Changing social values

Ginger, a housewife, and her husband Frank, a truck-driver, are both in their late 50s and so out of step with the changing social values of today’s world that retirement will be a blessing for them – if just to cocoon themselves from having to face everything hateful about modern society.

"Before smoking got a bad rap in the 1980s, everybody tolerated smokers," explains Ginger, "Now, I’m so fed up being harassed by strangers when I light up that I rarely go out alone.”

"Obesity will soon be declared an abomination," warns Ginger. "And it's only a matter of time until something socially acceptable today is going to become something socially disgusting in years ahead."

"I remember the time when homosexuality was considered to be disgusting," says Ginger. "Look at the gay scene now! Good luck to them, but who would have thunk it?"

"Both Frank and I have been smoking all of our adult lives," says Ginger, "and like all smokers, we are amazed at how the habit has transformed over time from something chic into something disgusting."

"Frank works as a truck-driver and I'm a housewife," says Ginger "and two of our four children are still at home."

"None of the children smoke," says Ginger, "and none of them have suffered any adverse health disorder from growing up with smoking parents - which was the same for Frank and I when we grew up with our smoking parents."

While Frank hasn’t had any backlash against his smoking, Ginger cops it all the time.

"In the 1920s," says Ginger, "women who smoked were chic."

"By the 1940s, it was de rigueur for any woman entering a man's world to do a man's work - as many women did during the war years - to be able to light up with the boys."

"By the 1960s, smoking was passé - most women did it, or tried it."

"By the 1980s, smoking began to get a bad rap, and by the end of the 20th century it was considered to be a filthy, disgusting and harmful habit."

"By then," says Ginger, "medical evidence was growing that cigarette smoking not only contributed towards lung cancer and throat cancer in smokers, but also contributed towards health problems for those who lived and worked in a smoking environment."

"By then, both Frank and I were well aware of the dangers of smoking," says Ginger, "but we enjoyed it too much to quit."

Ginger points out that up until her doctors forced the old lady to quit smoking, the oldest living person in the world whose date of birth could be reliably authenticated was Jeanne Louise Calment - born in France on 21 February 1875. Jeanne died before her 120th birthday.

"Just imagine," says Ginger, "how much longer Jeanne might have lived had her doctors allowed her to continue puffing away happily, and how sad her final years must have been cooped up in that nursing home in Arles, Southern France, deprived of a lifelong pleasure."

It seems ridiculous to Ginger that this grand old lady was forbidden to smoke on the basis of smoking being a health hazard when she was obviously the healthiest person in the whole world.

"I realize that it wasn't so much her health the medical authorities were concerned about," says Ginger, "but that of those who were either patients or medical staff in the nursing home where the old lady smoked."

Ginger explains that in an increasingly litigious world the medical authorities did not want to be sued for any conceivable health problem that may have arisen out of anyone living or working in an environment where their national treasure, Jeanne, lived and smoked -- and they also did not want to be seen as hypocrites.

"If smoking was indeed as bad as they claimed it was," says Ginger, "then they needed to put their money where their mouth was and poor Jeanne was thus forbidden to smoke."

"What medical authorities cannot and will not admit," says Ginger, "is that some people can smoke without any harmful effects - and they indeed thrive on the pleasure - and some people cannot."

"It's like everything - even peanut butter - and you don't put a blanket curse on something just because some people are adversely affected by it."

"The crux of the smoking issue," says Ginger, "is not the habit, but its effects on other people. I honestly believe that the smell of cigarettes turns off more people than any of the real or imaginary health hazards."

"Before smoking got a bad rap in the 1980s, everybody tolerated smokers," explains Ginger. "As soon as people learned that other people's smoking could affect their health, the non-smokers declared war on us."

Ginger claims that these well-meaning but thoroughly strident people took control over the media and education systems.

"Shocking advertisements appeared on television and billboards across the world," sighs Ginger, "the most damaging of which to smoking women was one showing a woman with an ashtray for a mouth, urging men not to kiss a smoker."

"And in schools, children were taught that if their parents smoked, they were not only filthy and disgusting people but also bad parents because they didn't care about the health and well-being of their children."

"It’s no coincidence," laughs Ginger, "that Hitler was a strident anti-smoker. He hated people smoking around him. I wouldn’t be surprised if smokers were the next on his list for the gas ovens - along with everyone else he hated."

None of Ginger and Frank’s children smoke, so the advertising did work to prevent some kids from taking up the habit.

"There was a time when the kids started to get uppity about having parents who smoked," groans Ginger, "but they soon learned that it was all propaganda. Well meaning, no doubt, but propaganda all the same."

"Teaching about the health hazards of anything - smoking, drugs, drink and over-eating - is fine," says Ginger, "but teaching kids to despise their parents, or a whole class of people, is evil."

Why did the shocking advertisements stop?

"It had something to do with the war vets," claims Ginger.

"Apparently men and women who, forty years previously, had fought in a war to halt the spread of fascism and discrimination and, interestingly, had been issued with cigarettes as part of their military rations, were horrified at the strident anti-smoking campaigns of the 1980s that divided not only workers but families in the same way that anti-Semitism did."

"By then, most of these war veterans were retired, but they still had political clout."

"Thanks to their efforts," says Ginger, "the vile anti-smoking campaign was officially subdued, but as the years progress and the war vets die off, the influence of the anti smokers seems to be gaining momentum again."

Ginger says that she rarely goes out alone these days because she's fed up being harassed by strangers when she lights up.

"Can you imagine what it feels like to have that happen?" asks Ginger. "If being fat is one day declared an abomination, then the fatties of this world will have to do their eating indoors in order to avoid being harassed by strangers for eating in public!"

"Don't laugh," warns Ginger. "I know that being fat has never been chic in our culture, but it's only a matter of time until something socially acceptable today is going to become something socially disgusting in years ahead."