If you’re a smoker, I don’t mean to judge, (why are you killing yourself? Stop killing yourself!) but I’ve been allergic to cigarette smoke since I was a little kid. Back in the early eighties, my family would occasionally make a formal effort to dine out. To be sure, this was a limited excursion with several firm boundaries in place. First off, nothing more expensive than $8.99 a plate. Secondly, nothing too exotic, meaning absolutely no Oriental food. (I was sixteen, and on a date, the first time I tasted moo shu pork which succeeded in convincing me the Chinese had no clue how to make a proper taco.)
Anywho, all these restrictions meant we ended up at one of four places when dining out: Pulido’s Mexican Diner (the best lard-filled beans north of the border), Margie’s Original Italian Kitchen (the only cappuccino pie I’ve ever enjoyed), Hubba Hubba’s Fifties Diner (what I now realize must have been a desperate attempt by my parents to satisfy all three of us kids simultaneously), or the Iron Skillet Truck Stop (my dad’s favorite place for unlimited salad bar. And yes, I realize the local truck stop is an odd place for rural Texas’ only decent salad bar, but what can I say? It was the eighties…in Texas.)
My biggest concern when attending any of these establishments, particularly the truck stop, was whether or not I would be able to breathe during my dining experience…or whether I would have to order mine to go and then eat in the car. It got so bad eventually my dad gave up on his favorite truck stop. I felt guilty for it. I knew he loved heaping up his plate with hard boiled eggs, fresh greens, and those little salted ham cubes. But at the same time, asthma attacks and chicken-fried chicken didn’t mix.
A handful of years later, little Davey had grown up and left home to attend university in Montana. It was now the slow-slow nineties, and most of the folk populating my new-found home prefered smoking marijuana over nicotine. (And most often, the gunga was smoked in private). During those years, early bans on cigarette smoke began to emerge. The phrase “second-hand smoke” built up steam. Church ladies began chanting in unison across the country, “Won’t somebody please think of the children!?” And by 2011, public smoking was all but extinct in the United States.
Yep, it’s only been a tick longer than a decade since cigarettes were officially declared cool only in private…and in movies. (Little did we know at the time we were only paving the way for vaping. Damn you, nicotine and your addictive qualities!) And yet, during that pregnant decade, I’ve grown confident in my public outings. Perhaps too confident. My recent trip to Vietnam brought me crashing lungs-first into the harsh reality that most of the rest of the world is still kissy-face with Joe Camel (RIP).
When my oldest son started coughing and hacking the moment a stranger lit up on the sidewalk next to him, I couldn’t help myself. I cried out, “Won’t somebody please think of the children!?” Of course, I said this in English and nobody around me (including my family) had any idea what I was referencing. After a few awkward glances, I simply escorted my son around the corner and suggested he wear his mask if he didn’t want to choke on smoke.
On the plane ride home, I mulled over the gargantuaness of culture and everything it encompasses. It is so much more than clothing, courtesy, and driving habits. Science, religion, and history are all interpreted through culture. Public health is 100% subject to culture. Culture is the reason why one entire nation will mask while driving scooters to work just to unmask upon arrival. Culture is why half a nation will think the other half is ridiculous when it comes to…just about everything (or so their culture has convinced them). Of course culture is also malleable and plastic. Over time it changes based on the messaging it consumes. I know this is the very reality so many Americans fear the most. All this fear has me wondering, what happens to a culture when the main message it gets fed for decades is fear? Just wondering.
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