Auchtoon!No Smoking at the Veterans Home…
Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, September 4, 2010
Growing up in South Carolina, tobacco use was not so much encouraged as it was celebrated. The stuff grows like, well, like weeds, so it just made good sense to support it. The fact that it is insanely addictive certainly helped. You were, for all intents and purposes, handed a pack of smokes when you entered the state. I remember the coaches of my brother’s baseball team sharing a chunk of their Red Man chew with an eight year-old kid who simply asked for it. Yep. I am deeply thankful that I was never hooked.
I think about this occasionally when I see others who were in fact hooked — huddled in their designated smoker areas, exposed to the elements, and hopefully downwind. There but for the grace of… well, I don’t pretend to know God’s intentions for such things. But unless he’s from South Carolina, I’m guessing he’d prefer I didn’t smoke.
Tyler said,
September 10, 2010 @ 11:24 am
The God of the old Testament smoked. All that fire and brimestone gives him away. He created the Patch and never looked back…
🙂
John Auchter said,
September 10, 2010 @ 2:54 pm
Ah, giving up smoking… that explains all that smoting (smiting?) in the Old Testament….
Kris said,
September 10, 2010 @ 7:33 pm
Or did God’s evil nemesis put tobacco on the earth to tempt us away from our healthy ways? Like he did with twinkies and funnel cakes.