Unit 2
Give Me My Place to Smoke!
III Listening, Page17
MICHAEL:My name's Michael, and I've been smoking for fifteen year.
PEGGY: My name is Peggy, and I've been smoking for probably thirty
to fifty-five year.
KATIE DAVIS:Peggy and Michael sit in a smoky neighborhood bar in
Washington,D.C. a cigarette perched in each of their hands. They
say there are fewer and fewer places like this, where they feel
completely comfortable lighting up, and they expect the EPA report
on secondhand smoke to contribute to further restriction on
smoking in public place. They both say they are keenly aware of the
reception they get when they smoke, and how that has changed
over the years.
P: Thirty-five years ago you really didn't give a lot of thought to
smoking . Now you do. And of course you're finding that it's much
less acceptable, much less popular, shall we say, to be a smoker.
And I don't know how much of that is basiclly political , and how
much is apolitical. I don't like the atmosphere today, not only for
smoking , but I find that that's true in many other areas of freedom.
DAVIS: How do you experience it ? How do you get that feeling
from other people?
MICHAEL: Well , fifteen years ago you didn't think about it. You
walked into someone's house and they would offer you an ashtray.
You don't do that anymore. "Is it OK if we smoke?" because for a
while there it was.
"Well, I really wish you wouldn't."
DAVIS: And that was awkward?
MICHAEL: No, it wasn't awkward; it's just that you learn not to ask
anymore, and just assume that it's not right.
PEGGY: I found it awkward.
M: You go to parties now . You know, where it used to be that
everybody was standing around with a cocktail in one hand and a
cigarette in the other and blabbing , and now you see the smokers,
kind of ... if it's an apartment, furtively standing around an open
window, or if it's a house, standing outside in groups. It's pretty
common.
D: Has it changed your smokingn habits in any way?
P: That's hard to say. I will say this: I Know that I'm much more
cognizant of my surroundings. For example, if I walk into someone
else's office any more, I would never think to take a cigarette. And
like he said, in someone's home, your wouldn't automatically sit
down and have a cigarette. So in that regard, yes.
M:Yeah, I mean, I've developed a whole body language about
smoking in groups and in places where it is permissable to smoke.
P: Oh yes.
M: It's ... you take a drag.
D:As you're doing right now.
M:Rigth. Blow it straight up in the air so that it doesn't get in
anybody's face, then try to hold your cigarette so that the wind
catches, whatever wind there is catches it so, that it goes away
from the group. So after a while, you look like a factory. You're
blowing smoking smoke straight up, and you've got this cigarette
flying out in the air there. It's a whole body language.
P:And you do look a bit strange; you're right, now that you say that.
Do you feel any defiance?
M:I don't think I do. I've never felt a desire to inflict my habit on
anybody else.
P: I guess I don't mean inflict your habit. I think when I mean
defiance , what I mean by that is if you are in an area where it is
totally acceptable to smoke, that... but you know that there is
someone there who doesn't really want you to smoke.
M:Yes yes. Actually, one afternoon I was coming home from work. I
was walking up Connection Avenue and I had my Walkman on. It had
been kind of a rough day, and I was puffing away on a cigarette and
walking up the street, and someone came around in front of me and
pointed behind me. So I took my Walkman off, and turned around,
and there was this man standing there, and he was going, "Excuse
me , your cigarette is in my eyes."
P:And you were outside.
M:I was outside, on the sidewalk, And I looked at him, and I said,
"Well , then walk in front of me." And I just felt like he was his own
private smoking patrol. It had nothing to do with my kind of physical
discomfort I was causing him.
P:And did you wonder if , the next day, he was part of the fur
patrol?
That's what I think I mean about the defiance. I find that in myself,
that when they make a judgement, and that's basically whtat they're
doing, they're makeing a judgement on my behavior.
D:Do you understand at all, though, this strong feeling that people
have about smoking. that if they're not a smoker, they don't want to
be around it , they don't want to inhale the smoke?
M:Yes I can understand it . Sure , I mean I've really knuckled under...
I have changed my habits to respect the rights of people who don't
want smoke around them, and I'm much more cognizant of how my
smoking might be affecting the general area. If I'm in a smoking
section. I feel that I'm entitled to smoke , If they take away that
smoking section, I won't smoke in there anymore.
P: I wouldn't go there anymore. If it's a matter of spending my
money in a restaurant, for example, I wouldn't spend my money
there.But in regard to that, yes, I understand it , but i also feel again,
back to equity. Give me my place to smoke. That's all I ask.
D:Peggy and Michael both live in Washington, D.C.