Today is my birthday

[3Hotdogs]

25. Ya may have beat me on that one. You saved lives. I probably did that too but I have no way knowing

for sure.

I posted my story on D.U. a few years ago.

For thirty years, my lover and I worked on New Jersey Gasp (Group Against Smoking Pollution) to end smoking in N.J's public spaces. When we began with G.A.S.P., you could smoke in any public space you wanted... restaurants, municipal buildings, airplanes, buses, trains, stores, bars and even doctors' offices and hospital rooms if oxygen was not being dispensed.

For thirty years, we wrote letters to newspapers and elected officials. I spoke before town councils and the N.J. state senate. In 1989, one small municipality passed an ordinance to prevent smoking in their public buildings and the two restaurants that were in the town. It made headlines in state newspapers. A year later, other towns passed similar ordinance.

The tobacco companies sued but they lost in the courts.

For a year, I carried a device to register the amount of particulate matter in air. I carried it into spaces in which smoking was prohibited and compared the air with facilities that allowed smoking. I presented the results to the N.J. Senate.

Four months later, smoking was not permitted in spaces in New Jersey that are open to the public.

BUT -

Soon, groups in other states began to organize against indoor smoking... New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and I don't know how any other states now prohibit indoor smoking.

So I am sure I have saved lives. Nobody knows my name to connect me with those efforts. They know the name of my lover who's the face of the organization. But it doesn't matter. I know that New Jersey is a better place to live because of what I helped achieve.

AND --- I also know there are times I have been a shit. Sometimes, with stupidity. Sometimes with intent.

But I keep on. And I hope there are fewer instances of my being a shit during the next years I have. (I posted on D.U. yesterday about my 80th birthday). I Don't know how many more days I have but they are getting fewer and fewer.

So back to you. You have a lot to be depressed about. But I invite you to think about how you can find wayS to change your situation in life and make something better for someone else or many people.