Tuesday, November 16, 2021

RIP Sam Huff



The cigarettes didn’t mean squat.

7 comments:

ndspinelli said...

Marlboro was the cig of manly men. They had other manly athletes and of course, the Marlboro Man, hawking their product. I smoked Marlboro because I was a manly man! Hard pack also allowed me to carry joints around w/o them getting crushed. I started smoking in 1972 and quit in 1989.

Huff was a hero of mine as a kid. He went on to play for the Redskins and was a radio announcer along w/ pot bellied Sonny Jurgenson for the Skins for decades. Huff, Nietzche, and Butkus were 3 of the greatest middle linebackers of all time. All manly men.

ndspinelli said...

Manly black men smoked Kools. And, in a sad attempt to be different, would open the Kool packs from the bottom. I was friends w/ black dudes in KC when that was ala mode and asked several what was up w/ that. None had any explanation. It ran its course.

ampersand said...

Marlboro's were marketed as a woman's cigarette up until the fifties. It went from 1% of market sales to 40% today when they changed their target to men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlboro#History

I gave up smoking in 1995. I was up to 3 packs a day and buying generics from Indian reservations. A few years after I quit I was in line to pay for gas when the woman in front of me asked for a carton of Marlboros. The clerk said "That'll be 50 dollars" I yelped like Maynard G. Krebs hearing "WORK".
I've heard cigs are one hundred dollars now.

ndspinelli said...

amper, When I quit in 1989 it was my first attempt. Withdrawal is HORRIBLE. When I hear people say, "I've quit 3..5..10 times" I say WTF?? There used to be a wide swath of people who smoked but now it's mostly hipsters and poor people. I don't know how the latter afford it. Las Vegas is now a smokers magnet, since you can smoke just about anywhere. There was a great scene in the Soprano's where Johnny Sac lights up in a hospital, asking Tony perfunctorily, "I wonder if you can smoke in here?"

Good info on Marlboro marketing, thanks.

MamaM said...

they changed their target

There it is. A double tap, utilizing imagination and desire, to sell a mirage that soothed one inner craving and created another.

ampersand said...

I quit multiple times. The first was relatively easy until I'd be out drinking with friends and inevitably bum a smoke and start up again. Several times I just lied to myself and took up smoking a pipe or cigars instead. The last two times were really tough. Someone said giving up smoking is like losing a close friend and I agree. It took me over two years to get over the urge to smoke the last time. I cleaned out a closet last month and found a box full of cartons of Indian smokes, I threw them all away except for one carton as a reminder.

I absolutely detest the anti vaping crowd. Although nicotine addiction is real the smoke is the deadly part and although I am against restrictions for either I would prefer emphasis be on restricting cigarettes. But then I'm not addicted to the taxes.
PS. My father smoked and drank everyday to his last day. He passed at 92.

MamaM said...

Huff was 87. A good run. My dad who didn't smoke or drink, died at 80 from an accidental fall. We live life as it comes to us.

Kudos to ND and ampersand for living through and out of a difficult habit and addiction to break.