'I Resolve to Never Resolve~~!'

Story ID:	3378
Written by:	Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe
Organization:	Retired RN/Freelance Writer and Photographer
Story type:	Story
Location:	Shoal Harbour NL Canada
Year:	1977
Person:	A Group of Friends

'I RESOLVE TO NEVER RESOLVE'

The New Years’ Party at our house was in full swing. It was 1977 and the house was full of baby boomers, most of the people were neighbors, friends, co-workers, all of us in our thirties, with the two income families, the two kids, the house with a recreation room, and as the song said "We had freedom, we had money, in the land of milk and honey, kids of the baby boom!" Still full of the enthusiasm of youth that allowed us to play practical jokes like college kids, but mature enough to know we had children now and jobs to apply ourselves to and we did work hard. And in the seventies thoughts of RRSPs’ were still far in the back of our minds and the talk of children s’ play groups and mortgages filled our conversations. And our time off that we spent together, and playing was full of laughter, and most often, full of smoke, lots of smoke.

It seemed in those days the majority of us smoked, either a little or a lot, but still it was smoking. I have a husband who despises smoking and the smells, ashtrays, and all that accompanies it. He had been known to screw ashtrays in cars tightly shut, but he found that you can’t stop a smoker that way. So for the few who did not smoke, they were stuck in rooms full of second hand smoke, regardless where we met as a group. Smoking was in, and at a party smoking was extreme. And the prevailing attitude was ‘if it feels good do it’!

Oh, yes, life was good!

So at this particular party the subject of New Years’ Resolutions came up and was bantered about. Studies were beginning to show the reality of the real dangers of smoking, the cancer, emphysema, and various other diseases. Even bladder cancer had been linked to smoking. The seed had been planted that maybe this was not a good thing. For some it made them determined to quit, for others they would say ‘I don’t plan to live forever anyway, big deal!’ And carry on with the two pack a day habit with the cavalier attitude of the day. But in the group on that New Years Eve one of the men challenged the smokers, and he was a smoker himself, to quit at midnight. That would be the resolution. So they huffed and puffed as many cigarettes as they could between eleven and twelve o’clock. The air was blue with smoke and the coughing and hacking and hoarse voices were the result of the smoking marathon. I was a light smoker, could take it or leave it, so didn’t get too involved, and also being the hostess I had no intention of taking sides in this thing. Not so for my husband.

Twelve o’clock came, we watched the countdown in Times Square, New York on television, did the customary ring of friends hand holding and singing of Auldang Syne, and right on a cue all the smokers tossed their cigarettes into the wood stove. Any in pockets or purses were not touched apparently but any lying around was thrown into the fire and gone. So, "OK," said my husband, " if there is no smoking there will be no need for ashtrays!" And he went around and collected every ashtray he could find and threw those in the fire as well. No big loss, all dollar store items and the occasional souvenir, so they would not be missed, and certainly if no one was smoking they would not be needed. And that was that, a group of non-smokers entered 1978 with a firm resolve that smoking is bad, smoking hurts and they had quit, once and for always.

The party carried on, the conversations continued and I went to prepare food and tidy up around like any good hostess. The group settled down and talked about the past year, their plans for the New Year and all seemed to be on an even keel, that is until about ten minutes into the New Year.

I walked back into the room around the ten minute mark to find half a dozen grown men and women on their hands and knees with a poker, furiously trying to rescue the ashtrays. The resolution it seems had met with disaster when one of the women lit a cigarette out of a fresh pack she had in her purse,announced she never said that she had quit, and with that the rest of the quitters turned into withdrawal freaks who would put their hand in a hot stove for a silly dime store ashtray. My husband did rescue the ashtray, however only one, the woman passed the cigarettes around and everyone made the remark that they would start their resolution at noon on January First, later that day in fact.

And again the party continued as if nothing had happened, the air turned blue again, the huffing and puffing continued and when the package of cigarettes was finished they all decided to call it a night.

I often wondered after that how many convenience stores close to my house had people in buying cigarettes at one thirty that morning. My husband couldn’t believe that he had witnessed the best made and fastest broken resolution of his entire lifetime thus far, and I just chuckled to myself.

I had some kind of built in little motor that allowed me to smoke a cigarette and then never touch another until whenever, whether it is the next week or next month. My friends could not all do that, and the rest of the parties of the winter were still smoke filled, and often some of that smoke was mine. But one by one these people quit over the next few years, and now some of us are actually offended by even the smell of cigarette smoke.

Quite a few of our group were health professionals, such as nurses, doctors, pharmacists and we saw the effects of smoking every day we worked. But still it took a long time for the message to reach our dumb brains that Smoking Kills. Now we look back in dismay at the photos taken at various gatherings, all of us holding a cigarette, or cigar. Feeling very invincible and totally ‘cool’, and the photos now make us look silly and very unprofessional.

However, that is the story of the shortest resolution we had ever witnessed and we often talked about it with such surprise. Professional people, knowledgeable health care providers, down on their hands and knees poking an ash tray from a glowing wood stove fire. Such was the power of the cigarette in our lives. Thank heavens now we have moved on, and we are fighting the battle of the chocolate and cholesterol high foods, and those we don’t have to make resolutions about, because now we are older, somewhat wiser and we know that if we make those short resolutions that last ten minutes we may truly pay with our lives.

No ‘butts’ about it, we get too soon old and too late smart!!

Bonnie J-Lowe

Quote: 'It has been said that a New Year's Resolution is something that goes in one year and immediately out the other!'
How True??