Smoking tales, new and old

“I think you came up in your column with a much better idea for scaring people out of smoking than what the feds are doing,” writes Alan Simpson of Ellensburg.

“Much better than pictures of cancerous lungs or a corpse on the cigarette package would be to require that all bear the nickname that was commonly used years ago and you have in the column. Coffin Nails.

“Think how you’d feel asking the clerk in the store for a package of Coffin Nails, or offering same to a lady friend. Have a Coffin Nail? Or reaching in for a smoke yourself. By George, I think you’ve got it.”

I don’t know. I remember when the problem was keeping airplane passengers from lighting up in the lavatories which was banned but still went on. At least every other week, an airline reported finding a smoldering cigarette in a lavatory wastebasket. The pilot of an Air Canada DC-9 had to make an emergency landing because of smoke from a lavatory fire, and 23 passengers died on board from fire, smoke or toxic fumes.

I suggested rigging each lavatory so anybody lighting up a cigarette would be doused with water from an overhead sprinkler system. Bill Clothier of Boeing said someone else suggested having a built-in chute so anybody lighting up was promptly swooshed out of the plane into the wild blue yonder. My husband suggested an alarm system so if you lit up in the john, everybody would know it. I didn’t think that would work. A dedicated smoker wouldn’t care how many people glared at him when he came out.

I had a letter from a reader who said that when Gov. Booth Gardner banned smoking in 1989 in state buildings and state vehicles, including the ferries, he was overstepping his authority. The Transportation Commission makes the rules for the ferries and the state highway building. And smoking had always been banned on the ferry car decks on account of all those cars full of gasoline down there.

Rep. Mike Heavey, D-Seattle, told me once about his days in 1972 as a deckhand on the ferry Kulshan.

The skipper, “High Tide Clyde” Surface saw down on the car deck about 15 motorcyclists sitting on their machines, puffing away.

Now, these weren’t ordinary motorcyclists. They were part of the Gypsy Jokers, second only to the Hells’ Angels in notoriety. The Jokers had been camping on Whidbey Island at the time.

“Heavey,” said Capt. Surface. “Those guys are smoking down there. Go down there and tell them it’s against Coast Guard regulations.”

“Really?” squeaked 22-year old Heavey.

“Yeah, really,” said the skipper, and off Heavey went.

“It now seems like it wouldn’t be that much of a problem,” Heavey told me. “But I remember being very nervous. There were a lot of anti-Vietnam War demonstrations going on. Times were more turbulent then.”

Heavey marched up to the smoke-enshrouded gang, and said, “Excuse me, but it is against the rules of the Coast Guard to smoke on the car deck. Would you mind putting out your cigarettes?

“About three of them looked at me like, ‘You gotta be kidding!’ and as if they wanted to get physical but the leader said, ‘Cool it. Put ‘em out.’ They did. I managed to get out a ‘Thank you. I appreciate it’ and I beat it.”

It was, he said, “a very traumatic experience.”

(Adele can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340)