Homestead mailing list

["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 10:29 AM,  <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:
 Yet, Jeanne, do you not also recall
> the rationalization you heard in the 50's and 60's ..... "when your number's
> up, it's up!  I know someone who died of this or that and they never smoked 
> a
> day in their life.  My grandpa lived to be some ghastly old age ... like 61
> .... and smoked every day of his life!"

Of course, there will always be those people who have some ghastly
habit and live into their 90s. My grandfather and uncle both smoked
heavily, and my uncle was a heavy social drinker, and they both lived
into their 90s without dementia. That hasn't encouraged me to follow
in their footsteps, at least with regard to those habits. (My father,
who was abstemious, lived into his 90s, too, but suffered from
Alzheimer's from about his middle 80s.)

Me? I'm thrilled that Illinois now bans all indoor smoking in public
places: there are restaurants in Springfield that I'm going to for the
first time in years (since the very first time, when the smoke ruined
the meal).

>
> Alas, today's problem is obesity, and today's people have the same penchant
> for denial that smokers had in 1955.

People tend to deny the harmfulness of those faults they are not
willing to change.

Interestingly, at my place of employment, we have lots of skinny
people and many who probably weigh about 10 or 20 lbs more than we
should (and a handful who are morbidly obese). Smoking is down, and
for whatever reason, it seems to be concentrated in the IT department
and amongst the older (50+) and much younger (<30) non-professional
staff.

Marie