Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for September 22, 2021

I’m surprised she lived to be 99.

There was a lady in Australia who lived to 103 and was asked the year earlier, how she lived so long, she replied

“A good cigar and a couple of shots of scotch every day”

I never tried smoking a cigarette,cigar or a pipe.I hate the smell of those things!

on his doctor’s advice my grandfather quit smoking at the age of 75 and promptly died. coincidence? you tell me…

i’m being facetious, just in case anyone thought that was serious. i’m not 75 yet and am happy to have quit smoking years and years ago…

I had a great-aunt who smoked like a chimney and died in her nineties. Imagine how much longer she could have lived if she hadn’t smoked.

All that tar is what is probably holding her together.

Don’ be fooled by anecdotal evidence. Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States.

I buried an aunt on her 100th birthday. Close, but no cigar!!

When George Burns, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ernie Kovacs and other top comics of the day gathered at the Hillcrest Country Club, the room would fill with laughter and cigar smoke. Everyone would be smoking the top brands. Everyone, that is, but George Burns.

“Come on George, try one of these Havanas,” urged Berle and Co. “Live a little. Get rid of those damn Queens, and try something sweet and delicious.”

But the patron saint of cigardom quickly turned down the Montecristos and H. Upmanns thrust in front of him.

Waving aside these premium cigars, Burns again emphasized his loyalty to a lifelong sweetheart. Taking out an ivory holder, he’d light an El Producto Queen, a perfecto-shaped cigar that Burns liked to call “my little lady.”

“I’ll never smoke anything else,” promised Burns, a 10-a-day El Producto man. “I just love the taste of Queens. They never go out on the stage while I’m doing my act, and besides, I get them for free.”

Burns remained true to his word. Until his death, the Sunshine Boy rejoiced each month when his shipment of 300 Queens, each packaged in a glass tube, arrived at his Beverly Hills home. “He’d act like a child at Christmas time, smiling ear to ear,” recalls Sam Tuchten, the now-retired El Producto district manager who brought Burns those cigars. “He was in seventh heaven. But god forbid if the shipment was late. George would frantically call the company [Consolidated Cigar Co.], and send his butler to Beverly Hills’ drugstores to buy all the Queens he could find.”

I can’t believe that smoking could prolong any one’s life, except of course if they were being executed by a firing squad.

Do cigar smokers usually inhale? Whether or how much you inhale of cigars or cigarettes probably makes a lot of difference. My dad smoked cigarettes socially and didn’t inhale much as he was a professional trombone player. My mom inhaled deeply all her smoking years. Both parents gave up smoking while raising children. When we were all out going to college, my mom took it up again. She had a heart attack at age 53 and gave up smoking. She was frail the rest of her life after the heart attack and lived to 75 years. Dad never took it up again, was healthy close to the end and lived to age 101.

Bill Clinton said he didn’t inhale, oh wait that wasn’t cigars.

Better late than never!

I was told that one of my great grandmothers, who lived to 96, heavily smoke and drank booze all her life.

It’s never too late too quit smoking. Well, after your lung X-rays come back white … probably too late then.