LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: DON'T FENCE ME IN

To the editor:

Give me room, lots of room beneath the star-ry skies above. So goes the song "Don't fence me in." This song should be every cigarette smokers' theme song for the nineties.

Beneath the star-ry skies above is about the only place left a smoker can enjoy this vice and perhaps the last straw of independence that broke the camels "pack", I mean back. I know they are saying "warning smoking is hazardous to your health". I know that morning, noon and night you can hear the cry "second hand smoke has been determined to be hazardous to one's health -- even the unborn fetus.

Today's thinking is something like this. It is wrong for someone to blow nicotine into the unborn fetus, but a woman has the right if she wants to take the baby's life before the baby is born. Why the cry about second hand smoke? What or who is making all this noise and stirring everyone into a frenzy about people who want to smoke? Smoking is not wrong if it's just killing you. It's wrong if it is killing you and me.

This is the thinking of the world today. A person can eat themselves to their grave. But your overeating will not send me to my grave. It is a matter of survival. The world is telling homosexuals, it is ok to be that way, but if you have AIDs, please stay away. The train of thought is not a concern for others, it is a fearful concern for ourselves. So if you must smoke, don't smoke at your work place, in your home with non-smokers or on your church parking lot. Smoke out there with the eighteen wheelers, trains, planes, and automobiles under the star-ry skies above.

Go blow smoke on your tulips, find a butterfly or ladybug and give them a lung full. Let the birds and the bees, the plants, and the trees absorb your carbon monoxide and nicotine. After all, they don't have rights, do they? Find a cat or a dog to keep you company while you are smoking beneath the star-ry skies above and watch the animal rights people chew your head off.

It is a real dilemma. Both sides saying "Don't Fence Me In". Our planet is becoming a small, small world with an increasing population. Likes and dislikes must find a place to meet.

When the motive becomes a true concern for the other person instead of a fearful concern for ourselves, we will be more considerate and kind and stop putting up trespass signs all around us when others have not learned or reached that stage in life where a healthy environment is on top of their priority list.

Until then -- Don't Fence Me In.

RON FARROW

Cape Girardeau