Another Reason for Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys

Yep, I watched Willie Nelson perform this song with Blake Shelton, Kris Kristofferson, and Merle Haggard, last night on the Grammies. Then this morning I read that the Marlboro Man has passed away from lung related illness (COPD), you fill in the blank, smoking. Eric Lawson, was 72. He started smoking at the age of 14 and is survived by a wife and 6 children. From age 14 to 72 is 58 years of lung punishment if he smoked all those years and that is a lot. The article didn’t mention whether or not any of his surviving family are suffering from the ill effects of second hand smoke or are following in their father’s footsteps. I made a mistake by looking at the comments after the article and I saw quite a few from both the pro smoking camp and the anti-smoking camp. The funniest pair was (I paraphrase here) about how you have as much of a chance of dying from smoking as you would being hit by a bus, the reply made mention that if you didn’t smoke you might have had the ability to move fast enough to get out of the way of the bus. Losing several family members to smoking related illnesses I’d have to agree with that. Having first-hand knowledge of the negative effects of smoking obviously isn't enough to overcome the addicting aspects of nicotine for many smokers, and sadly enough for the surviving family members, despite their brave pro smoking rants, in the end the smokers don’t often go quietly into the night.