Category Life

Every Day Is a Great Day

Michael 4 Comments
Hockey season started yesterday. I was there for it. In my seat, the one I’ve occupied for the past couple of years. It’s not a bad seat. Over the years I’ve sat in several spots around the arena. Lower bowl, upper bowl, center ice, behind the net, on the dots. In the old arena. In the new arena. None are bad seats. Amidst a handful of people in my little section amidst the 19,000 or so seats all occupied by people in their little sections we sat in not bad seats there just to see a hockey game. No other agenda, hidden, assumed, obvious, or imagined. Just hockey.
But before the game we stopped to pay respects to those who lost lives and loved ones in Las Vegas and all 19,000 were silent. Every one. Silent. Then we paid respects to the flag and all 19,000 sang. Every one. Singing. And I thought how once again all I know about being a gentleman I learned from hockey and how I was once so moved by that realization that I posted my thoughts on it right here. And I thought, just as “Badger” Bob Johnson knew every day is a great day for hockey, that every day is a great day to learn from hockey.
So I’m doing today something I’ve never done before. I’m reprinting “Everything I Know About Being a Gentleman I Learned From Hockey.”

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EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT BEING A GENTLEMAN I LEARNED FROM HOCKEY

Originally posted November 26, 2016

When I was at the hockey game this weekend I got to thinking how much as a society we can learn from hockey. Yes, the sport that is the butt of the joke “I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out,” is the same sport that can be our pattern for good behavior.

Stay with me for a minute or two and think about this. It started at the singing of the national anthem. I’ve been to many hockey, baseball, football, and soccer games. Only at the hockey games have I ever been in an arena filled with people actually singing along. Only at the hockey games are all of the players reverent to the tradition of honoring the country where they just happen to be playing even though they come from around the world – Canada, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Finland, even a few Americans.

A decent dose of nationalism notwithstanding, hockey has much to offer the gentility. Even those fights. Or rather any infraction. If a player breaks the rules he is personally penalized for it. Ground isn’t given or relinquished like on a battlefield, free throws or kicks aren’t awarded to the aggrieved party like victors in a tort battle. Nope, if you do something wrong you pay the consequences and are removed from play for a specified period in segregation from the rest of your teammates. No challenges, no arguments, no time off for good behavior. Do the crime. Pay the time. In the penalty box. Try doing that to a school child who bullies and you’ll have some civil liberty group claiming you’re hurting the bully by singling him out.

Hockey is good at singling out people but in a good way. At last Saturday’s game the opposing team has two members who had previously played for the home team. During a short break in the action a short montage of those two players was shown on the scoreboard screens and they were welcomed back by the PA announcer. And were cheered and applauded by the fans in attendance. There weren’t seen as “the enemy.” Rather they were friends who had moved away to take another job and were greeted as friends back for a day.

While play is going on in a hockey game play goes on in a hockey game. Only if the puck is shot outside the playing ice, at a rules infraction, or after a goal is scored does play stop. Otherwise, the clock keeps moving and play continues. Much like life. If you’re lucky you might get to ask for one time out but mostly you’re at the mercy of the march of time. Play begins. After a while play ends. If you play well between them, you’ll be ok.

The point of hockey is to score goals. Sometimes goals are scored ridiculously easily, sometimes goals seem to be scored only because of divine intervention. Most times, goals are a result of working together, paying attention to details, and wanting to score more than the opposing team wants to stop you from scoring. There is no rule that says after one team scores the other team gets to try. It all goes back to center ice and starts out with a new drop of the puck. If the team that just scored controls the puck and immediately scores again, oh well.

Since we’re talking about scoring, the rules of hockey recognize that it takes more than an individual to score goals. Hockey is the only sport where players are equally recognized not just for scoring goals but for assisting others who score goals. Maybe you should remember that the next time someone at work says you’ve done a good job.

handshakeThe ultimate good job is winning the championship. The NHL hockey championship tournament is a grueling event. After an 82 game regular season, the top 16 teams (8 from each conference) play a four round best of seven elimination tournament. It takes twenty winning games to win the championship. That’s nearly 25% as long as the regular season. It could take as long as 28 games to play to the finish. That’s like playing another third of a season. After each round only one team moves on. And for each round, every year, for as many years as the tournament has ever been played, and for as many years as the tournament will ever be played, when that one team wins that fourth game and is ready to move on, they and the team whose season has ended meet at center ice and every player on each team shakes the hand of his opponent player and coach, wishing them well as they move on and thanking them for a game well played. No gloating. No whining. No whimpering. Only accepting.

