McCOMB — Reading a recent report that they’re going to attempt to ban smoking on the Ole Miss campus, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own college days in the 1950s.
We’ve come full circle on a lot of customs since the halcyon days when Dwight Eisenhower was president — that peaceful although brief era between the Korean and Vietnam wars.
At least it was peaceful for middle-class whites like me.
In the black community, of course, it was a different story. The civil rights movement was under way, but it was yet to reach the crescendo of the 1960s, which brought far more profound changes to Ole Miss and the rest of the country than rules on smoking and female residences.
But the contrast in the way these two issues were addressed then and now is interesting to old geezers like me who sometimes have more fun looking back than ahead.
By the time I got to college, I was almost encouraged to smoke. To be honest, I was a closet smoker in high school; that is, I didn’t do it in the presence of my parents, my coaches, uncles, aunts and others I feared would reprimand or tell on me.
In fact, my high school had a designated smoking area where you could go during lunch hour or recess.
When I got to Ole Miss, at age 18, I was on my own. I could and did smoke at will. The tobacco companies even passed out free samples — four cigarettes in a pack as I recall — to help get us hooked. Some professors even allowed smoking in classrooms.
I suspect many of my peers started developing lung cancer or other health issues during that time. I never was one of those pack-a-day guys, and I’m thankful I was able to kick the habit by the time I was around 30.
One vivid recollection of smoking in the classroom that I recall was at the University of Southern Mississippi — it was then Mississippi Southern — where I attended one summer.
In a night class were a few Korean War veterans on the GI bill. Some were more serious than others. The professor was capable, but he was one of those who didn’t particularly care whether you listened to his lectures or not. You either passed or failed on the tests and whatever written work he assigned.
One night a student was reading a newspaper during the lecture, and his buddy, sitting near him, lit a cigarette and then set the newspaper on fire. The prof kept lecturing while they snuffed out the fire and never even acknowledged taking note of the incident.
Females, like males, also smoked freely on campus, both at Ole Miss and Southern. But the resident female students had strict rules and curfews on when they could be out of the dormitory. Every woman of my generation who went to Ole Miss recalls Dean Hefley, who ruled the female dorms.
Now, the girls can come and go as they please. They just can’t smoke unless they are off campus — or do like I did when I was in high school and sneak one.
