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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >BUT here in North East TN it just makes me realize how many folks still 
> smoke as no matter where I go I observe people outside on breaks and they 
> are 
> smoking because they can not do it in the buildings. 

Jeanne, I've lived here all my life and I can most assuredly tell you that 
smokling is far, far less prevalent than it used to be.  At one time it was 
all 
but universal.

Tennessee is likely not on the list because it does have aggressive laws 
against sale of tobacco to minors and and far as I can observe, it is 
enforced.  
And because it has very good laws agaisnt smoking in public buildings.  We 
are 
right on the border of Tennessee and Virginia and what few times we go out 
somewhere to eat, we try to make it in Tennessee even if it costs more 
because 
there is not smoking in restaurants.

Smokers stand out now of days like sore thumbs, they truly are the modern day 
lepers.  So when you see the sad addicts standing just out of the rain in the 
doorway, it calls attention to itself.  But the last place I had a gig, the 
group of people I worked with directly and got to know numbered about 30.  
Out 
of those only two were smokers and both of those were Brits.  None of the 
locals smoked.

Two summers ago I hired myself out to paint some rooms for a local hotel (a 
Hampton Inn).  The place had 66 rooms and six of them were designated as 
smoker's rooms with smoking prohibited in the other sixty.  Of course those 
six 
rooms stank.  They were also empty most of the time as no one wanted them.  
To 
convert them to non-smoking rooms required replacing all fixtures, furniture, 
drapes, and carpet and repainting the room including the ceiling.    First 
the 
hotel had me paint three of them.  Then when the remaining three stayed empty 
even on crowded nights, they had me paint the other three and so there were 
no 
rooms at all available for smokers.

It was an economic decision but reflects that smoking is (no pun intended) a 
dying habit.

I live smack in the middle of what used to be tobacco growing country.  Every 
spare field of a couple of acres had a tobacco allotment and was tall with 
tobacco in the summer.  Now of days you can drive ten miles along country 
roads 
and see no tobacco fields.

Good ridance!


James