I have no desire to glamorize smoking, but it is a human activity and therefore is fair game.

When I was 17 my dad (who was a heavy smoker) caught me at it. He said, “Make me a promise that you won’t smoke a cigarette again until you’re twenty-one. (He died of lung cancer at 80).

I promised and didn’t touch a cigarette for the next four years, and by that time I didn’t like them at all.

I did start smoking cigars at twenty-one and recently spoke with my doctor and asked him, “I’ve been smoking cigars for seventy-two years now. Should I stop?”

He looked me in the eye and said, quite seriously, “If it hasn’t killed you yet, it probably won’t.”

“Probably?”