Workplace smoking in WV

According to the AP, Randolph County has become the 14th county in West Virginia to ban smoking in all workplaces, including restaurants and bars.

When I started working at The Herald-Dispatch on Aug. 21, 19778, the newsroom often had a gray haze from all the cigarette smoke. Ventilation wasn't so great, and more than half the people here smoked. And cussed. I heard more variations of the F-word in my first month here than I did in my entire four years of college.

But the tide turned against smokers in the 1980s and for about 20 years now the newsroom has been smoke free. And, coincidentally, F-word free. Not that I'm saying there's a connection, but both changes make it a better place to work.

Lucky for me, for most of the 1980s I was in the Ironton bureau, alone most of the time. I didn't have to smell anyone else's smoke. It makes me wonder what took us nonsmokers so long.