Althouse: Back in the 1950s, when everyone smoked, grandfathers taught toddlers the skill of taking a cigarette out of the pack and putting it in the mouth.

March 23, 2015

Back in the 1950s, when everyone smoked, grandfathers taught toddlers the skill of taking a cigarette out of the pack and putting it in the mouth.

Quite a few of you commented on the smoking in the old home movies I'm editing — here and here — and I'm actually working on a little video that's all about the smoking. The foundational clip for that edit is these 9 seconds of Pop (my father's father) showing me how to take a cigarette out of the pack and put it in his mouth. He seems to be encouraging me to take a cigarette for myself before Mom intervenes.

37 comments:

Mike said...: Thanks for sharing. Great color on this batch. I am uncovering my family's stuff from 1956 to the early 1970s. One of my cousin's children wondered about smoking in the house back in those days.; 3/23/15, 11:09 AM
gspencer said...: Driving along in my father's 1949 Plymouth sedan, four kids plus Mom, in the dead of Winter. Only the driver's little side triangle vent window open. Dad puffing away like there's no tomorrow, occasionally dropping live ashes onto his suit (a common occurrence made a little less painful, money-wise, because in those days suits came with two pair of pants).

A typical Sunday afternoon drive on the way over to visit one of the grandmothers.

Despite all the smoke, everywhere, and all the time, car, house, schools, I survived, and am now approaching the completion of 67 years.; 3/23/15, 11:16 AM
Michael K said...: My father smoked five packs a day and died at 66 from emphysema. I am now 11 years older than he was when he died. Second hand smoke, however, is a hoax based on a Japanese study of wives living in 500 square foot apartment with heavy smoking husbands.

My mother lived to 102 3/4.; 3/23/15, 11:24 AM
gerry said...: How long did Pop live? I hope he lived a long and happy life.; 3/23/15, 11:34 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Pop died of emphysema after a long painful decline.; 3/23/15, 11:35 AM
Ann Althouse said...: It wasn't just the smoking. He also had a job that exposed him to chemicals (at Dupont's "Experimental Station") and he was the kind of man who refused to use the protective device.; 3/23/15, 11:36 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Mom lived longer, but she died of a disease that could have been cured if she hadn't staunchly believed in not going to the doctor. She preferred home remedies, such as asparagus, many cans of which were found in her home after her death.; 3/23/15, 11:38 AM
tim maguire said...: Awesome! Every time a hear the latest crap about how important it is that we be miserable for 82 years to avoid the horror of being happy for 80 years, I want a cigarette.; 3/23/15, 11:47 AM
tim maguire said...: Hmmm...my post seems cold coming right after the professor telling us about her parent's end-years.

My mom died of a heart attack at 62 and my dad of hitting the ground at great speed at 65. Living the way you want to live is more important than living a little longer.; 3/23/15, 11:50 AM
Larry J said...: gspencer said...
Driving along in my father's 1949 Plymouth sedan, four kids plus Mom, in the dead of Winter.

Similar story here, just some years later. Dad smoked heavily and once he started buying cars with air conditioning, wouldn't let us crack the windows to let out his smoke. We survived, although at the end of a long trip, we were somewhat green. Dad died of a heart attack (his 4th) 41 years ago at age 45.

Michael K said...
Second hand smoke, however, is a hoax based on a Japanese study of wives living in 500 square foot apartment with heavy smoking husbands.

Things sure have changed. I never smoked but worked in many smoking environments in the military. Some of them were windowless communications centers with little/no ventilation. ( didn't like it but that's how thing were back then (up to early 1980s). Today, after decades of smoke-free workplaces, I get annoyed when I smell cigarette smoke from someone 100 feet upwind of me. I don't think cigarettes stink more now than they did then, it's just that I'm no longer used to the stench.; 3/23/15, 12:07 PM
Wince said...: Did people, even parents of very young children, just look older in those days?

My parents were 30 and 35 when I came along.

