Boy this brings back some memories!
When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my family would go to the local Elks club on Friday nights to play Bingo. Being the late-1960's, the banquet room where the games were held was like a smoke chamber--I imagine it was like being next to one of those "smoking machines" I saw in one of Joel's or John's articles on Whyquit.com.
The smoke would burn our eyes and our clothes stank because of it! My mother was diagnosed with extreme allergies and chronic bronchitis about this time and she stopped atending the bingo nights with us (she has never smoked). When we came home we would have to remove or clothes and hang them up on the front porch to air out before they could be brought in the house the stench was so bad.
Another memory I have is in the early 80's when I was in college. I worked part-time in the back-office of the University library (safely away from the main stacks that any smoking regulations that would have been in place in the "public areas" did not apply in this room) and 2 of the full-time staff members in my work-group smoked. Each one of them (and everyone else on that floor who smoked) had a machine on their desks that was supposed to pull the smoke out of the room. They worked fairly well but not as well as they could have as we still suffered a fair amount of 2nd hand smoke from them.
Then there were 2 different lecture classes I had where the professors smoked RIGHT IN CLASS DURING THEIR LECTURES!!! Talk about setting a poor example for young people! Of course, the effects were not all that bad in these 2-500 seat auditoriums unless you sat down front.
And to think, those were the "good old days!" As the Virginia Slims ads used to say, "You've come a long way baby!"
David - Free and Healing for Twenty Six Days, 5 Hours and 5 Minutes, while extending my life expectancy 1 Day and 15 Hours 19 minutes, by avoiding the use of 472 nicotine delivery devices that would have cost me $35.42.