From Smoker to Zealot in Twelve Short Years

(or "From Diagnosis to Dead in Four Short Months")

It doesn't seem all that long ago, that we were reading that Peter Jennings had lung cancer. He took a leave from ABC's World News Tonight just four very short months ago. Many of us were wondering how his treatment was going.

Now we know. Peter Jennings passed away last night. In their coverage this morning ABC mentioned that Peter Jennings had been a smoker for most of his adult life. Okay, . . . I know I'm going to catch commentary hell about this, but now is as good a time as any to say this: You smokers -- you drug addicts out there -- don't forget to light up today on your way to work.

After all, there's nothing quite like driving to work in that fresh morning air while filing your lungs with smoke.

When my mother died, in the summer of 1993, from an aeortic aneurism, and she was full of undiagnosed, undiscovered cancer, and it couldn't be repaired, and the doctors had to allow her to bleed to death, lying there on the operating table, . . . I quit smoking. Turned it off like a light switch. I never had smoked more than a pack of Pall Malls, each day. That's way too many! Mom never smoked more than a half pack of any of her favorites, including, but not limited to Chesterfields, L&Ms, Larks or Marlboro Lights, or her dying brand, Kent Golden Lights. When I climbed aboard the chartered plane, taking just li'l ol' me to back home, to be with family, (I'd been informed of her death, via our company voicemail), I tossed a hundred dollar lighter, (no moving parts), and my last pack of Pall Malls, out of the plane, on the runway, at Scottsbluff International Airport, in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. I'd kicked the habit forever. Sure, I'd quit one other time, . . . for four months, while my wife was pregnant with our second child, my beautiful duaghter, Melissa. But the pressures of male pregnancy transference didn't allow me to stay off the damned things, and I fired one up one day, after a particularly difficult session of "You'll never get it right, unless you do it my way, and I'll still find some problem and harp about it for hours!" It felt good to be able to inhale those chemicals, once again. . . . But Mom's sudden departure cured me of the desire for those terrible "cancer sticks." Sure, for years, afterwards, I still reached, nervously, for my breast pocket, to grab the red cellophane-covered soft pack that wasn't there. I carried a lighter, just to be a gentleman, and light my wife's continuance of the habit, (it's so much more difficult to quit, when your spouse doesn't join you), for years, and then decided that being "an enabler" wasn't something I wanted to do. Keep in mind that when I quit, I promised the world that I would NEVER be the militant anti-smoker, that I hand encountered on business trips to the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest. My first experience with that kind of militancy, was in Seattle, WA, (of course), where people sitting near us, in a hotel eatery were miffed at the smell of our clothing, (I was eating with two other midwesterners, who were also smokers, and we'd all burned one, before going to diner), and we were asked to change tables by the matre d' hotel, who checked with the front desk, and ratted out one of my colleagues, who had asked for a smoking room, at the last minute, but none were available, so he waited a few minutes, and called back to reserve a non-smoking room. With my promise to the world, still intact, I have to say that I've learned a lot, over the ensuing twelve years, and that militancy isn't so abrasive, as it used to be.

I never had much use for Peter Jennings, as his political agenda seemed to get in the way of his being a good journalist, more often than not. That will probably also get me some commentary hell, but it's evidenced by a number of things he said, over the many years of his presence on the American Broadcasting Company stations, coast to coast, the most memorable and very recent example of which, would be his comments demeaning President Bush, "for running off, to Omaha, [specifically, to Offutt Air Force Base, location of the former headquarters of the Stategic Air Command], on September 11, 2001. As a Canadian, Jennings was NEVER an American Patriot, in my eyes, even after he got his dual citizenship. I hope he can explain that to the Saint who shares his name, when he gets to the Pearly Gates. Godspeed, Peter!

And when you and your smoking colleagues leave the office five times today to meet in your little leper colony outside to do your favorite drug, why don't you strike up a little conversation about Peter Jennings?? Diagnosis to dead in four months. Just what are you going to be doing four months from now??

God Bless,
Dan'L