It was the mid 1940’s and my mother suddenly was a widow with two young daughters. Her first husband had died. In the USA in the mid 40’s, a young widowed female with two children had very few choices to consider as, what to do next. Even though my mothers family surrounded her with love and comfort, the questions of how to find the income to support her children filled my mother with angst, creating a very nervous and jittery environment for her. My grandmother and aunts urged my mother to seek the help of the family physician, hoping he could provide a little something to keep her nerves from collapsing. My mother sought the services of the doctor, and his approach was to provide my mother with a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes, telling her nicotine would soothe her worries and permit my mother to be the best single parent ever. Doctors were considered to be as close to Gods and if the wisdom they shared was to smoke tobacco, then there were no questions to be asked. After all, ALL of the scientific studies proved the healing powers of the cigarette. Later on in life, my mother would, with a disgusting smirk appearing on her face, tell her now adult children, the shakes and the craziness diminished when she huffed and puffed, but she had no idea she was blowing down her health.
I love to watch old movies filmed in black and white, with serious background mood music. Watching the actors gavotte inside spectacular night clubs, igniting romance at posh cocktail parties, or siting in a convertible hatching the next plot planning to steal away into the night. No matter where the characters of the movie ended up, it seemed ALL of them, were smoking. With black and white film, just watching the puff of smoke float into the air, provided the audience with a sense of intrigue, a moment of interlude, an immersion of mystery. And of course, the inhaling of tobacco permitted some kind of realism to the drama, letting us know, these characters could be just like us; enjoying our cigarettes. Nothing was more American, except perhaps apple pie. We were told by the government, who were lobbied and paid by the tobacco companies that smoking was perfectly fine, and to even argue with this American past time, was nothing but ONE MORE communist plot against a free and Christian nation. No one could argue against, God, Country and Cigarettes.
America was and as I believe, IS, a nation mired in traditions, and as Americans we often times become dismayed when ANYONE, disputes or repudiates our history of doing things, just because we always have. When my mother passed on, and one cause of her death listed was emphysema, I wondered just how many of the executives from the tobacco industry also suffered from this horrendous ailment. I wondered if, as they actually lied to the public, with the assistance of their paid and bought for politicians, these same people ever worried that they might succumb, health wise to the same lies they promoted, just so, while they were alive, they could remain wealthy. Did these individuals really think their money could salvage them from the same destructive demons they promoted? I now wonder if the CEO’s and shareholders of petroleum/coal, and their paid for puppet politicians who deny that these products are causing global warming and climate change, ever consider the fact that their children and the next generation of their families will surely suffer or even die from the pollution in which they continue to gain wealth. I DO wonder, also, if these billionaires disagree with the adage that when you die you can’t can’t take your wealth with you. Or is it just greed!
