By S.G. Thomas
When I read your front page story (“Making SM smokeless a hot topic,” Feb. 26, page 1), I started laughing and couldn’t stop... It’s hours later, and I’m still shaking my head in disbelief.
Were those two people for ‘real’? Aw, c’mon, fess up. We have crazy people like that living amongst us? Really? Smoke coming up through the drain in a kitchen sink? She wakes up ‘gasping for air’? Sounds more like anxiety attacks to me. And our ‘math teacher’... struggling to breathe? I think ‘cerebral allergies’ meant that it’s all in her head.
I was born and raised in New York City in the ‘30’s, where it was popular to have smoke-filled rooms, and I think we all were subject to it daily. Guess what? We all died. So, don’t you ever believe that I’m a healthy old woman with four healthy children, six healthy grandchildren and a very handsome little great-grandson. Don’t believe it because I died from second-hand smoke and cerebral allergies. Not only did it creep up my kitchen sink and through the walls, but it was right in the room with me... my neighbors all choked to death as well.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 28, 2007. Read the original PDF.