Driving with my wife yesterday, we were at a stop light waiting and had to put up the dog's back window in the car because someone next to us was smoking and the smoke came right into our car.

I don't think I know a single person who still smokes. So that smell that was a constant feature of public life - bars, restaurants, taxis, homes, movies, etc - is completely missing from my life now.

We both kinda laughed at "one person smoking in a car ten feet away from us made us put up the window to block the smell", but remember going out to restaurants? "Non-smoking section, please." Or flying on airplanes in the "non-smoking" section that was separated from the rest of the plane by ... a curtain? Or arriving at a party or whatever and people commenting on you smelling like smoke because the taxi cab driver was smoking?

Man. It was everywhere.

I remember when the indoor smoking ban went into effect in San Francisco back in the 1990s. I was playing shows in a couple of bands pretty regularly, and we were playing a show at a bar we'd always played at, and the vibe inside was WEIRD.

This was one of those clubs that smelled like beer, leather, and Marlboro Reds.

And here I was up on stage, and I could see all the way to the back of the club because the stage lights weren't being occluded by a cloud of smoke. And everyone was standing along the back wall of the venue. Twitching. Waiting for us to finish so they could bolt back outside for a smoke.

I don't miss that stench. But I do miss the smell of a well-worn leather jacket and all those smells getting into the leather ...