Cigarettes where chic back in the day

A couple of things lately have reminded me of some of the outstanding advertising campaigns of the past. There are some great ones now, the lizard, the duck, the kids feeling cheated ...
It’s good to see car companies perking up. Ford has been getting good reviews, and its Fusion has been named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year. Makes me remember the big billboard signs with the beautiful girl in the convertible, with the words: “Watch the Fords go by!” And, right after the war, when new cars were being (literally) fought over, the big crystal ball with just the snout of the ‘46 showing, and the words, “There’s a Ford in Your Future.”
Chevy’s best advertising was Dinah Shore singing, “See the USA in your Chevrolet ...” For Packard, it was “Ask the Man Who Owns One.” And “When better cars are built, Buick will build them.”
Tobacco companies were the most inventive. But right now, a member of the Reynolds family (Camels) is on a crusade to end smoking. And word is out that EAMC (that’s East Alabama Medical Center, not East Alabama Male College, where some of us went to school) is cutting out smoking even in the parking lot. Quite a change from when Ted Williams endorsed Camels and “More doctors recommend Philip Morris ...”
Fellow named ... what is his name, Hill, Mesa, Ridge ... some kind of high ground, is very upset about it. You mean I can’t even smoke in my truck with the windows closed? Fume, fume,fume.
I used to smoke. Started off on Luckies (So round, so firm, so fully packed), but I felt sorry for the Reynolds family and switched to Camels (I’d walk a mile for a camel)’til I quit, cold
turkey, never to smoke again.
Funny how you’d pick a certain brand. Uncle Jeff smoked Raleighs. Uncle Grady smoked Old Golds. Frosty’s dad smoked Camels. Cousin James smoked Chesterfields (“Smoke dreams from smoke rings, while a Chesterfield burns ...”) Our hired man smoked Country Gentleman through the week, Prince Albert on weekends. As we worked together, I’d quiz him about why he liked certain brands. The tobacco business fascinated me.
When I was growing up, the men at Mt. Pisgah, between Sunday School and preaching, would step outside for a smoke. Cigarettes were as ubiquitous as men’s hats.
When I quit smoking, the mother of my grandkids who are in college was a baby. Unlike most ex-smokers, it doesn’t bother me to be around smokes, which are, like men’s hats, a vanishing breed.
But stubborn ones like Hill, Mesa, whatever, will, as Tex Williams said, make St. Peter at the Golden Gate wait, while they have another cigarette.