Any way you light it, smoking is cool (too bad it's deadly)

Every morning on the way to work I watch an old man defy convention. I get off a couple of metro stops early so that I can walk a few extra blocks. In a city where working overtime is so blessed, I take whatever exercise I can get. The old man stands every morning in front of what I presume to be his office, though he must be in his 70s. He has a full head of proud, ivory-white hair. When it's cold, he wears a sort of wool fedora-looking hat with a plaid design of light colors. It's the kind of hat that could only look cool on an old man. The same could be said of his suit.



Every morning he smokes a pipe, and this is a sight to behold. In a city where new smoking-ordinances have outlawed the leaf that financed early-America (tobacco leaves are indeed carved in columns on the Capitol building) in bars, restaurants and offices, the old man stands out as a counter culture relic. His age is defies death already; his pipe dares it. If I weren't so chicken of dying an early death of some sort of cancerous suffocation, I would join him. I would break out my Meerschaum pipe, as white as that old man's hair and purchased (with the help of a more barter-savvy friend) in Turkey's Grand Bazaar. I'd watch the beautiful purples of morning turn to gold while breathing in the taste of Virginia's soil. I would warm my hands with the bowl of my pipe and watch the many flavored residents of Washington DC walk hurried and harried to work.



I saw an anti-smoking ad campaign a few weeks ago. It shows different, individual shots of beautiful teenagers with clean faces and cool, moderate clothes shrugging their shoulders, smiling and shaking their heads. They are a politically correct mix of races, yet they all look the same - good-looking, moderately dressed, clean face. They are "cool" kids, the popular group, the kind of kids who participated in the student government association. Their shrugs and head-shakes are in response to the provocative question asked in the kind of impatient voice that only a teenager (or Cloe O'Brien from 24) could use. "Can you give me give me one reason why smoking isn't stupid?"



I'm sure there's a host of market research that proves this ad to be statistically effective, but I know it would not have worked on me. These are the kind of kids that made rebelling against them cool, a sort of a high school bourgeoisie. Sure, smoking is stupid. It's sucking addictive, cancer inducing smoke into your lungs. But driving a sports car down a mountain trail and break-neck speed is also stupid. And incredibly cool.



Smoking is Sherlock Holmes smoking cigars and drinking brandy as he brilliantly explains his analysis to Watson. Smoking is Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin strolling down 5th Avenue, casually blowing smoke. Smoking is James Dean in a leather jacket. Smoking Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Smoking is Gandalf, Aragorn and the rest of the fellowship. Smoking stares death in the face and smirks. Smoking is cool.

I am a social smoker. I smoke a pipe or a cigar with friends, but I have avoided cigarettes and addictive smoking. Interestingly enough, I love smoky rooms. I've probably done more damage to my lungs reading old novels in Freiburg's Cafe Michelangelo than anything I have inhaled through a tube. But I never wanted to be addicted to the stuff.

The cool, SGA bourgeoisie did nothing to keep me from being addicted to tobacco. I was never able to join the high school elite, and smoking would have been a good way to add coolness to my high school resume. I'm not addicted to tobacco right now because I realized love and health are more important that coolness. I realized the comradere I gained while running cross country was better than any perceived coolness. I do fear lung cancer, and I fear not being able to run long distances. Breathing tobacco smoke may be like drinking wine. Breathing oxygen is like drinking water, and there times water tastes so much better than wine.