A life of contribution

As I was making coffee and working through some rib cramps, I was suddenly taken back in memory to grade school. Most folks here will recall cleaning the erasers from the huge slate chalkboards, year after year, as everyone messed up sometime. It was a punishment. And we inhaled the dust. How can we forget the 70's and 80's with trash burning barrels and fall burning the leaves that blotted out the sun? The bonfires that you tried to not fall into due to the alcohol consumption, the campfires, military burn pits, and getting stuck behind buses and semi tractors.
Oh yeah, the memories. That stuff alone should have been enough to wreck anyone, but it didn't somehow, so I started smoking. I think this may ring a familiar bell with most folks here.
So, here we are. The kids will never understand it, and I am grateful for that in a world of dry erase boards, leave pick up, trash pick up, laws governing burns, and electric vehicles.
I, for one, and glad it all came along. Unfortunately, it took a few generations of getting wrecked to get here.
With luck, good practices, and medical breakthroughs, we may be the last to endure this. I sure hope so.