January 7, 2007

Smoking and Charley Fisher

By Bob Weir
Smoking is a nasty, dirty, smelly habit that can kill you slowly, emaciating your lungs until they can no longer hold a quantity of oxygen without rupturing. The constant inhalation of the noxious weed leaves its mark on your skin, your teeth, your breath, and ultimately your mortality. Several years ago, as a rookie cop in New York, I used to spend some time with a cop named, Charlie Fisher. Charlie was a robust looking, animated character with a great sense of humor and a great passion for smoking. We used to make a lot of arrests and therefore would spend time together in the "paddy wagons" that served as the escort vehicles for prisoners on their way to court. Charlie and I would sit on one side of the square chamber facing the manacled defendants on the other as the van made its way to the halls of justice. Charlie was a Camels man, one of those rough and ready guys who eschewed any type of filtering mechanism that would keep their lips an inch away from the tobacco in...(Read Full Article)