Bag Tag June '24

Growing up in the 80’s we heard a lot about cigarettes.  The goal was to educate, to create a healthier future, and obviously, to keep us from smoking.  The messaging made its way into magazines and TV commercials and even sitcom story lines. And it worked too.  At least on Arnold from Different Strokes.  And his friend Dudley.  And me.   Everyone seemed to know cigarettes were terrible. So, I asked my mother one day, why Grandma smoked.  My kid mind couldn’t wrap itself around the idea that she’d keep doing something she knew was bad for her.   Grandma started when she was young, my mother explained, way back when almost everyone smoked, even The Flintstones, when no one knew the effects, and she’d become addicted.  I was like 9 or 10, so the concept of addiction, the power of it, was lost on me. I was blissfully naïve. Who wasn’t? Smoking was bad and I thought she should just stop.  

I wasn’t so naïve though that I didn’t wonder, way back then, what thing we thought was harmless would later turn out, like cigarettes, to be terrible, but we’d go on using it because we were addicted. For the longest time I was sure it was going to be microwaves.  Right on into college, where I slept with a microwave just inches from my head and was by then fairly certain it wasn’t going to be THE THING, I still wondered what it would be.  I’ve always found that when you ask The Universe a question, in your thoughts or in a whisper, and you do it long enough, eventually, you’ll get an answer.  

FindingBaggageClaim6.com