So you go to a fight and a hockey game breaks out. It could be a lot worse.

—–

So there you go. Everything you need to know about being a gentleman, or a lady. Courtesy of the folks who brought you hockey. They’re not bad lessons if I say so myself. And I think even Badger Bob would agree.

 

Sunday Funday

Michael 5 Comments

Now that football season has started I must be more selective about shopping days. The local college fans aren’t so bad, but I have to remember, don’t go to the store on Sunday before a football game. Those people are nuts!

The closer to kick off the more desperate the die-hard fans are to get their share of the game goodies home to the buffet before the rest of the tailgaters get there. Buffet might be a bit ambitious.

These folks have carts with nothing but nuts, chips, salsa, pretzels, those pre-arranged shrimp rings, football shaped chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes decorated in team colors icing, pre-cubed cheese, and sausage. Lots and lots of sausage.

And they don’t wear clothes. Not real clothes. The women are wearing halter tops, and short shorts, and things that wouldn’t pass as cover ups at the pool. Men have shorts, team logo baseball caps, flip flops, and replica jerseys. Everything is color coordinated to the home team and everybody wears sunglasses.  It is October isn’t it? Now, to be fair about it and so you don’t think that I live in a town filled with chauvinistic stereotypes, I did see one couple that she was the one dressed in a jersey and he in a muscle shirt which could be the male version of the halter.

If I had shopped with a list on Friday I wouldn’t have even been in the store on a weekend. But I didn’t and if I wanted breakfast this morning I had to run in for eggs. I thought I was going to be in trouble when I got inside the door and there were no shopping carts. Just needing a dozen eggs meant I didn’t have to have a cart but it was significant that there were none to be had because the parking lot wasn’t particularly full. That meant that each couple in the store had two carts. One for the aforementioned munchies and one for the beer.

It was also significant in that grocery stores always site the dairy section in the complete opposite corner of the store from the entrance. In order to get to those eggs I was going to have to do my impression of a running back picking his way through the line looking for that opening that will lead me to my goal. Once I made it to the egg case I had to tuck that carton in like I was protecting the ball as I turned for open field and bolted for the checkout lines.

Ah the checkout lines. Never get behind people wearing replica football jerseys in the self-service checkout line. Picture the conversation between the referee and a head coach who did not get the call go his way after a lengthy replay timeout. That would be mild compared to the discussion between pseudo-quarterback and the electronic cashier’s disembodied (and dispassionate) voice. In fact, I should remove those parentheses because I think it was the repetitive “please remove all items from the belt and try again” in the calm, dispassionate tone that had him really riled.

Eventually I got myself home with my dozen chicken eggs and a proper breakfast will be had. I have a feeling that a lot of my fellow shoppers will be having aspirin and lots of black coffee for their morning meals today.

Boy am I glad that we hockey fans aren’t like that.

 

Four and Twenty

Michael 5 Comments

Although not as famous as the two dozen blackbirds, a single chicken is the more likely thought of filling when it comes to considering what type of savory pie to have for dinner. And while the rest of the northern hemisphere is fascinated with all things pumpkin as soon as the sun passes through the autumnal equinox, my sure Sign of Fall is the return of the pot pie.

Clearly I’m not the only one who thinks this way. I probably was the first to come up with it but like all great ideas, mine was stolen and exploited by others. Yes, you see, even though all other pies may be lumped together celebratorially on March 14, pot pies have their own day on September 23. This year that was the first full day of fall. See?

PotPieOf course, chickens aren’t the only animals to find their way between sheets of pie dough. Beef can easily play the role of filling in a pot pie. Lamb fills a particular pot pie, a Shepherd’s Pie. Chopped pork and pork jelly find their way into another traditional savory pie. Fish pies rarely make it to the American side of the Atlantic while crab and cheese filled pies don’t often make it to England’s shore but both have ardent fans. Although pumpkin fills the sweet side of piedom, another favorite fall squash, the butternut, satisfies the meatless savory pie wisher.

With all these options, tonight’s dinner still is going to be a classic chicken pot pie*. I know, I’m almost a whole week late, but last Saturday the temperature was a summery 84° (29°C). Today’s high isn’t getting out of the 60s (or about 17°C). Not quite down to fall standards, but certainly autumnaler.

*Chicken Pot Pie

Preheat oven to 425°F (200°C) and assemble ingredients.

