We spent this warm, sunny afternoon at the Baton Rouge Zoo. It was the first time I had been there in at least 40 years. We stood at one exhibit, a large island separated from the pathway by a moat. There was a rhino on the thing. I told Julie and the kids that I believe this was the chimp island when I was a kid. That was a favorite exhibit, because people would flick their lit cigarettes across the moat at the chimps. Every now and then, one of the smokes would make it to the island. The chimps would scramble for it, and whoever got it would run around smoking it, completely delighting us kids.

Now the zoo is non-smoking, and there are no chimps there. The Seventies, man. It’s a wonder any of us survived. I guarantee you that Mama, smoking like a chimney with the window barely cracked, drove us to the zoo with Ruthie and me bouncing around the back seat of the Ford LTD, unbuckled, and fighting over who got to lie on the ledge under the back windshield.