For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for December 30, 2022

One uncle of mine (father’s brother) had quit smoking when he heard — last I remember — his daughter-in-law had gotten cancer. Before then when he would come to visit us, he’d smoke outside.

You can’t do that, Ellie.

I don’t mean that metaphorically. You can’t literally put coins in another person’s meter. It’s against the law. At least in some places in the USA.

I had the best reason to quit. My late husband told me he wouldn’t marry me unless I quit. I did, that moment,

Do not blame Grandpa, he was born during a time when even babies smoked

“Quitting smoking is easy. I should know, having done it a thousand times!”—Mark Twain

A man can’t get a cuppa in peace without being subjected to parking meter metaphors.

My grandpa smoked heavy. To my knowledge never intended to quit, never tried. He died of emphysema at 75. Coughed and fought for air, but in between puffed on his cigarettes.

My brother was in the Navy in WW2. R. J. Reynolds cigarette company gave service men carloads of Camel cigarettes. My brother was hooked from 18 until his dead of lung cancer.

February 19th it will be 2 years since I quit smoking. I only smoked 2 a day. When I got home from work and when I took the dogs out before bedtime. It’s hard for someone who never smoked to believe you can enjoy smoking, but I liked my two little smokes a day. However, my sister died from lung cancer on New Year’s Eve 2021 in hospice last year, she had quit 12 years ago, and it probably contributed to my husband’s death in September 2021. I won’t start again, but if you handed me a lit Marlboro I would smoke it down to the filter! (no I wouldn’t, I’d probably choke) :)

…Or shove a few more hobos into the BOXCAR..!

It’s not Elly fault either, some ‘kids’ don’t want to lose their parents regardless of the parents age and knowing the inevitable consequence of growing old.

Tex Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65_-vNtWLLs

We’re all going to die of something. Some people choose to go down with cigarettes, or alcohol, or butter fat, or bacon…

I will be the devil’s advocate. Is smoking harmful? Indeed. However, there are talks in some Canadian provinces about outlawing cigarettes. A little warning from your Southern neighbors. In the US there was a time when women marched and screamed about “demon rum”. True, alcohol can also easily damage your health, and kill you if there is enough. There was a constitutional amendment to ban the sale and production of alcohol in the United States; resulting in a period known as Prohibition. Needless to say, that was a disaster. Organized crime got rich from supplying illegal liquor to people who wanted a drink. Corruption was rampant, and attempts to enforce Prohibition clogged the courts and jammed the jails. The Great Depression doomed Prohibition (the Treasury was deprived of millions of dollars now that alcohol was illegal and thus unable to be taxed), and in 1933 another constitutional amendment was passed to get rid of Prohibition.

Point being, banning tobacco could result in another wave of Prohibition-era violence and corruption for Canada. The gangsters will be back; this time they will be smuggling cigarettes.

Hey Elly, mind your own business. It does not say in the Bible “Thou shalt not smoke”. What the Bible does say is “Honor thy mother and father”.

If the Pattersons lived in America, then Elly would have a reason to worry about her father dying. But this is Canada, land of single-payer!

Tobacco Junkie … makes it easier to understand. A junkie won’t quit, unless he wants to.

Nothing anyone says, has any effect. I speak from experience.

My sister was a “closet smoker,” other sister paying for nicotine patches for her…now she’s dead.

Drugs are bad, kids.

i’m told it’s easy to quit smoking. Some folks do it hundreds of times.

What people seem to not realize, from the moment that Dr. slapped you on the butt and you took your first breath, the rest of the journey is one leading to your death. The journey may be a short one or a long one, you can never tell. What is important is what you make of that journey from that first breath until your last.

Smoking, Tats and piercings, ever wonder how the people with NO money always have the most of these?

Lifelong smokers usually don’t make it past their early 70’s, but if you are in your 60’s, the damage is done so it is probably not worth the effort to quit, but up till then, buy yourself some more quality years and quit, no matter how difficult. I started smoking when I was 14, quit when I was 26 and smoking 2 1/2 packs a day. Quitting smoking is still the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but it was worth it.

I am reaching the time of life when people find giving me good advice is easier but taking it is harder. Not because I don’t want to, which I usually don’t, but because the motivation seems a bit lacking.

My Mom wanted a cigarette up until the day she died of pulmonary disease.

My grandparent’s generation….. EVERYONE smoked. Times have changed people change very slowly, if at all.

I was so glad when my husband stopped smoking; I believe it bought him a couple of more years of life.

At least he’s smoking filtered cigarettes, unlike my dad, who smoked camels.

He had a heart attack, went into the hospital where they cut open his rib cage and stitched in an artery they cut out of his leg. He lived for another 7 years

Panel 2—-that is LAME,Jim!!

Winston tastes good,like a cigarette should.Baloney.

As Mark Twain once said, “Oh, quitting smoking’s easy—I do it every day!”

Leonard Nimoy smoked 2+ packs per day for 30 years. Finally quit and 20 years later was caught by COPD

This sprung tears from my eyes

My dad smoked since he was in his early teens. ‘Quit’, at Mom’s insistence at 55. She had quit yrs before. Dad would occasionally light up. Went from 2 packs a day, to one every few months, finally chucking it at 70. Passed from cancer that was accelerated by the trauma of a real bad car wreck, and had spread to his spinal column, paralyzing from the waist down, at 80.

Bummer.Downer.

Take up Mary jay wanna….safest thing to inhale….must be okay if we all are doin’ one toke over the line……what say you American Cancer Society? Gots to go passinnnnnnn out.

I don’t recall seeing anyone else express this viewpoint, and even if somone did, I’d like to comment on what I think is the worst part of this scenario. It’s Grandpa’s lying and sneaking around. He should have just said that he’s smoking again without worrying about Grandma having a fit. He SHOULD smoke outside, though, to avoid exposing the innocent.

On a more positive note, hubby had a brother-in-law who was a very heavy smoker. One year, for either Christmas or his birthday, his kids bought him sessions of hypnosis to quit smoking. It worked! COPD still got him eventually, but I’m sure he gained at least a few more years of life to enjoy some of his grandkids, ,and it was a lot more pleasant to be around him.