Filling

1 pound chicken breast, diced or cubed
1 8 oz. package frozen peas
1 large carrot, sliced
1/2 cup celery sliced
1/2 medium onion, diced

In frying pan, cook chicken in olive oil until all pink is gone, remove and set aside. Cook onion celery and carrot until softened. Return chicken to pan, cover with water, bring to a boil then reduce to simmer and allow to continue cooking for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside while preparing sauce.

Sauce

1/3 cup butter
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tap celery seed
12 oz. chicken broth
6oz. half-and-half (or milk)

In a medium saucepan, melt butter then add onion and cook until softened. Stir in flour and cook until flour is completely combined to make a roux. Slowly stir in chicken broth and half-and-half. Add salt, pepper, and celery seed. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick.

Pie

Chicken filling and sauce
2×9 inch prepared pie crusts

Line pie pan with one pie crust. Fill with chicken filling mixture and pour thickened sauce over filling. Cover with second pie crust, seal edges, and make some small slits in the top.

Bake at 425 °F for 30-35 minutes.

Or, pick up prepared pie at local grocery store usually next to the rotisserie chickens. Not everybody is retired and has all day to play in the kitchen.

 

Pump It Up

Michael 3 Comments

PumpkinFor the last few years I’ve publicly marveled at the extent to which each fall pumpkin has invaded our daily lives. Please understand that I am the last person on earth who would turn down an extra slice of pumpkin pie for dessert. I have my very own self with my very own hands fashioned a pumpkin cheese cake. I will wait with rapt anticipation for the once a year release of Reese’s pumpkin shape peanut butter cups. (Yeah, I know they’re not pumpkin flavored and barely look like a pumpkin but it’s my post in my blog and I happen to like peanut butter cups, or didn’t you read “Caution, Falling Pump(kin) Ahead” last year?) But I am not ready for pumpkin soap! That’s right, soap, not soup. Soap!!!

I thought that when we saw pumpkin flavored chewing gum three years ago we saw the most extreme pumpkining we were going to see. (You didn’t miss that one too, did you? Ok, go refresh your memory at “It’s The Not So Great Pumpkin.” We’ll wait for you.) Since then, pumpkin flavoring pretty much has been kept food based. Granted there have been some expectedly unexpected choices. Pumpkin salsa to go with your pumpkin chips, and pumpkin cream cheese to top your pumpkin bread are a couple of the newer fall flavor offerings. The newest pumpkin food that I’ve seen this year is the pumpkin flavored chicken sausage. A double feature at the “What’s Wrong with this Food Film Festival” but not so wrong that I couldn’t be talked into tossing a couple on the grill and see what happens when you cross a spring chicken with a fall gourd.

SoapBut up until this week’s grocery store ad, pumpkin chewing gum was the most extreme pumpkin offering out there. So extreme it was that after that one sighting in 2014 it didn’t even show up in the case load buy outs stores. But this week we might have stepped over the edge. This week we might not be coming back from. This week, somebody, somewhere, for some reason…..is going to actually buy…..pumpkin pie liquid hand soap in a convenient pump dispenser.

Oh, for sure, it’s not the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

(Oh, in case you’re wondering, I still haven’t seen any pumpkin tea. Have you?)

Speak for Yourself

Michael 4 Comments

America’s Got Talent wrapped up its most recent season last night. I hadn’t seen any of America’s Got Talent. Had I known there was a ventriloquist on I might have watched. I suppose I could say the same thing for the last every one of that show since there seems to always be a ventriloquist at least starting out on it. And with good reason. Ventriloquists are good entertainment. Puppeteering in general is good stuff. At least it was for my generation. If you missed out on watching professionals play with puppets, you missed out on a lot. Really. I’m serious. Really. Again.

ShariLewisLet’s look at some of the ventriloquists I grew up with. Shari Lewis was the first ventriloquist I have any memory of. Shari hit the national stage with Captain Kangaroo in 1956 which was when I was hitting the stage for the first time also. Granted, my stage was in home movies but hey, all the world’s a stage, right? I loved Shari Lewis as a child (when I was a child, not her) (maybe I would have loved her as a child too, I dunno) (her as a child, not me) (maybe both of us as a child) (children). Shari played on stage with Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, and Wing Ding. She and her puppets might have been more popular than even I realized because now that I think about it, I recall my own daughter playing with a Lamb Chop puppet when she was a baby 30 years after I put my puppets into cold storage. And I seem to also recall that her Lamb Chop was new.