Even now, when I have almost 20 years on them at that point, they look older to me, as do Althouse's parents in these clips.

Is that perception purely subjective or did people just look older because of dress, hair styles, clothes, or smoking?; 3/23/15, 12:18 PM
n.n said...: How many grandfathers? Both my grandfather and father learned to smoke in the army.; 3/23/15, 12:47 PM
m stone said...: All this talk of living longer.

I recall a while back reading a measurement of quality of lifespan (many scales available on quality of life) that assigned positive or pleasureable markers to years of relatively good health, mobility, sound mind and so forth.

The negatives considered debilitating disease, pain, mobility and soundness of mind (!).

If the positives substantially outweighed the negatives, you are considered to have lived a good life (scaleable). Bad deaths, long and painful were given more weight.

Outre.

Clearly meaningless as many people simply fade away over many years, probably in depression (not measureable?) and others live short "quality-filled' productive lives.

I'd still not care to die of lung cancer or emphysema.; 3/23/15, 12:50 PM
alan markus said...: Different times:

What Cigarette Do You Smoke, Doctor?

More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette

More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette 2; 3/23/15, 12:54 PM
Biff said...: When I was a kid (probably 7-8 years old, early/mid 1970s), dad would stop at the 7-11 convenience store and send me in to buy a pack of smokes for him. I also remember being able to buy cigarettes from unattended vending machines with a few quarters.

It wasn't until the early 1990s that the Ivy League medical center I worked in finally banned smoking in its offices and labs. My supervisor, a med school prof, smoked like a chimney in and around the lab.

More recently (probably 2005), I worked for a global pharmaceuticals firm that allowed smoking in its European headquarters (still does), but all US campuses were smoke free. It was very entertaining to see the "You must be joking!" look on the face of the global head of R&D when he was told that if he wanted to take a cigarette break during a long meeting in the US, he would have to leave the campus. He did. The US headquarters was shut down a couple of years later. We still joke about whether that European cigarette was the final nail in our coffin.; 3/23/15, 1:08 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Mom and Pop were my grandparents.

It took me a long time to get used to hearing the word "mom" as meaning mother.; 3/23/15, 1:34 PM
CatherineM said...: Biff - I had the same experience with a corporate intern (big client sends new employees for a month or summer to learn) from Korea who was horrified he wouldn't be able to smoke and he was a chain-smoker. The look on his face when we told him.; 3/23/15, 1:39 PM
CatherineM said...: Larry - I would get car sick from the smoking (same triangle window!), but they never believed me. I just had a weak stomach they would say or I shouldn't have had that second piece of Carvel at grandmas. It was the smoke.

I never smoked because ashtrays were so disgusting to me. I also had the experience of cleaning some cars to earn a few bucks and the brown that would come off the inside of the windshield in the cars of smokers was enough to teach me a lesson.; 3/23/15, 1:50 PM
Larry J said...: CatherineM said...

I never smoked because ashtrays were so disgusting to me. I also had the experience of cleaning some cars to earn a few bucks and the brown that would come off the inside of the windshield in the cars of smokers was enough to teach me a lesson.

When I was 19, I worked at an airport washing and fueling private planes. That brown gunk was hard to remove from the plane's windows and interior. I've heard some old-time aircraft mechanics say that the smoking ban on airliners was a bad thing. They claimed the brown gunk helped seal the airliners' seams so it was easier to pressurize them. I don't know if that's true or not but yuck. Some people speculate that airline passenger rage incidents have sharply increased since the smoking ban. Some people get really irritable when they're jonesing for a smoke.; 3/23/15, 2:20 PM
richardsson said...: Yes we are living in a far different world than the world of the 50's and before. I sometimes listen to old radio shows with ad copy that goes something like this: when the stresses of the day get you down, light up a Camel! .......and relax.
A friend recently sent me a link to a documentary on the Lockheed Constellation aircraft he flew in the Navy. The "star" was Arthur Godfrey and in the middle of the documentary Godfrey whips out a pack of Chesterfields and does his pitch as he passes them out to the crew. IIt was hilarious, as if it was an ad on his TV show. Later, when he got lung cancer, Godfrey did anti-smoking ads.; 3/23/15, 2:32 PM
dreams said...: My dad had emphysema too and smoked until he was 61 years old, he died at 79.; 3/23/15, 2:36 PM
David53 said...: I smoked cigarettes for 15 years. Quitting was the hardest thing I have ever done.; 3/23/15, 2:46 PM
David53 said...: Mom and Pop were my grandparents.

