Vinson’s Variety: We’ve come a long way, baby!
Smoking: Some crave it, others hate it. Whatever the stance, it cannot be denied that human consumption of tobacco is an integral part of our society. The fact every pack of cigarettes bears the Surgeon General’s warning that smoking can cause life-threatening cancer, yet the tobacco industry continues to prosper, is testimony to the effect of the tobacco trade and the consumption thereof. However, there was a time when smoking was considered less than socially acceptable, especially for women. For instance:
January 22, 1908, New York City: “The Sullivan Smoking Act was invoked for the first time within a day of its passage when Katie Mulcahey was arrested early this morning after lighting up a cigarette in the Bowery in downtown New York City ?
“Later, in night court, she fumed, ‘I have as much right to smoke as you have. I’ve never heard of this new law and I don’t want to hear about it. No man shall dictate to me.’ Magistrate Kernochan nonetheless did, sending the young lady to a cell when she was unable to pay the $5 fine. She took her cigarettes with her.”
Personally, I don’t care for cigarettes at all. In fact, I can honestly say I’ve never smoked a whole cigarette in my 51 years on this earth. Took a couple puffs as teenager out of peer pressure, but that’s about it. However, I do readily admit I enjoy the aroma of a good cigar, and around the holiday season, in particular, I might be seen puffing on one. (Much like former President Bill Clinton, though, I do not inhale.) A brief history on tobacco/cigars:
Tobacco was cultivated by Native Americans of the pre-Columbian Americas. Christopher Columbus brought tobacco leaves and seeds with him back to Europe. Columbus called smoking, tobacco, when he introduced it to Spain. The Mayan verb “sikar” is interpreted as “to smoke” and became the Spanish word “cigarro.” Columbus claimed the island called Colba by the native Taino Indians and the Spaniards renamed the island Cuba.
Wherever the actual birthplace of the cigar, the somewhat forbidden Cuban Cigars arguably are the most talked about, and, more than likely, the reason is they are not accessible on the open U.S. market.
While in Nashville last week visiting with long-time, highly popular Tennessean staff writer Frank Ritter, I stopped by Uptown’s Smoke Shop, located next door to Levy’s in the Green Hills section on Hillsboro Road, Nashville. Indeed, Uptowns Smoke Shop has a wide selection of cigars, and, to the best of my understanding, is known on a national basis. I purchased a few premium cigars while there, sharing one with Ritter. Even McMinnville has its own unique tobacco/cigar shop. Discount Tobacco Outlet, in business for 11 years, located next door to Bernie’s Karaoke Sports Grill on the New Smithville Highway, features a large assortment of cigars, everything from American-made Swisher Sweets to handmade, premium Caribbean-Central American humidor cigars. (A humidor cigar is one that is kept inside a humidified, air-tight case, to keep it moist and from drying out.)
Still, these days, Cigar-Martini bars are quite popular in most big cities, Nashville among them. It’s nothing to go into a Cigar-Martini bar in Nashville and catch attractive, professional females puffing on a cigar and sipping a martini.
When a female can go from being arrested, fined, and jailed for smoking a cigarette in 1908 to being fashionably chic by puffing on a cigar in public in 2005, I feel it’s appropriate to paraphrase the quote from the popular cigarette commercial itself: “We’ve come a long way, baby!”
Mike Vinson is a Warren County columnist who can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].