When we hit the new century, ventriloquists were still hitting the stage but none hit it as hard as Jeff Dunham. Dunham and his crew say what we all have wanted to say but were afraid it would end up on Facebook the next day with 450,000 comments about how rude and undiverse we are being. (You’ve made up words too!) I like Jeff Dunham but I’d probably like Jeff Dunham even without the dummies. (Is it undiverse to call them that? Perhaps they should be life-challenged?)

Ventriloquists weren’t the only puppeteers that shaped a generation. In a modern take to the marionette, Jim Henson created a neighborhood full of puppets that began with Kermit in 1955. By the early 1960s he (Jim, not Kermit, although I suppose you could say they) met up with puppeteer Frank Oz and writer Jerry Juhl and the Muppets were off and running.

MrRogersHand puppets, though the least techy of puppets (although exactly what Lamb Chop and friends were) had the biggest impact on me as a developing mental genius. (It’s my blog, I can call myself whatever I want.) In particular, King Friday XIII, Queen Sara Saturday, and X the Owl, the puppets of the Neighborhood of Make Believe in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Fred Rogers was a force in puppeteering and all things educational for children. From his earliest days with the Canadian Broadcast Company’s “Children’s Corner” he introduced children to his own childhood make believe characters. But it was in 1966 from WQED in Pittsburgh, the nation’s first public-owned broadcast company, that Mr. Rogers, his puppets, and his live neighbors swept a nation, and a generation.

So maybe the next time someone accuses you of just being a puppet, you might take solace in that you’re in some pretty good company and prepare yourself to mold the mind of some future mental genius.

Edible Portmanteau

Michael 3 Comments

We were at a buffet brunch yesterday. There was a time in the 90s when you couldn’t escape to a buffet brunch offering on any a Sunday. Then brunches fizzled. The local “family dining” restaurant option continued the buffet offering. It gave them something to do with the salad bar setup that would have otherwise gone untouched. Otherwise, you couldn’t buy an egg anywhere outside a grocery store after 11:00 for all the bacon you brought home last week. Then McDonald’s said breakfast is good all day and soon the Sunday brunch was back. Sort of.

About 6 years ago brunches reappeared on the local high end dining scene as carefully selected menu selections. You could purchase Eggs Benedict and a fruit cup but your $17.99 was going to get you just that. A poached egg and some pre-cut melon. Still, it was another option for an after church repast.

Yesterday we discovered the return of the all you can eat Sunday Brunch. Omelets to order, sausages, baked fish, donuts, and a Caesar salad all on one plate! Permission to stuff your face with as much as you want for as long as you want (up to 2pm) in exchange for one twenty dollar bill. Only in America! (Actually I’m assuming that. I haven’t ever had a weekend, mid-morning buffet in another country but then my international travel is somewhat limited.)

While I was munching away at my bacon topped salmon cake I allowed my mind to do what it does best when dining with my family. Wander. And it was off and running.

The word “brunch” is one of the most recognizable portmanteau, the words breakfast and lunch combined into a new, accepted contraction. We do this all the time with English. Smog. Dumbfound. Modem. Portmanteau itself is a portmanteau, a small case used to carry outwear. (porter = carry, manteau = cape)

At buffet brunches every serving vessel or station is clearly marked with their, sometimes quite disparate, contents. Baked Salmon/Chicken Parmesan. Fresh Fruits/Baked Desserts. Green Beans Almondine/Potatoes au Gratin. And the ever popular Omelet and Carving Station. How much easier it would be to read and recognize these offerings, while minimizing decision making and thus maximizing eating time, if one didn’t have to read and digest all those letters? But why stop at just renaming the stations when we can reinvent the very offering. And so I began devising the list of Edible Portmanteau.

Hash Brown Potatoes and Pancakes become Hashcakes, a light and fluffy griddle cooked cake made of shredded potatoes and onions served with maple syrup and applesauce. Bourbon Glazed Salmon and Chicken Veronique morph into Salmonique, a patty of ground fish and poultry of indeterminate origin covered with a sauce of orange marmalade, green grapes, and Jim Beam. The ever popular omelet and carving station relieves the low man on the cooks totem pole assigned there from running end to end trying to keep omelets from over cooking while slicing slabs of rare roast beef, redirecting his or her energy into scrambled eggs cooked with spinach, mushroom, horse radish and Steak’Ums at the new Carvlet Station.

I don’t know about you but I think I’m on to something here. I have to go make some calls. This could be the start of the newest breakfast offering since the McGriddle. The Sunday Brunch Buffet, or as I like to call it, The SubRay!

Travel Size

Michael 2 Comments

Friends of mine are traveling this week. My sisters were out on the road last week. My daughter is planning a trip in a few weeks. Everyone is traveling.