It took me a long time to get used to hearing the word "mom" as meaning mother.

We called all of our grandparents by their first names. Don't know why, but it always felt right.; 3/23/15, 2:49 PM
Birches said...: Keep these videos coming. My grandparents were too poor to have a video camera--we have very few pictures of my mom and her siblings growing up. I really enjoy seeing yesteryear up close and personal.

As it is, there's only two videos of me from my youth--we rented a video camera for a big family trip to Carlsbad Cavern. Now, my kids have a video of every year's happy birthday song and blowing out the candles....; 3/23/15, 2:55 PM
Ambrose said...: @CateherineM - I had the same experience with car sickness. My family all blamed me for the "weak stomach" - Used to even give me motion sickness pills before long trips. It never occurred to anyone that it was the smoke.; 3/23/15, 3:06 PM
etbass said...: When my company moved us into a new building in 1972, all the desks were equipped with ash trays. My private office had a cigar ash tray plus smaller ones. When I retired 28 years later, you had to stand out on the street to smoke.

I worked during summers between college terms at a tobacco factory where an unstamped pack of cigarettes was given every employee as he punched out, daily.

I never smoked a cigarette in my life but did smoke cigars and pipes when I was a big shot in college.

But I didn't inhale.; 3/23/15, 4:33 PM
ken in tx said...: Smokers don't get Parkinson's, a known but suppressed fact. Also caffeine and alcohol are protective for Parkinson's.; 3/23/15, 4:58 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Smoke in the car made me ill too.; 3/23/15, 5:06 PM
Gospace said...: The United States has always had a puritanical streak. Still does. I tried googling to find what percentage of adults actually smoked at any one time. Can't find them- but I can find that the highest percentage of adults in any 5 year age group that TRIED smoking was about 80%. I seriously doubt that more then 50% of the U.S. adult population ever smoked at any one time. Even when I first joined the Navy in 1973 less then 50% smoked- though they smoked a lot. There's only a handful of countries today where more then 50% of the adult male population smokes, and most of them are Asian.

I'm with Catherine on my experiences with smoking.; 3/23/15, 5:38 PM
chickelit said...: Ann Althouse said...
It wasn't just the smoking. He also had a job that exposed him to chemicals (at Dupont's "Experimental Station") and he was the kind of man who refused to use the protective device.

Interesting! Your Pop may have known Wallace Carothers.; 3/23/15, 7:57 PM
David said...: Next post. Men in felt hats. Then men in shorts with felt hats.; 3/23/15, 10:02 PM
David said...: ken in tx said...
Smokers don't get Parkinson's, a known but suppressed fact. Also caffeine and alcohol are protective for Parkinson's.

Worked for my dad. Smoking helped him to die at age 49 of cardiovascular disease.; 3/23/15, 10:08 PM
chickelit said...: Will vaping ward off Parkinson's?

Althouse vapes.; 3/23/15, 11:07 PM
gerry said...: What's the college campus vape rate?; 3/24/15, 8:58 AM
Anonymous said...: And who can forget candy cigarettes?; 3/24/15, 10:39 AM
Anonymous said...: It makes me laugh when movie ratings include items like "brief nudity," "cartoon violence," and "historical smoking."; 3/24/15, 10:41 AM
Barbara said...: My grandmother was a heavy smoker from her late teens. She died at age 96. Her older sister never smoked and lived to be 107. Smoking shortens lives.; 3/25/15, 1:46 AM