Thin Edge Of The Wedge

Seniors are next target on the list

Written by Ted Byfield
See Website for Bio | See Website for Ted Byfield Archives
Monday, June 11, 2007

‘Maybe I’m paranoid, but I get edgy when I see what they’re doing to smokers’ ming eugiam, quip euisim.

Every time I see the little knot of people outside the back doors of the hospitals, I get nervous.

You know the ones I mean.

The smokers—clinging to their oxygen stands, clad in their skimpy hospital gowns, shivering in the January cold, frantically puffing away.

They’re the outcasts of society, the untouchables, banished out the back door to protect the pure from the evils of second-hand smoke.

Even though I haven’t smoked for something like 55 years, I find this scary.

But it’s not because I fear lung cancer.

It’s the people that did the banishing who frighten me. The New Puritans.

Because I know them.

They won’t stop with the smokers. They’ll be after the drinkers next, And I’m among the drinkers.

They’ll be coming for me.

I’ll be among their first targets because I’ll be in my 80s by then, and they’ll want to save me from myself.