i very much want everyone to listen to you about the stopping smoking.

i've been on oxygen for the last week and it's awful. it's also temporary (*knocks wood*). i can't imagine having it be permanent. and sooo many smokers end up on it foreverandeveramen.

bleah.

OMG!!!! I'm hanging the black crepe! I had the world's biggest crush on the guy from Oliver, well past my normal crush having years.

Joins you in mourning. **glares hatefully at the tobacco companies**

I had a crush on Jack Wild too. (God, we're OLD!) I just did a Google image search to see what he looked like then, because he apparently turned into some sort of a gnome before he died, and i found a page of teen magazines from 1971---OMG Bobby Sherman! And David Cassidy! and The Osmonds Brothers and the Brady Bunch! Boys in bell-bottoms with lots of hair!!!

I'm going to hobble over to my rocking chair and take my Geritol now....

*hugs*

My grandfather died from smoking too. Lung cancer and Emphazima at the same time. Not good. I have a lot of friends that smoke, and I don't get it. But I've stopped being the militant anti-smoker I was because I was just alienating people. But when they want to quit, I will happily help. By the same token, I have NO sympathy when they bitch about how they have no money. Yeah, how many packs a day at $6.95 a pack? No money, eh?

I was lucky when I tried smoking at 13 - given a cigarette by a Youth Worker! - I just choked and looked a fool, so I didn't bother taking it up.

:*

Am so grateful that most of my family doesn't smoke. One uncle does, however, smoke lights, and the other has quit for many years now.

*sniffles*

He was on TV over here just a month or so ago, with his missus, who had to 'translate' for him because he was so croaky and unable to speak that the reporter couldn't understand a word. So sad.

I stopped smoking over 10 years ago. :D

HR Pufnstuf! I had a HUGE crush on him, one of my first ever. It's so sad, and I tell you what - he was 53 years old!!! That may seem ancient when you're 16, but I'm going to be 53 in 13 years, and in some ways I feel my life is just beginning. What a freaking waste.

I lost both my parents to smoking-related illnesses, and I say to anyone whose philosophy is "we all have to die of something": it's not the dying that's the problem. It's the living a painful and debilitating life BEFORE you die that's the hard part. Jack died of mouth cancer. Can you imagine the quality of life that goes along with that?!

PS His picture on that obit you linked was...there are no words. 53! Gah!!

It will be one year of non-smoking for me next month. I have to say, I'm quite glad I did it, and have since become vehemently anti-smoking. Oh, and here's a nice photo that makes me proud that I no longer stand up to be counted among them.

Same age as me, almost exactly- which is, I tell you, much, much too young to die.

I started smoking in 1976 and quit in 1985, but I still get paranoid over having been dumb enough to start.

Julia, off to do more useful stuff. Bah.

Thanks for that soapbox Stoney. My mom's been smoking since she was a teenager. They now think they saw something on one of her X-rays. A shadow. I need to call her to get the results. She's stopped many times, but just goes back to it because, and these are her words "It's the only thing I've got". *sigh*

I thought I recognized that name when I saw it on Yahoo.

Oh, I had such a crush on him back in the day! Thanks, I had not thought about the Artful Dodger in years.

Smoking is just about the only vice I don't have :) My daddy was very, very smart. One day when I was 8 or 9, he was smoking a cigar. I said lemme take a puff. And instead of being all indignant, he said ok and handed it over. BLECCCCHHH!

Awwwww! I had such a crush on The Artful Dodger! Very sad that he was so young and obviously couldn't rein in his lifestyle choices.

Ha! One of my sister's nephews asked her "What is DRUNK?" And she started out, "Well, when someone drinks too much--" and he interrupted her excitedly saying "I drink too much!" And she had to explain that no, she didn't mean Gatorade.