Pamela Beckman, Lydia Black and Fran Fenning at Vybe. -COURTESY PHOTO

I hate to sound like your grandma here, but honestly, what is this world coming to, and when did smoking cigarettes make a comeback?

Up until Jan. 27, 2013, I was probably the heaviest smoker you know. The norm was a pack and a half of Marlboro Ultra Lights a day (word to the wise: there’s no such thing as an “ultra” light cigarette; it’s just a way to make yourself feel better when you plunk down between $9 and $16 for a pack). If I were out for the evening and enjoying cocktails, it was more like two – three packs a day.

Back when smoking was “good” for you

Y’all, I grew up in the 70s and 80s when smoking was chic. Both of my parents smoked. When I was around eight years old, I asked my very slim mom why she smoked, and she told me that it eased her nerves and helped her stay “skinny”. These were the days when folks smoked in airplanes, restaurants, and even the waiting room at the doctor’s office. There were cigarette ads on TV and in magazines. Before my mom passed away of emphysema at age 70 (she quit smoking at 60, but as her pulmonologist told us, “The horse was already out of the barn.”), she told me that doctors in the 70s would tell her that smoking was healthy if it eased her stress and made her thin.

Trading cigarettes for oxygen tanks

We’ve come a long way, baby (to borrow an old phrase from Virginia Slims), and now too many of our boomer parents and grandparents are suffering from the results of their “healthy” past time. I get sad when I’m at the grocery store, and I see more and more older folks with portable oxygen tanks that they carry like purses. The cigarette commercials are gone and today it’s all advertisements for COPD medications and inhalers.

Going forward, not backward

But here’s where I’m confused. I feel like we went through a period where we weren’t seeing a lot of smokers — maybe the occasional old, grizzled dude with a Marlboro Red butt hanging between his teeth — but for years, I never saw young people smoking. Makes sense though, in the early 2000s it became unlawful to advertise tobacco products, warnings were put on labels, and smoking was banned pretty much everywhere including some outdoor spaces. Yet, in the past few months or so, I’m seeing so much more smoking — and it’s young, healthy, attractive people. I see it in magazines, movies, on social media — everywhere. It seems the “looking cool” chapter of smoking is trying to puff it’s way into the millennium — and I hate to see it. I remember smoking in public places in my 30s, and inevitably, some “old” person would walk by and say with a frown, “You know that’s going to kill you don’t you?” — it was all I could do not to blow smoke in their face. So I certainly don’t comment when I see young smokers. Well… I sort of don’t. The other day, I was walking down Bay Street in downtown Fort Myers just in front of the beautiful 120-year old Florida Repertory Theatre when a hipster kid, probably around 18 or 19 with skinny jeans walked by smoking. He took one last drag and then flicked his butt onto the sidewalk in front of theatre. I said nothing, but I bent down and picked up the still burning butt and walked to two steps over to an ashtray (they’re all over downtown — you can’t miss them) and I smooshed the cig into it.

“Bro, what are you doing?” said the boy.

“Bro,” I answered, “I’m putting your cigarette in an ashtray —look how nice our historic district is — let’s keep it that way.”

I’m surprised he didn’t light yet another American Spirit and blow it in my face — but he just shrugged and walked away from the lady that probably looked to him like his nagging meemaw.

I’ll never live to see hipster boy with an oxygen tank in Publix — truth be told, even though I quit almost 14 years ago, I’m guessing my horse got out of the barn before I bolted the gate, too. But, hopefully this smoking thing will be a very fast trend that fizzles quickly and that young man will not only stop smoking, maybe he’ll start telling others how ashtrays work. That’s a start anyway.

Vybe — where mahjong is a vibe

The only thing that was smoking last Sunday were mahjong tiles at Chef Harold Balink’s new hot spot, Vybe, in the Bell Tower. It was a mahjong fundraiser for the nonprofit, Our Mother’s Home, which helps teen moms in foster care. Lots of fabulous ladies (and guys, too) came out for the cause, including Azil Melton-Malan, Marin Asher, Sandra Stilwell-Youngquist, Liz Abbott, Lydia Black, Fran Fenning, Gina Birch, Lynn Schneider,  Pamela Beckman, Jenn Robinson, and so many more!

Stephanie Davis is a recovering girl-about-town formerly known as the Downtown Diva. A nearly native Southwest Floridian, when she’s not photographing events for Florida Weekly, she’s perfectly content to stay at home binging Netflix with husband, Todd, and four cats Tennessee, Lilibet, Jack, and Baby.