hole burned into some part of me as I went to hug an adult...and of course the adult telling me I "should have watched out." I must have a hundred pictures of our parents hugging us with lit cigs half an inch from our hair. I remember hoping Daddy wouldn't fall asleep without putting out the cig he had lit as a "last smoke of the evening" in bed.

And finally, yes, rows and rows of cigs for the grabbing at every counter of countless stores.

Those were the days...yikes...

ETA: Oh, and I remember buying cigs for my mother when I was like 8 and the nice man saying it was okay because they were for my mother. She didn't have her makeup on and she felt all a mess or whatever so she sent me along out on my bike across town for them with a couple quarters in my pocket to pay for them plus a quarter to buy myself a treat...this probably happened two or three times.

Oh yeah, I remember running to the store many times to get cigarettes for my mom, with a note saying it was OK for me to get them for her.