I always liked traveling in the fall. You don’t have the summer crowds or its heat and humidity to deal with. It’s well before the holiday travel seasons so those crowds are avoided. The weather is still warm so you’re not stuck packing multiple layers and trying to figure out what to do with that heavy winter coat when you get unbearably hot in either the plane, train, or car. And if you catch it at the right time for leaf changing, it’s a pretty trip. All in all, fall is the time to go.

But there’s one thing that fall vacationing isn’t noted for. Unless you are travelling far south (or far north for the Southern Hemisphere crowd), hotel swimming pools are not an option.  Oh there are certainly those high class establishments that sport the heated indoor variety of aquatic recreation facilities, but even in my best year those places weren’t within my travel budget. No, the places I visited were of the kind that sported the tarp covered outdoor variety of aquatic recreation facilities.

GymIf you are looking for exercise while vacationing around the autumnal equinox your choices are limited to the indoor exercise room or sprinting across the hotel parking lot to the neighboring bar and grill and back. Now, about those exercise rooms. They are almost universally labeled “Fitness Center” on their door signs and the hotel floor plans but they aren’t likely to be mistaken for your quintessential, full service YMCA. You’ll find no sauna, no juice bar, no Pilates classes. These “centers” do not boast of juice bars or healthy living cafes. And they have no indoor pools! There are, at best, travel size “fitness centers.”

Still, the “fitness center” was always the first place I would seek out on my arrival at an unfamiliar hostelry. I went not to exercise but to observe. No, not to observe others exercising. That would be creepy. I went to observe their cleanliness. I liked to see how clean “the fitness center” was so I knew if I could feel comfortable using the bathrooms. No it’s not like you can’t use a bathroom while you’re traveling, but at least you should know if you could feel comfortable doing it.

See, those travel sizes do come in handy.

Food For Thought

Michael Leave a comment

I have decided that I have to stop reading. When you’re a kid, say under 55, reading can be fun. You learn things, you get to experience people and places you’d never see in person, you expand your world. But when you get to be a little older, you just get confused.

I read four magazine articles last week. It wasn’t that hard. They were all in the same magazine. They were about the 10 foods you have to have in your pantry, 20 foods to always have in your kitchen, the 10 best breakfast foods to keep on hand, and 12 foods nutritionists avoid. You would think that those lists probably have some good food overlap and you wouldn’t have to keep 40 essential foods on hand at all times. Maybe you would end up with a final list of maybe 24 or 25 good foods and none of them should show up on the bad food list. Actually, you wouldn’t be too far off.

The 10 foods to always
keep in your pantry		 The 20 foods to always
have in your kitchen		 10 Best Breakfast Foods
Olive Oil
Beans
Quinoa
Greek Yogurt
Honey
Eggs
Sea Salt
Fresh Herbs
Ground Chicken/Turkey
Chocolate 		 Olive Oil *
Greek Yogurt *
Canned Olives
Honey *
Beans *
Quinoa *
Eggs *
Sea Salt *
Tomato Paste
Bananas
Fresh Herbs *
Chocolate *
Garlic
Frozen Shrimp
Mustard
Flavored Vinegar
Oatmeal
Herbs de Provence
Broth
Ground Chicken/Turkey *		 Oatmeal  **
Greek Yogurt *
Grapefruit
Bananas **
Eggs *
Almond Butter
Berries
Coffee
Cereal
Whole Wheat Bread
* On Top 10 List * On Top 10 List
** On Top 20 List
Twelve foods to avoid
White Bread
Bottled Salad Dressing
Gluten Free Snacks
Instant Oatmeal and Dry Cereal *		 Reduced Fat Peanut Butter
Processed Meats
Fat Free Snack Foods
Yogurt Covered Snacks		 Sports Drinks
Sodas
Flavored Milks and Yogurts
Processed Cheese
* On Breakfast Food List

The Foods to Avoid List did clarify that only instant oatmeal should be avoided due to the high amount of processing and the addition of artificial sweeteners and flavorings, plain oatmeal is ok. Further, only highly processed, sweetened, dry cereals should be avoided and there are many non-sweetened, dry cereals that do not need to be avoided.

So this list has a total of 26 foods to keep in your kitchen and only one of them should be potentially avoided. So why am I confused?

