Dear Editor,

Maybe inspired by my favorite films, “The Hustler,” “The Cincinnati Kid,” and “The Sting,” I owned and operated illegal gambling businesses in the 1970s. This included running a pool hall, hosting poker games, and bookmaking. I often smoked and chewed on a large Swisher Sweet cigar without inhaling. I carried a .38 Smith & Wesson long-barreled revolver in a shoulder holster, equipped with a concealed carry license, and kept a roll of cash on me. I drove a factory-ordered, 4-speed Z/28 Camaro.

I am grateful that I never inhaled that cigar, unlike my father, who survived his Army service in the Philippines during World War II while smoking military-rationed cigarettes. Unfortunately, on January 13, 1964—just two days after U.S. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry publicly issued the warning, “Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health”—my father passed away with emphysema, leaving my mother to raise four children without a father. Tragically, my mother, a lover of snuff, also died from cancer on January 13, 1970.

Unlike the characters in Hollywood movies, I delivered a “Tobacco Kills” sermon in 1989 to a country church in Kentucky, full of Burley tobacco farmers. They threw me out the following Sunday, proclaiming, “Go somewhere that they don’t farm tobacco and preach that message.” Since then, I haven’t had a pulpit, despite having a Master’s of Divinity degree.

With compassion,

Mike Sawyer

Former Mayor of Midland City, AL

Youth advocate & activist since 1983

Denver, CO

Text: 205-515-1560

Email: msawyer911@gmail.com  

Twitter: @FitToGive