I was explaining this to my elementary school aged kids just a few days ago. We were eating in a restaurant and I told them that when I was their age most restaurants had a smoking and non-smoking section. Of course the smoke did not respect the invisible barrier. The idea that people could just smoke indoors and it was normal really blew their minds.

I distinctly remember one Christmas in the mid-70s where my grandfather and uncles all got these ash trays shaped like a house (when you set your pipe/cigarette/cigar down the smoke coiled out the chimney). Everyone was smoking indoors, despite my grandmother was quite fussy and tidy about pretty much everything.

For that matter, my childhood art classes almost always included making an ashtray.

My grandparents didn’t smoke. They didn’t allow smoking in their house and that was seen as super weird in Texas. Even if you didn’t smoke, it was just expected that smokers can smoke wherever. Having ashtrays in the common area was the normal polite thing.

Smoking was allowed on planes!

The first time I ever flew as a kid, I was so excited to be on a plane! And then it turned out to be a 5 hour+ flight with negligible entertainment options and I was so bored...

And then, another dude got bored so he moved to the empty back rows of the plane and smoked for the rest of the flight, and the whole plane was suffused with the smell, and I was so sick.

Like, even those who smoke generally hate the smell of that stale second-hand smoke, especially if locked up in an enclosed space for hours.

Never mind the automobile smoke. (Thankfully we dropped leaded gasoline but) have you ever found yourself following a vintage 1970's-era muscle car or similar down the road today?

Wow, that non-catalytically-converted smoke brings back the memories…

Every vehicle came with an electric lighter and plenty of ash trays. One of the more common crafts kids used to do was making ash trays for their parents.