Smoking in the Cab - Trains Magazine

jeffhergert

I remember reading an item in a 1970s era issue if Railroad Magazine.  The item dated to the early 1900s.  It seemed that some railroads would not hire and might fire cigarette smokers.  Other forms of tobacco use were OK (pipe, cigar, chewing tobacco) but not cigarettes.

Jeff

In the pre-World War One days cigarette smoking by men was considered effeminate, and a man who smoked cigarettes was considered "a little light on his feet," to use an old euphamism.  REAL men smoked pipes, cigars, or chewed.

World War One changed that.  There was no way to enjoy a pipe or cigar in combat, so cigarettes it was, or nothing.  They took up a lot less room, took less time to smoke, and were easier to pack around and less easily damaged than cigars.  And the "terbaccer" chewers?  Sometimes they had to chew cigarette tobacco when the cut plug didn't come through.  (Everybody can stop for a shudder break now.)

By the way, at the time wrist watches were considered effeminate as well, real men used pocket watches, and the more they approached turnip size the better!  However, pocket watches were impractical in the trenches so wrist watches caught on and never went away. 

And the song went...

"Good morning Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip, with your hair cut short as mine,

 Good morning Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip, gee you're surely looking fine!

 Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, if the Camels don't get you the Fatimas must,

 Good morning Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip, with your hair cut short as mine!" 

Kind of a dopey song, I guess you had to be there.  It's no "Long Way To Tipperary."

HEY!  Guess what I just found?

Makes a little more sense now.

And God bless all those Doughboys, sailors, pioneer aviators and Marines now gone down "The Long, Long, Trail."

Long  post, 'scuse me, I'm gonna step outside for a smoke.

Yeah, I know, shame on me, "Smoking takes ten years off your life."

So what?  They're the worst ten years anyway.