A Song Called Smoke Gets In Your Eyes--Not In Elita's Eyes Elita Sohmer Clayman

When Mom married Dad in 1927, Dad was very wealthy for those days. He bought her a lovely engagement ring, built her a single family home which was rare in those days and she had a housekeeper for a while. Then Dad lost what money he had in the Depression and things were very tight financially. She had no housekeeper and in those days, I believe they made about five dollars a week for five days. Then they moved to a smaller home and Uncle Lou, her single at that time brother, lived with us for a while until he got married. She had the maid once a week for the grand amount of about two dollars then and her name was Alice and she loved us all and we loved her. She especially loved Uncle Lou because when he came home from work on a Friday, he bought Alice a treat. Some loose papers and some tobacco and she would thank him, hug him and go home she said and roll herself some cigarettes. This was her treat working for us because Uncle Lou treated her with this gift. When Dad could not afford her pay and Uncle Lou left us to get married to Aunt Jean and Alice felt it time to retire.

We missed her for her fun, her smile and she missed Uncle Lou the most of all of us. We knew why and we were not jealous of her devotion to him, who brought her joy every Friday with some loose tobacco and some wraps to make herself cigarettes. She never smoked in our home; it would not have been tolerated. Even then, we were aware of the dangers for smokers.

Mom had a brother Julius who was an upholsterer. He worked in a shop where they made sofas, recovered old sofas and between his smoking as most men did in those days; the dust from the upholstery fabrics helped to give him emphysema. He passed on probably not even sixty-years and it was sad to see him trying to breathe. Of course, in those days, people were aware about smoking not being too good for you, but they did not know to the degree of its harm. My only smoking was one puff of a cigarette when I was sixteen and we had a sleepover from our high school, in several rooms at the popular then Southern Hotel. I never let a cigarette touch my lips after the one puff; and I never let a date kiss my lips if he smoked. He was a goner and never did I go out with him again, if he was a smoker.

I always kid my husband Jerry, that between us not smoking for our fifty-two years of marriage, we must have saved about one million dollars. Where it is, I do not know, but at the price of a pack of them, that sounds logical.

Sometimes, we do things that harm ourselves and yet, we do not know too much about the subject. By smoking, many people have passed on many years earlier from the smoking they did in their younger years and the damage it did to them. Though some people do live to long lives and they smoked a lot in their time, so no one really knows what happens. It seems that to stop smoking even if you have smoked for years, could benefit you some in later years. We are not sure of that, but it seems like it is so.

Many years ago in the movies, all the actors always lit up a cigarette. Bette Davis, a famous actress always had a cigarette in her mouth in the various movies. My friend Dora use to brag to me that her dad ate four eggs and lots of bacon every day for breakfast, smoked a pack a day of cigarettes and lived a long and healthy life until he was ninety-three. If so, he surely was lucky because up to recently, eggs were a no-no in volume and smoking was pronounced hazardous to your living a long life.

With all the information out there, especially on the internet. where you can find anything, anytime, people are more informed and knowledgeable than ever. When I had my children, the obstetrician who I used would sit there and talk to you for your monthly visit with an ashtray full of cigarette butts. I think back now and wonder why in the world did I use him? I went to a hairdresser who would roll a curler into your hair and take a puff. That time I was more knowledgeable and I quit going there and to her. When we use to go to the first dance studio, a lady at our table smoked so much, the owner had to tell her to stop and if she wanted to smoke, she had to go out in the lobby. The owner herself was a smoker and smoked in her office there. All these people who were part of our lives in small ways smoked and did not care if it offended anyone at all. We on the other side, if we had guts told them not to smoke in front of us. At the hair salon in those days, we sat under a hair dryer to dry the wetness from the newly made curls. One lady, Irene use to smoke in my face. I always sat away from her and she always came to sit next to me. One day, with braveness in my heart, I nicely said please do not smoke in my face. I am allergic to it. She said she had the right to smoke wherever she pleased. The only way I could get away from her was to change my day going there.

When we had family holiday dinners, Dad told one aunt (his sister-in-law) she could not smoke in our home and she got a bit peeved, but since she was getting a free and excellent meal, she obeyed his wishes grudgingly. It was his home and she did not have the ‘right’ to do something, he did not adhere to, relative or not.

Sometimes when we go to medical buildings to see various doctors, you will see the medical help outside wearing their scrub medical uniforms smoking. I use to go to a doctor and he had to dismiss a worker who was constantly going out for smoke breaks. The other employees said their clothes and purses smelled from her near them and her coat and purse which was next to theirs in the office employee room smelled their coats when they went to get them and go home. She promised the doctor she would stop, but she could not.

A person I know wanted to order draperies and shades from a drapery store. The man they sent out to measure for the items, reeked from smoke.She called the store and told them to forget her as a customer, because she did not want him coming back to install the new drapes. When I ordered new fancy shades from Next Day Blinds, it was with the promise, they would only send a nonsmoker, meaning one who not only would not smoke in my house while installing the drapes, but not even one who smoked in the van or in his own house, because she knew they had an ‘odor’ on their body because the smoke stays there. When Mom’s neighbor passed away about six months after she had new draperies installed from somewhere else, her husband wanted to get rid of the smoke now that she was gone. When the cleaning store that specialized in drapery cleaning came out, they told him they would not even attempt to clean them. He said why and they said even though they were only six months old, the odor was so embedded in the material, they would not waste their time or his money because the odor would never leave. Imagine what that smoke does to a smoker’s insides. That is not a pretty scenario.

When I was auditioning with a voice teacher to take voice lessons because Mom and Dad thought I had a lovely voice, ironically the name of the song was “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. “That is interesting as I look back now, because I have always had an aversion to smoke, long before it was popular to not smoke.

If I go to a restaurant and I smell smoke on the waiter, I usually ask for someone else. However, I am sure there are many waiters and cooks there who do hide their smoking habits from the public.

So to the restaurant workers, the shade blinds employee, the hair stylist, the friend, the doctor or dentist, or any worker that is sent into your house, you have the right to dismiss them if you smell smoke. You have the right not to let them take your food order if you are aware that is what they do and most of all, you have the inherent right to protect yourself if you are aware of someone taking care of you that smokes, not let them take care of you, not come in your home to install or measure and most of all be your doctor. If the doctor knowing all about diseases, mainly the causes, and he or she smokes in your face, he is not the correct or caring individual your body or mind needs. One day at the dance studio many years ago, I was taking a dance lesson from the owner who had the wife who smoked mentioned above. He said to me “you cannot continue to wear perfume when you take a lesson with me, because I have asthma and it makes it hard to breathe.” I replied, “fine, but how do you live with a person for twenty-five years who smokes constantly, does that not bother your ailment.” He looked at me sheepishly and said “yes, what can I do,nothing, she is my wife, I put up with it.”

Do not put up with it because you will pay the price because they say that second hand smoke is almost as dangerous as the first hand smoke of the smoker. Do not let smoke get in your eye as the song proclaims beautifully. Do not let smoke get in your body, your nose or your face. They are your possessions, your body and mind and do not give anyone the opportunity to hurt them. There is a saying that says: “Never cry for the person who hurts you, just smile and say, thanks for giving me a chance to find someone better than you.” We can knowingly apply that to smokers who invade our space. There is enough space around that you need not be a victim of their hobby-smoking. You have rights too and exercise your ‘rightful rights’ to protect and help yourself. You are special and do not let someone take that away from you. Let your life be ‘lit’ up brightly, but not with the lighting from a cigarette.