Cherry Wine: Smoking And The 1980s

“We can dance and party all night (all night)

And drink some cherry wine.”

  --Jermaine Stewart, "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off"

"It was a world of wonder and possibility--but it was a tough world, too."

--A River Runs Through It (movie trailer)

When the current times aren’t so great, we tend to--as Watchmen reminded us--tilt towards nostalgia. Those past days, we think, had less problems; we were younger, and life was better and easier. The 90s are coming up in the good-old-days rotation; but before the 80s totally wear out their neon-tinted appeal, here are some of my memories of smoking and the decade of Debbie Gibson:

--Born in 1970, I went through the 80’s as a teenager. That decade started with a vicious recession and President Reagan getting shot. At Lakeview Elementary school, students were summoned to the gym and told the news of the President being shot. A loud, collective gasp came from all of us, echoing in the auditorium. After school in those days, my dad would sometimes play catch with me in our backyard, while he smoked a cigarette.

--My grandfather smoked a pipe; visiting his house in the 80’s, I thought the scent of pipe tobacco was wonderful--rich and exotic.

--Going shopping as a boy with my dad, at the local Kohl’s grocery, I would be pleased to go to the cigarette display and bring him a carton of Kents, sliding the plank-sized carton out of a neat stack. Outside the liquor department were sand-filled ashtrays for the convenience of customers who wished to smoke while they shopped.

--One of my first solo trips to downtown Milwaukee (on the number 15 bus, listening to my cassette Walkman) was in 1982 or ‘83. I wanted to see the new mall, The Grand Avenue. Walking there, after getting off the bus at Water and Wisconsin, I passed Uhle’s. But, since I 1) was just a tender, underage lad and 2) didn’t smoke, Uhle’s didn’t make an impression. What did strike me at that time, though, was the fact that some of my peers had started smoking cigarettes. Each day after junior high (middle school), a group of kids my age would gather at a corner; as I passed, I saw them with cigarettes in their hands, and smelled the gray-blue smoke. And I felt a little sad: didn’t they remember the posters in Health class (“Smoking is very glamorous,” and a black-and-white photo of an ugly old person)? I just didn’t understand the appeal.

--My suburban high school, circa 1986, was, like yours, a psychological slaughterhouse. It was not a John Hughes movie and certainly not Saved By The Bell. During lunch, some students went outside and smoked on school grounds. I think smoking was allowed inside only in the teachers’ lounge. The door of this room was kept closed save for quick entrances and exits by faculty; it was for adults, who could smoke inside if they so wished.

--Oh, and despite watching Hannibal smoke his cigar on The A Team, despite the back covers of many magazines having garish green-and-orange Newport ads, and despite peer pressure, I never had a urge to try smoking in the 80’s, and didn’t smoke.

--In 1988, I started college. Smoking was allowed in the dorms, if your roommate didn’t object. Happily, when I did start smoking early in the 90’s, I lived alone and off-campus.

My 1980’s had much more: I loved music videos, and listened to WKTI on the radio. I wore a jean jacket and wore British Knights sneakers. I saw the heartbreak of the 1982 Brewers and the Super Bowl Shuffle of the 1985 Bears. I learned about AIDS. I wondered who would last longer, Madonna or Cyndi Lauper. I tried the new McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets with Christmas dipping sauces. I listened to what was then called “heavy metal,” Quiet Riot, Metallica, the Scorpions and Twisted Sister. I saw the original Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. But smoking was there, too, in my formative years--not all bad or all good but simply a factor. I could make up my own mind about it.

I wish the generation coming up now, in this decade, could have the same choice.