Camels (was countdown was: "As If")

[Wilson Gray]

On Jun 24, 2005, at 8:31 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re : Camels (was countdown was: "As If")
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> wilson ponders:
>>>>
> Has there ever been a more pleasant fragrance than that of a
> newly-opened, fresh pack of Camels?
> <<<
> How about the fragrance of camel droppings? It's all subjective, m'man.

Mirabile dictu, it has never been my misfortune to have had to deal
with any aspect of cameldom., potnuh. But my point wasn't that smoking
is good, if only one is able to restrict oneself to cigarettes made
from fragrant tobacco. Rather, my point was that the use of a mixture
of tobaccoes with an extremely pleasant fragrance was, for me, the
aspect of cigarettes that caused me to decide, while I was still in
short pants, long before I had formed the concept of looking or being
cool, that I was going to become a smoker.

> -mark, whose subjectivity is informed by the autobiographical truth
> behind
> my song "secondhand smoke", whose first verse is:
>
> Well, my dad was a two-pack-a-day man
> And the poison went straight to his heart.
> He never made it to fifty
> And I swore that I never would start.

I have full empathy for your point of view. Given that I was a smoker
for more years than your late father lived, I realize that I'm lucky
still to be alive and relatively well.

-Wilson