Warning: the Surgeon General has determined that harassing me about smoking may be hazardous to YOUR health.
I like to smoke. That makes me something of a modern-day leper, I suppose. I understood when they banned smoking on domestic flights. I understood when the banned it from most public places other than outdoors ones and restaurants.
The smoking sections are disappearing from the restaurants. My favorite pizza place has announced that as of the first of December, smokers are personae non grata. Suck.
When I caught my first flight home from Moody Airplane Patch, Georgia on leave, I spent a few hours in Valdosta's tiny airport. It was smoker-friendly, something you just don't see anymore. Ashtrays INSIDE the building. Imagine that! But when my little plane got to the sprawling installation known as the Atlanta airport, it was a whole different story. "Smoking is allowed only in designated areas of the terminal," a voice chirped as I plodded through D Concourse. I soon found out that the only designated smoking area in the terminal was in A Concourse...to get there, one had to fight the foot traffic going toward and away from the little subway thingy, squeeze onto said subway thingy, ride to the OTHER SIDE of the airport, fight more foot traffic, and FIND THE ONE DAMN BAR IN THE AIRPORT where one could smoke. The smoke in the bar was literally as thick as London fog. You almost had to chew the air there. But I could smoke, by God. One cigarette later, I had to fight the foot traffic, get on the subway thingy (this time, I was in the front car and was more than a little rattled to see NOTHING in front of it and NOBODY driving it as it merrily careened through the tunnels), get off the subway thingy, and plod back to Gate 15 Bazillion to catch my plane.
In other countries, it's a different story.
On the way to Turkey a year later, I spent fourteen hours in the Munich airport waiting for my flight to Adana. Now the Germans are people with some semblance of common sense. The whole airport was a designated smoking area. Besides that, the drinking age is 16 and dogs are allowed everywhere. Germany rocks. So does Turkey, by the way, where everywhere is a smoking area, everyone smokes, the drinking age is something like "tall enough to see over the bar," and anyone caught mistreating a cat is publicly stoned. Well, maybe not stoned, but they're sure as hell not looked upon kindly. That has something to do with a cat biting Allah on the heel or some such stuff. Dunno the specifics, but cheers to the Turks.
It has occurred to me in recent days that most of my heroes just happen to be proud smokers. Denis Leary, for one. Cid Highwind, for another. I swear I did not realize this until recently.