A Cautionary Tale

 

So, as many of you know, I have bladder cancer and have been undergoing chemotherapy as my preferred treatment plan. I have now completed two treatments. Each cycle is three weeks. Next week completes cycle 1 of 4 cycles where, for my aggressive chemo plan, requires 2 weeks Chemo and the third week off.

 By mid-January, God willing, I will be finished. But the last time I had chemo, my plan was a 24-week plan which had complications which lasted nine months. But yes, I am extremely positive that I will finish on time.

 The purpose of this post is to let you know I am a cautionary tale. Both cancers can be caused by cigarette smoking. There is no direct proof that it was for me, but science shows that it certainly was a big contributor. I started in February, 1961, and had my last on Christmas Day, 1995. Almost 35 years, the last 15 years as a three plus pack a day smoker.

 When I started, every TV show, starting with I Love Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, Fred Flintstone and so many movies showed characters smoking all throughout. Family members and friends smoked. My Dad, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and even on occasion, my Mom.

 Even advertisers glorified smoking where “four out of five doctors recommended smoking Lucky Strike for better health”, Winston tasting “good like a cigarette should”, walking “a mile for a Camel”, and having “a lot to like with a Marlboro”.

 By 1965, we had our first warning placed on every pack, carton and ad shouting that smoking was bad for our health. Remember, I started at almost ten, and now I was almost 15, hooked and feared nothing because I was invincible. Yeah, right!

 By 1980, I was smoking those three packs a day I mentioned above. And I saw first-hand what happened to many people around me who smoked. But I said it wouldn't happen to me. After all, I was not yet 30, running several miles a week, unwinded, a strong specimen of a man in excellent health and shape at a fit 170 to 180 lbs, six feet tall, with a mass body index around 18.5 before anyone really cared about this measurement.

 Did I stop smoking? No, of course not.

 Fast forward to 1995. I stopped smoking because a pack of cigarettes on Long Island was approaching $2.00 a pack. When I started in 1961, a pack was $0.25 a pack. Plus, you could try what you liked with "two-cent loosies" the guy in the candy store displayed proudly in a tray on the counter of the popular or "exciting" cool brands available for purchase. By 1965, this was illegal. And so was selling cigarettes to people under 18. 

 While "loosies" stopped being displayed and sold because doing so was an obvious violation, selling packs to minors, like me at thirteen, was not enforced. Along with the Sen-Sen Gum. Or Violet square candies.

 Back to 1995. I used the patch which was only sold via prescription. Of course, I did it my way. It took me six months to finally complete the three-month plan because I added weeks by cutting the patches to make the level of nicotine wean me slower to the next level down. 

 21 mg to 14 to 7 to 0 in three months. Not me. I went from 21 mg for 25 days, to 18 mg for 25 days by using a scissors, to 14 mg for 25 days to 10 mg for 15 days. 7 mg for 30 days to 3 1/2 for 50 days to finally 1.75 mg for 10 days or so. I stopped this on June 30, 1996.

 I have helped others stop smoking, too. By being there and encouraging them. As part of their support team.

 But, I learned in 2011, I had Stage 3 Colon Cancer and now I have Aggresive Bladder Cancer. I blame no one. It was my choice to smoke. I actually felt I stopped on time.

 Ehhhhh... Wrong!

 As I said earlier in this commentary, I am a cautionary tale. I am in no way interested in blaming anyone for my choices or for a pity party. That is just so beneath my own dignity and self-respect. I have always been a man who takes responsibility for my own choices, my own decisions with no regrets. I like the man that looks back at me in the mirror. I am the man I am for those decisions I made for me. Maybe not happy with some of the outcomes. But proud that I made them for ME. And those who know me, know that this comes from my heart.

 When you read this, take this message as it is meant. Not as a reprimand. Not as a criticism. But as a lesson. Stop. Today. If you know someone smokes send it to them. If you have young children, sit with them and explain that the dangers are not immediate, but rather, long-term. If they smoke already, don't yell or punish them. Instead, show them this.

 There is longevity for my family to live well past 80. I will be grateful as a seventy-year-old man to reach 75.

 And now, I am just a cautionary tale.

 

The Many Lessons of the 2021 Election

Okay. So now the pundits and prognosticators have had a day or so to lick their wounds and have begun to make excuses for how their data was wrong, or misinterpreted, or didn’t see the red wave hiding in plain sight, or the election gremlins affected the turnout and results. Or, maybe, instead these self-proclaimed seers that the media and the parties rely on to predict the outcomes of an election with their sophisticated polling formulas (see https://frankmchalesviews.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-poll-that-matters-first-tuesday-in.html for more details) really don’t know squat about reading people. 

Hey pollsters! Lesson One on polling is the only poll that matters is the one done on Election Day. And Lesson Two? People will lie to you if they feel your questions are intrusive or misleading.  

You see, if the questions are slanted in a subliminal way toward one candidate or party, most reasonable people with any elementary understanding of social behavior, will see through you and tell you what you want to hear to make your point. Or, maybe, you want to slant the outcome to your candidate that you will only hear what fits your agenda. Or the agenda of the person or party who is paying you to come up with the desired result. Either way, the margin of error a poll uses as a fallback is a cover to make the poll seem more legitimate. 

But the poll taken on Election Day doesn’t need the trickery of deceptive questions or spinning the outcomes to fit an agenda. Why? Because the poll taken on Election Day is real and doesn’t factor in a margin of error, because there is none.  

And by the way, the same can be said of exit polling, a strategy used by the media to help them come up with how the polling got it so wrong before Election Day, and gives “legitimacy” to their “experts” that report all night long after the votes are counted. 

But here is the thing. The people see through all of this and vote the way they feel about the President, the Congress, the Governor, etc., and the policies these entities are foisting on the American people may not be in line with how the people feel in the months leading up to Election Day. 

You know, like MANDATES which take away the FREEDOM TO CHOOSE what the people want for their own well-being, without the government, Federal, State or Local saying the word “MUST” and making the people feel like WE are the government’s chattel. Certainly, if a government official wants our votes on Election Day because they believe we are smart enough to vote for his or her agenda, then they must also believe we are smart enough to make our own decisions for ourselves. Right? RIGHT?

So, here is the lesson with the Election of 2021. The people are tired of being TOLD what we MUST do. And government officials must remember that THEY WORK FOR US. Not the other way around. They need to go back and re-read the Constitution of the United States. And focus on the Preamble which says all of this in less than sixty words with these following six promises:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

This is the lesson that the non “leaders” need to learn, like Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Hochul, Newsom, “the Squad”, and other wannabe dictators. Because WE THE PEOPLE will vote you out if you continue to go down that path. 

And no pollster that you hire will be able to save you from your own deserved self-destruction, no matter how the questions are asked. Because we can see right through it.