I definitely can attest to that. My parents grew up in NYC and were in their 20’s in the late 50’s. They were tried and true Jets. They looked like they had just walked off the West Side Story set. In every photo there is either a lit cigarette or a pack rolled up in my Dad’s t-shirt sleeve. In those photos are my Mother in Poodle Skirts, cardigans with her first initial embroidered down one side of the sweater, and horn rimmed sunglasses. In many of them she’s sitting on or near my Father’s Indian motorcycle. They were very cool.
Interestingly in the mid-late 60’s they both stopped smoking and never picked it up again.
I quit smoking in 2006. I was only doing four packs a day. Two months ago I decided to give it another try. I just wanted to be Kool again. Its been two weeks now since I returned to my senses. I did enjoy it even though each smoke made me feel like I was going to pass out.
Many stopped smoking at this time, responding to the 1964 Surgeon General’s report report linking smoking cigarettes with adverse health effects, including lung cancer and heart disease.
That’s precisely what my Mother told me. Once the reports started coming out smoking quickly went out of vogue with my parents friends and family. It went from cool to not cool very quickly.
2 - 3 packs a day when I quit cold turkey in 2000. Still dealing with resulting health issues but way better than I was. Started when I was 13 to be cool, so 27 years up in smoke.
My grandfather smoked 5 small cigars in the morning and then moved on to Havana cigars. He smoked so many he imported them direct from Cuba. They killed him when I was 12. I’ve never even had a single puff of a cigarette or cigar. All that can be said for it is that Benson & Hedges popularised Bach’s cantatas.
Although I have never smoked other than experimentally, I am a massive nicotine addict, a habit acquired with Swedish snus and worsened by nicotine chewing gum. However, in younger and more privileged days I was a guest of the Wintermans in the Netherlands, and the memory of walking through rooms in their factory piled with heaps of cigar tobacco leaves is still vivid; the smell was so rich and superb!
At my 3rd pneumonia I decided that is was time to get rid of the smoking habit.
Apart from being afraid of long cancer it improved my life quality:
no yellow stains on my fingers
no yellow stains around my mouth and on my teeth
les smell, cold ashtrays are the worst, the clothes and mouth is becoming close to that after a while
no pneumonia’s anymore
better condition
It’s been worthwhile stopping. Looking back there was actually nothing cool about smoking. Better would have been not to start at all. Some were smart enough to not start smoking, unfortunately not me.
So far 2 of our 3 children are marter than their dad in this respect.
Interestingly, I smoked for 15 years until in the winter of 1977, I purchased my first set of stereo gear and at about the same time heard a news report of a correlation between smoking and hearing loss in men. My pack and a half habit was immediately curtailed by simple will power driven by the idea that I will not allow my hearing to be impacted: music more important than smoking!
Sounds like my youth. My dad had his hair slicked back with finger waves using Vitalis. Pack of Lucky Strikes rolled up in his sleeve. I have a photo of my mother sitting on my father’s '41 Harley while pregnant for me. I was riding motorcycles before I was born. They both smoked three packs a day. I never took it up. I gave up motorcycles in 1983 after some scares.
I quit in 2008. Both due to health reasons and it was the first time they got to $5 a pack.
I was smoking roughly 3 packs a day so $15/day x 365 = $5475/yr and I was spending about $5000/yr on racing tires so I convinced myself that the tires would then be free. It worked!
I still had the urge to smoke for a few years but resisted. Now I can’t stand the smell and can tell almost as soon as someone comes into the room that they just put one out.
I started on Camels and Lucky’s at 14 so roughly 40 years of damage done before I quit. Most of the lung damage has healed but I have some emphysema and an aortic aneurysm to show for the habit.
I grew up in a small town that, when I was a kid, was the Tobacco trading capital of the world. Loads of warehouses that the farmers would bring their leaves in to have buyers walk past, sniff, investigate, and bid on. Every August, the whole town smelled like tobacco. I love that smell. I just hate how it smells once you light it.
close - but W-S was big by comparison. I grew up in Wilson, NC. W-S was where the offices were for RJ Reynolds, Wilson was just where the farmers brought their leaf.
They both smoked three packs a day. I never took it up. I gave up motorcycles in 1983 after some scares.