Old Glory affords everyone the freedom to express their opinion, and I have mine about smoking and smokers, which is as follows:

SMOKER: A dragon-like figure, such as "puff" the magic dragon, which is represented as having a reptilian body and breaths and emits smoke and fire!

STUPID: marked by a lack of intelligence.

FOOL: one who is deficient in judgment or understanding.

DUMB: conspicuously unintelligent.

DRAGON: something very formidable or dangerous.

Every time I see a smoker, it reminds me of a dragon, with smoke bellowing out of the mouth, nose, ears, and places where the sun don't shine! Every time my ex-wife and I would invite a few dragons over for dinner, the place looked like it was on fire, with smoke coming out of all the windows!

With a cloud of smoke inside, visibility was about 6 inches (or less), and I worried that someone was going to stumble over the coffee table or crash into a trashcan head first and injure themselves! While I was in the Air Force, I helped put out a house that was on fire one night, and I got a feeling for how powerful the hose is that fireman use, and the pressure behind it. We went into that house that night, and destroyed everything with the pressure of the water alone.

So, when a hand-full of dragons come over, and with all the smoke in the house, I always worried that a neighbor might call the fire department, and with those powerful hoses, the fireman would destroy the house!

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There's always an amusing side of things in life, and there is a serious side of things as well. And, smoking falls into the serious side of things for sure. I have zero tolerance for smoking and smokers! I don't want smokers around me! With that attitude, and the number of smokers around, that pretty much leaves me out in the wood by myself, doesn't it? I know all about smoking, as I smoked for five years, and quit back in 1970, which was one of the best things I have ever done.

But, smoking is not only dangerous in a health sense, but it is dangerous to a relationship as well. I met my ex-wife in the 1970's, when smoking was fashionable and trendy, and she smoked the entire 19 years we were together. But, at that time, it didn't matter to me that much, and smoking wasn't an issue. But, as time went on, smoking started having an effect on our relationship. I think the anti-smoking movement started in the early 1990's, and that's about the time when our relationship started to go downhill.

For 19 years, I tried to help Wendy stop smoking, and all of it fell on deaf ears! She was always afraid to gain weight, but I told her if she gained weight, I would help her with that too. (in one ear and out the other). As time went on, she always seemed to have a cigarette in her mouth! After about 17 or 18 years of this, and I started to become annoyed, and smoking rose to the top of our priority list.

When I first met her, it seemed like she was a light smoker, smoking a cigarette here and a cigarette there...a casual smoker, so I didn't raise the red flag, etc. But, as the years went by, her smoking got worse and worse, and I naturally worried about her. First thing in the morning...a cigarette! Last thing at bedtime...a cigarette! And, if she woke up in the middle of the night...another cigarette! Every morning she woke up coughing and choking! I was getting very upset over this!

The cigarette became her constant companion. I would get so mad, when I went into the kitchen and, as she was preparing a meal...there was that damn cigarette hanging out of her mouth! Several times I went over to her, and grabbed that stupid cigarette out of her mouth, and put it in the kitchen sink and dowsed it!

Smoking was affecting our relationship, and we were arguing and fighting more and more, and not speaking to each other more and more as time went on. Our two boys, were 10 and 12 at the time, and I know that smoking was affecting their well-being as well. She had the attitude that she was going to get her little "fix" and/or "pleasure" no matter what. And, I had the attitude that we were having a big problem here, and we were going to have to find a solution for it, or we might not be together much longer!

When two people argue and fight a lot of the time, the relationship begins to sour and probably will die. It finally came to the point, when were talking to each other very little, and neither of us wanted to do that. Over the years, she probably wondered why I kissed her very little...who wants to kiss an ashtray? To make a long story short, we parted our ways in 1995, and smoking, and all the fighting that went with it, was one of the reasons for going our separate ways!