Has anybody read the Charlie Chan books?

[Alpo]

I'm curious as to whether he smoked.

 

I'm binge watching Charlie Chan movies. In two of them he is offered cigars, and refused with his customary politeness - "I do not indulge". In a third one he asked a suspect for a cigarette, which gave him the opportunity to talk to the suspect a little bit. After three puffs, while walking away, he threw the cigarette away with a look of disgust on his face.

 

I can see no reason for Charlie not to smoke. It was the 30s. All men smoked. It wasn't considered bad yet.

 

Unless they wrote it into the script that way because the actor who played him did not smoke. But he died of lung cancer, so I suspect that he did.

[Mud Marine,SASS#54686 Life]

Not everyone smoked. He was supposed to be quite intelligent. I thought that he did use a pipe once but that was a long time ago.

 

Three of my Great grandfathers were investment bankers as were  my paternal grandfather and my Dad. They smoked Cuban cigars. My Dad smoked cigarettes  while serving as the gunnery officer on a destroyer in the South Pacific  during WW Cigars weren't available!!  II. I smoked cigarettes in college and in the Corps and cigars at night during my early working years.

 

I remember riding in my grandfather's limousine with him and my great grandfather smoking cigars and Tom, their chauffer smoking cigarettes. It sure was smoky in there. 

 

I quit after coughing up black s__t  doing wind sprints during rugby practice. Suddenly, I GOT IT!!! 

 

EVERYONE SMOKED BACK THEN!!! 

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

All men did not smoke in the 1930s.

[Mud Marine,SASS#54686 Life]

Every single man and woman of my knowledge smoked. I never even met a non smoker. That someone didn't smoke is certainly possible but ............     I'm not 90 so what do I know! 

[Black Angus McPherson]

10 minutes ago, Mud Marine,SASS#54686 Life said:

Every single man and woman of my knowledge smoked. I never even met a non smoker. That someone didn't smoke is certainly possible but ............     I'm not 90 so what do I know! 

 

I came from a different environment.  None of my grandparents smoked during my lifetime.  My grandfather smoked for a while but threw a partial pack of cigarettes on top of his desk one day and quit.  That was long before I was born.  To my knowledge my father never took a puff.  Although my mother started in college and could not quit.  She was too ashamed of it to ever smoke in front of her parents and died of throat cancer before she hit 60.  She smoked until she died.  It still kills me that she never got to know her grandchildren.

 

I "kid-smoked" for about a year in 7-8th grade.  I quit after gym class one day when I couldn't breathe after some running exercise.  

 

Angus

[Mud Marine,SASS#54686 Life]

I quit when I coughed up black shi- after running wind sprints in rugby practice.

[Cactus Jack Calder]

I was really lucky.

My 6th grade teacher, Mr Artis (1955), was the first male teacher I had. He landed on Omaha Beach on D day and all the boys in my class were suitably impressed. 

One day he stood in front of our class and said “If you smoke, you WILL die of lung cancer”.

That scared me enough that I was able to resist the peer pressure in Junior High School to be “cool”. Once I found out that lung cancer was not an absolute destiny for smokers, I was past the point of being pressured by my friends to smoke. 

So I have never smoked despite both my parents and two brothers all smoking.  

My youngest brother (7 years my junior) died of cancer 6 years ago. So maybe Mr Artis did me a really great favor back then. I still think of him from time to time, with gratitude for all he taught us, not just the smoking warning.

 

CJ

[Tex Wilson]

Neither of my grandparents nor my mother or father smoked, my paternal grandfather always had a "chaw of tabacky" as he called it. I was the first in my family to smoke cigarettes, but stopped smoking 25 years ago.

I tried a "chaw of tabacky" when I was very young when I begged my grandfather to let me try it. He always spit out the juice but he told me to swallow it instead of spitting it out, I did and I got very sick immediately. My grandfather knew what would happen and figured I'd never "chaw tabacky" again...…….he was right, I never did.