Lighting Up

I smoked a lot in the mid-1970s when I started working for The Thomasville Times. I brushed against danger daily as I covered the police beat, writing about death, violence, and hubcap thefts, so what danger would a little nicotine pose? My image was more important than my health anyway. 

In those days, you could smoke in a lot of places, like city council meetings. I once saw a judge light a cigarette during the middle of a court hearing. Smoking was a major part of newsroom culture, along with salty language and casual sexism. Yeah, the surgeon general said it was bad for you, but what did he know? I never started a story, or a phone call, or even sat down to read the paper without lighting up. If I ran out, I’d bum one from a co-worker. If they weren’t around, rifling their desk for smokes was socially acceptable. My clothes and hair stank of smoke, but so did everybody else’s. 

Smoking was allowed in the first seven newsrooms where I worked. Then I got a job at The Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale in 1986. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the newsroom, but people smoked in the bathrooms. Then that was banned, and smokers had to leave the newsroom and go outside—a serious break in productivity. I quit in 1989 after my son, Robert, asked me to. It’s one of the smartest things I’ve ever done. Thanks, Robert.