After today's lunch I dropped in on the nearby Kohl's to pick up some "necessaries." Exiting after my purchase, I stumbled on a rare sight: a tiny old woman, decked out in scrubbed-white walking gear, snuffing her smoke out on the metal sides of the butt-bin just outside the door so she could keep it for later. I'd only seen that once before, about eighteen years ago, when an old man in a bank vestabule gingerly put out his cigarette with his thumb and forefinger before walking inside.
I break with social conservatives, I suppose, in feeling no great urge to protest city and state agencies as they prohibit the nasty habit out of existence. Did I miss asking for non-smoking seating every time Ed, Paul and I dined in Albany? Not a chance. I've been contemptuous of the industry since I figured it out at age three. [Don't laugh. I did!] But watching an old generation treat their tobacco as they did sixty or seventy years ago when they first learned — preciously — is enough to give a nod to tradition.