Gpa's Marlboros

As I was reading "Twenty Ads that Shook the World"...the marlboro ad campaign was enticing until I remembered that's what my Grandpa smoked. The cowboy displays were charming and enduring men. Grandpa wasn't a cowboy, but he definitely had that badass "I don't give a care" attitude. Part of that facade  is most definitely from his generation...born during the depression and worked through the war. I would go over to his smoke filled apartment to listen to his stories about bombs going off when they were up in the air. I wonder if they smoked in the plane when they were fighting?  I wish I could ask him why he smoked marlboros. But I am content knowing that he was an independent like the marlboro man. He would say anything, no filter (hah-literally). My favorite line after he was diagnosed with lung cancer , "but I didn't inhale". Grandpa...you've been smoking since you were twelve! It took a while for it to sink in that he was/did kill himself... it's such a sad reality that advertising could have saved a generation of smokers...if only they knew how bad it really was for you.