Taunton, where I live, is a city of firsts. It’s the first community founded by a woman. It’s the first city to have streets suitable for training for Mars landing vehicles, given the rugged terrain of endless potholes. It is the first community in the state to vote for casino gambling. And it is the first city where every single citizen – except me – smokes.
OK, some of that is true. Elizabeth Poole founded the place back in the 17th century, the last time we had good roads because there weren’t any. It is indeed the first – and only – community in the state to have citizenry stupid enough to vote for casino gambling, figuring importing all that crime, prostitution and crappy jobs would be a step up. Funny thing is, they’d be right.
And I’m pretty sure I am the only one in the city to not smoke. I say this because virtually everywhere I look, every breath I take, someone is smoking, and it stinks.
Yes, I’m a reformed smoker, and yes, I can be a royal pain in the butt about it, pun smokily intended. Any ex-smoker will tell you they are acutely attuned to the stench that is smoking; we can smell it a mile away.
And I swear, driving down just about any city street, particularly downtown, everyone I see walking down the street or huddled in a doorway has a cigarette in their mouths. If not, the guy in front of me does, or two, three cars up, puffing away, and sure as hell, the smoke finds its way to my car, and it’s all I smell.
Worse, I live in a building where apparently it’s the rule that to live here, you must smoke.
I’m pretty sure everyone but me does. There’s a small child in one of the apartments whose middle name should be “Second-Hand Smoke” by now. The hallway reeks of smoke, the whole building should be picked up and relocated to West Virginia, which has the highest adult smoking rate in the country (odd that seven of the top 10 states are in the south, which also has the most fat people. You’d think all those smokers would be thin. Go figure).
But as I said, this is a city that voted gleefully to allow casino gambling in its smoke-infested borders, which isn’t surprising, since casinos tend to smell like giant ashtrays.
They have some of the most powerful air filtration systems known to man, and should, given the money they suck in, but you just can’t adequately kill the smell of smoke unless you kill all the smokers. And trust me, Big Tobacco is working on that.
I hate to sound like a disgruntled former smoker, but color me gray, I can’t help it, it stinks.
And I hate to sound down on the city of Taunton…no wait, I don’t hate that at all, it’s a dumpy place, like Brockton, only with shorter buildings and way worse restaurants.
No, that’s mean, there are a lot of fine people living here and I’m sure four or five of them, like me, don’t smoke. I think it’s just cause I’ve lived here so long, 30-plus years, so maybe I’m jaded, not to mention smoke-scented.
I started working at the local paper in the early 1980s and saw the best and worst of local politics (mostly worst) and being a journalist, adopted this dour, negative attitude that no matter how many events featuring free food I attended, never improved.
One thing I hate about the place is detail cops. In Taunton, road detail work is a cottage industry. You can’t pass the smallest road job and not see a cell phone or Dunkin’ Donuts cup without a cop attached to them.
read the entire article in the October edition of the South Coast Insider
