Some role models smoke.
It’s funny to say, because that’s not considered role model behavior. It doesn’t matter who you are. Even Barack Obama was a tobacco smoker, and he ran the United States for 8 years. Naturally, that habit stayed mostly hidden from public view. Maybe he would have related to more republicans if he bummed a smoke from John Boehner and puffed away with him on the Capitol steps or the South Lawn. It’s a nice thought, but I’m likely over-romanticizing cigarettes and underestimating politic’s oppositional resistance.
Hollywood stars and recording artists are far less preoccupied with hiding their perceptual flaws from the masses. I suppose it looks cooler to blow smoke as a musician or an actor than a politician since elected officials constantly worry about public image and trending poll numbers. That’s incredibly ironic considering politicians spend hours upon hours blowing smoke into orifices predominantly unseen.
My high school vice principal, Mr. Travis, smoked avidly. He also fought in World War II as a United States Marine and always struck me as an undercover badass. Mr. Travis was one of the kindest men that ever scarred the crap out of me. He never did anything specific to earn that distinction. I just sensed it best to stay on his good side. And I did.
He smoked a cigarette cooler than anybody I’ve known before or since. He turned his smoking hand palm up and held it with all five fingers. This practice took on the appearance of inhaling an illicit substance. Maybe seeing my vice principal take a drag like that at the high school football game in front of the whole world without any hesitation gave him an untouchable persona that I admired and wished to attain. He probably held his cigarette palm up because his sergeant did it that way on Iwo Jima. Semper Fi, baby.
My brother, Bill, unashamedly smoked cigarettes.
He smoked cigarettes with a drive and an intensity that is best described as unadulterated enthusiasm. Bill was not a smoker, but rather a tobacco zealot. He enjoyed it so much, it made non-smokers want to buy ashtrays. Cigarettes became his natural extensions. It was almost as if his fingers were meant to emit plumes of white and gray tobacco smoke throughout my childhood home.
We’re talking about the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Tobacco smoking ranked as a fairly mainstream indulgence during this era. We still looked upon drinking and driving as an accepted consequence of leading a normal life. Besides, 9 out of 10 medical doctors recommended unfiltered Camel cigarettes. Vehicle manufacturers built automobiles equipped with a standard ashtray and lighter. Secondhand what?
Bill never understood a non-smoking section in restaurants and bars. I’m sure the thought of being locked down on an airplane for an extended period without his smokes seemed intolerable. He felt smoking to be an unalienable right afforded every United States citizen, regardless of location. He definitely advocated the right to smoke tobacco and never wavered from that stance.
Unlike so many tobacco users, Bill never attempted to kick the habit or cut back nicotine inhalations. He never even talked about. He thoroughly enjoyed smoking and made no excuses for his preferred pastime. He never chewed Nicorette gum or wore a nicotine patch. He didn’t switch to cigarettes with less tar or better filters, as if healthy options existed. He just just proudly puffed away on his menthol cigarettes.
Bill never considered himself a role model.
He used to tell me that he was a role model for what not to do. I never felt that way about him, but to say he led a colorful life feels inadequate. He’s likely one of the few people in U.S. Park Police history whose Virginia arrest for unlawfully firing a handgun across the Potomac River at the state of Maryland resulted in a United States naval career. The legal system works in mysterious ways.
During my junior year in high school, a nasty car accident in Virginia Beach put Bill in an ICU for several weeks. He lay bedridden with a myriad of broken bones, most notably a skull fracture that left him less than lucid. He made two requests. Sneak him a cigarette and “shuffle” his nuts. Our oldest brother, Bob, told him that the nurse said he could go in the hallway, smoke a cigarette, and come back in and tell Bill how good it was. This infuriated Bill which didn’t bode well for him getting his second request done by us. Nursing has its challenges.
He went a month or two in the ICU, not smoking. Once transferred into a normal hospital ward and able to wheelchair himself outside, he resumed smoking. Some patients might have taken this opportunity to kick the habit, but not Bill. After all, he’s not just a smoker, but a tobacco zealot. This was nothing more than an unscripted and unwanted break from something that made him happy. It’s good to be who you are, without reservations.
Bill was hardly averse to smoking non-over the counter substances either. In the past, society largely considered smoking marijuana a taboo. Of course weed was illegal and cigarettes were not. Ironically, I believe current societal acceptance for marijuana smoking increased over tobacco while also gaining an enhanced legal footing. Marijuana attitudes largely reversed, which would have made Bill somewhat of a progressive in this arena. Aren’t forward thinkers role models?
Bill passed away on January 21, 2011.
He died from lung cancer, which was caused by, you guessed it, climate change. If there had been a few more ice bergs in this crazy world, I’d still have my brother around to make me cough inside his smoke filled automobile. Perhaps if I’d aggressively lobbied for polar icecap awareness he might still be alive.
I don’t personally smoke, but if I ever got my hands on one of those old ashtrays from my childhood home, I’d consider it a family heirloom. I’d definitely display it in a fairly obvious spot in my house. Maybe I’d retro fit it with beer nuts and put it on my basement bar top.
Although there were definitely certain lessons to be learned from his choices and pitfalls to avoid, I never considered Bill the antithesis of a role model. He had a big heart that he wore on his sleeve. I always knew where I stood with him, as he hardly ever pulled a punch. I came to respect that blunt honesty, in all of its rawness. Life isn’t always unicorns and pixie dust. However, that may depend on what you’re smoking.