Well, many of the foods on the two 10 and one 20 lists might be something every “otherwise healthy individual” might want to keep on hand, but if you have high blood pressure, one of several heart conditions, renal (kidney) disease, or diabetes, you should be cautious of certain beans, salt, tomato paste (or any tomatoes), bananas, chocolate, shrimp, certain broths, grapefruit, almond butter, and most berries. Which foods go with which disease states? Many overlap. But trust me on this. If you have any of these conditions, check with your doctor, pharmacist, or dietitian before stocking up on kidney beans.

And that concludes this week’s public service announcement, brought to you by the RRSB. Happy Eating!

 

In Labor

Michael Leave a comment

If you are reading this from outside the United States, boy, are you lucky! Here it is Labor Day. Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the holiday. I just hate its placement in the calendar. It’s so close to the actual end of summer that everybody wants to make it the end of the season. When they started doing that a month ago I expressed my displeasure at rushing through summer. (See “Strike Up the Grill,” Aug. 27, 2017.) Well, they’re at it again!

Yesterday, a whole day before this fictitious end of summer, I received 7 e-mails, 4 tweets, and a text message touting extra special, lowest prices of the year, super savings packed “End of Summer Sales!” But, as much as I want to criticize the marketing world for keeping us 4 to 6 weeks ahead of any actual event you can think of, I have to admit that this weekend, even I was doing some preparation for the arrival of autumn.

Although I would never think of putting it into storage this early, I did some fall prep work on the little convertible. I conditioned its top and got a good wax to cover its paint, taking advantage of the coolish weekend weather knowing neither conditioner nor wax would dry prematurely in blazing sun and heat making me work less enthusiastically on an already heartbreaking time when the garage door will be closed for good. Or at least for 4 or 5 months.

And even though I didn’t put the walking shorts and the tropical print shirts away, they got shuffled to the back of the closet and the more cool weather practical khakis and polos took their spots on the lower closet bar. Save for one pair that I hope to use later today during the pool’s last operating hours of the year, the swimwear has been laundered and folded and stowed in their bin, hoisted onto the top shelf where room was made in the space formerly occupied by [shudder] sweaters.

In the dining room, the baby blue and yellow and white napery was swapped for navy and orange and ivory linens. The tablescape now sports sunflowers instead of pansies.

So there you have it. A share of my shame. As much as I decry hastening the loss of the season, I too was swept up in the American fixation of making Labor Day the end of summer. Now I don’t know what I’ll do in three weeks when fall actually makes its entrance.

Sept2017

Three on a Match

Michael 3 Comments

I just finished rereading a Phillip Marlowe mystery. Philip Marlowe is the hard boiled detective invented by Raymond Chandler in 1939 in the novel The Big Sleep. You might have seen Humphrey Bogart play Marlowe in the movie version. If you did, you saw a man do some serious detecting. And some serious smoking. Well, it was the time. Between the wars. A manly man. In a manly field. Doing a manly job. Smoking like a man.

Last week one of the movie channels replayed the 1985 film, St. Elmo’s Fire. A bunch of kids just out of college, working their entry level jobs, drinking their every level cocktails, loving and hating their entry level lives. And smoking. Wow, they smoked a lot in that picture. When they drank they smoked. When they partied, they smoked. When they drove, they smoked. When they danced, they smoked. When they attempted suicide, they smoked. When they thwarted suicide, they smoked. When they broke up they smoked. When they made up, they smoked. I don’t remember if they ever ate.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I had been watching Bond, James Bond movies during a month long marathon of the classic spy stories. One of the things about the early 1960s offerings that you might notice is how much they smoked. Everybody smoked. The spy, the counter spy, the henchmen, the femme fatale. Bond, James Bond. Everybody smoked. Some of Bond, James Bond’s best secret weapons were built into cigarette lighters. Others into cigarette cases. Some even into cigarettes.

NoSmokingFrom the 40s through the 60s to the 80s, everybody smoked. By the time we got to the 2000s people just stopped smoking. Movies today even have disclaimers at the end of the credits stating nobody, but nobody involved in the production of the just viewed movie got any financial, moral, or athletic support knowingly, unknowingly, or even accidentally from anybody, any corporation, or any organization supporting or even involved with the tobacco industry. Often the disclaimer is more prominent than the notice of what type of camera used to shoot the film and the union local responsible for driving the caterer from location site to location site.  In the most recent Bond, James Bond volumes nobody smokes. Not in the bars, not in the casinos, not on the stakeouts. Not just the spy and the supporting spy people. No body. No where. No Smoking. They must have all gone cold turkey.

Amazing the strides they made in 20 years. The Surgeon General would be proud of Mr. Bond, James Bond. Now if we could just get him to drive a little safer.