Air Quality Unhealthy? Meh. I’ve Breathed Worse.

When I was a kid it was around this time of year that my family would be getting ready for our annual 2-week road trip. 

We looked forward to our vacation all year long.

Every summer we gassed up the station wagon, borrowed our neighbor’s camper and backed out of the drive. One year it was Maine, the next Vermont, then Virginia, West Virginia, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Niagara Falls, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. 

Two weeks of car-sized togetherness. By trip’s end we were barely speaking to each other.

But when we set off my father would be in high spirits behind the wheel with my mother riding shotgun. She kept a colorful, gas station map spread out across her lap and in her right hand - a lit cigarette.

“Roll up the windows kids,” my dad would joke. “You’re letting the smoke out.”

I didn’t know it at the time but those smoky road trips prepared me for today: My lungs laugh at the Canadian wildfire fumes. My lungs are tough: They spent years inhaling smoke from smoldering Pall Malls. The unfiltered kind, in the red packs. 

I suspect lots of Boomers had similar experiences. Our parents smoked and there was none of this “smoking outside” business, either. They lit up at the table, in front of the TV, heck, they even smoked in the bathroom. 

Our houses were littered with ash trays - bean bag style, glass and even painted clam shells (usually a Mother’s Day gift)  to add a coastal vibe to a deadly habit.

But their favorite smoking spot? The car.

Lucky for all of us who are over 40: we grew up with family members chain smoking in cars with the windows fully up so this wildfire smoke thing is absolutely no issue whatsoever for us. Gonna go run 5 miles

— Tucker Martin (@jtuckermartin) June 7, 2023

My dad quit smoking - cold turkey - when I was a toddler. My mother never stopped. Until that lung cancer diagnosis.

The AP reports that only about 11% of American adults now smoke, so many of today’s kids have never lived with a smoker.

As a result, their lungs are clean and pink and delicate. Boomer lungs? Ours are as tough as a lumberjack’s hands.

The smoke-filled air, blanketing America from a 9-million acre Canadian wildfire, is nothing compared to riding in the back seat of a 1960 Dodge Matador station wagon, with your mom chain-smoking two packs of Pall Malls a day in the front seat.

Leftists never let a crisis go to waste, so climate crazies like AOC and Elizabeth Warren ran around with their hair on fire yesterday, pretending wildfires haven’t been scorching the earth always. 

The vast Glacier National Park has major fires every summer. Some are caused by careless campers and more often, by lightning. Every blaze sends tourists and wildlife fleeing while resetting the ecology of the park. The fires play an important part in keeping the forests healthy.

Glacier’s busiest wildfire year since it was established in 1910 was 1936 with 64 separate fires.

Yes the air quality was officially “Unhealthy” here on Tuesday. Still, my FitBit says I walked 6.62 miles.

I felt fine.

Hey, I spent years trapped in the backseat of a station wagon training for today.