Any time this topic comes up, I remember this very specific moment as a kid when I went into a Tim Horton’s and a corner of the shop was made into a room with glass. And inside that room was so smoky. I remember thinking it was like a human terrarium.
The Disappearance of the Ashtray
91–100 of 668 posts
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#92My grandfather (who died because of his smoking addiction) had a number of ashtrays I distinctly remember. There was a push-down one that would spin, depositing the ashes and butts into a trap door compartment inside. There was one made of old coins bent and welded together. Of course simple glass ones around the house. The truck had an ash tray built in, with a lid mechanism so it could be removed and emptied withou…
> Drinking alcohol is similar in that regard, people are amazed (for opposite reasons) to find out 60% of Americans drink. I'm technically in that 60%, but I drink so infrequently I barely qualify (outside of certain social events, I never drink, and never more than 2 drinks). I think I had about a dozen drinks in all of 2022. I wonder what percent of that 60% are similar to me.
I'm in a similar boat. All of my friends are sober alcoholics (both coincidence and networking) and so aside from rare occasion with family, I don't drink alcohol and honestly don't enjoy the feeling anymore.
I doubt I average more than a drink a month. My extended family, however, might have several a week (glass of wine with dinner, or an after-dinner cocktail). Get far enough out into the countryside, and driving after drinking is, if not normal, then at least hardly frowned upon unless you're not able to walk straight.
More and more often, I find myself thinking that if there is a choice to be made, someone somewhere will take it.
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#93My grandfather (who died because of his smoking addiction) had a number of ashtrays I distinctly remember. There was a push-down one that would spin, depositing the ashes and butts into a trap door compartment inside. There was one made of old coins bent and welded together. Of course simple glass ones around the house. The truck had an ash tray built in, with a lid mechanism so it could be removed and emptied withou…
> Drinking alcohol is similar in that regard, people are amazed (for opposite reasons) to find out 60% of Americans drink. I'm technically in that 60%, but I drink so infrequently I barely qualify (outside of certain social events, I never drink, and never more than 2 drinks). I think I had about a dozen drinks in all of 2022. I wonder what percent of that 60% are similar to me.
60% isn't a startling figure. What is, is that 90% of the alcohol sold is consumed by 10%, most of whom are essentially functional alcoholics. 1 in 10 of the people you encounter daily.
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#94It's tough to portray just how ubiquitous smoking was to a modern audience. You would go to a restaurant and the first thing your hostess would ask is "smoking or non"? I remember standing in a checkout line in the 80s as a child and being fascinated with the billowing clouds of smoke an old lady blew. I remember coming home from bars reeking of smoke, even though I didn't. Even teachers had their own lounges that re…
That seems like forever ago. If I went into a restaurant today, and the hostess asked me if I was smoking - my first inclination would probably be to do a quick double take and check my clothes to make sure I wasn’t on fire.
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#95> Everyone had hard-smoking relatives who looked like absolute hell by their late 30s, were coughing up a lung in their 40s, and by their 50s were being hoisted by pallbearers. Smoking is a disgusting habit and I love working from home because I never have to step in an elevator with folks fresh from a smoke break, but it isn't nearly that fatal. I grew up when smoking was literally everywhere and the "hard-smoking"…
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Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Smoking or non? Looks like you're about 25 years younger than me. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a nonsmoking section. Of course you could smoke, anywhere! Us kids didn't get real tobacco cigarettes, but we always had candy cigarettes so we could "smoke" along with the grown-ups. https://www.google.com/search?q=candy+cigarette&tbm=isch One difference from today was that our candy cigarettes had brand na…
Smoking on planes is absolutely something I can't wrap my head around in any possible way. How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let people smoke while packed inside a flying metal cylinder?
It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s.
Today I know of people who can't fly at all (because they can't stop smoking long enough.) even short flights of a couple hours are out of reach. (I was once on a 2 hour flight that took 6 hours for reasons, and some of the passengers fairly sprinted in the destination airport to get to a smoking area at 1am)
So banning smoking when air travel was in its infancy would have killed it.
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#97It's tough to portray just how ubiquitous smoking was to a modern audience. You would go to a restaurant and the first thing your hostess would ask is "smoking or non"? I remember standing in a checkout line in the 80s as a child and being fascinated with the billowing clouds of smoke an old lady blew. I remember coming home from bars reeking of smoke, even though I didn't. Even teachers had their own lounges that re…
I went to Vegas a couple months ago, and one thing that absolutely blew me away was the fact that, just within the last ~5 odd years since I last visited even the casinos stopped reeking of tobacco . I figured it was a confluence of factors: people smoke less now, people are far more likely to vape than smoke (which, for its ills, definitely doesn't leave a lingering stench like cigarettes), and there was a lot of ta…
The casinos tend to have amazing ventilation which predates the pandemic. I feel like they have some kind of jet stream above which whisks away the smoke. Much appreciated, for sure!
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Smoking or non? Looks like you're about 25 years younger than me. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a nonsmoking section. Of course you could smoke, anywhere! Us kids didn't get real tobacco cigarettes, but we always had candy cigarettes so we could "smoke" along with the grown-ups. https://www.google.com/search?q=candy+cigarette&tbm=isch One difference from today was that our candy cigarettes had brand na…
Smoking on planes is absolutely something I can't wrap my head around in any possible way. How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let people smoke while packed inside a flying metal cylinder?
Dunno, but can’t imagine flying in China without a cig & beer near the gate.
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#99I was born in 1962. I remember in first grade art class (1967/8) we made ashtrays out of clay! (The teacher then fired them in an oven).
Can you imagine having 6-year-olds making ashtrays in school in 2023?
Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray
#100It's tough to portray just how ubiquitous smoking was to a modern audience. You would go to a restaurant and the first thing your hostess would ask is "smoking or non"? I remember standing in a checkout line in the 80s as a child and being fascinated with the billowing clouds of smoke an old lady blew. I remember coming home from bars reeking of smoke, even though I didn't. Even teachers had their own lounges that re…
I spent my freshman year of high school in rural Kentucky. Many of my classmates lived on tobacco farms. We had a _student_ smoking lounge at school!