Coffin Nails

I’m now almost ten years older than my father was when he died from a heart attack and emphysema caused by 50 years of smoking Camel cigarettes.

He was one of those guys who always looked debonair with a cigarette in his hand. There was something about the way he held the cigarette between his fingers with his wrist at a jaunty angle. Some other men and a few women could pull off that casual but elegant pose, but most of them died young like my father.

Because I wanted to be like him, I started smoking Camels at fifteen. Full of teenage bravado,I called them coffin nails.

My children shamed me into quitting after learning in school about the dangers of smoking. “Stop smoking, Daddy. We don’t want you to die,” they pleaded. And it worked.

That’s probably why I’m almost ten years older than my father was when he died.

Once Upon a Time

“The sky is falling. The sky is falling,”
said Chicken Little to Henny Penny.
Cocky Locky believed her and told
Ducky Lucky who told Goosey Loosey
who passed it on to Turkey Lurkey.
But Foxy Loxy was hungry.

We’re so traumatized by knowing
the end of civilization could be near,
that we can’t bring ourselves to do
much of anything about it.

We keep passing it on to our friends
on social media who pass it on
to their friends on social media
who pass it on to their friends.
But the politicians are hungry.

“The air is dying. The air is dying,”
said the scientist to the politician,
who kept his mouth shut so his
oil industry donors would keep giving.

“The species are dying. The species are dying,”
said the naturalist to the politician,
who kept her mouth shut so her chemical
industry donors would keep giving.

“The soil is dying. The soil is dying,”
the farmer said to the politician,
who kept his mouth shut so his
big ag donors would keep giving.

This is not a child’s bedtime story.
This is a horror story about the fate
of your grandchildren and
great-grandchildren.