August 2007
“Smoke” as defined by Jim Brown
I'm a fireman.
Where there is smoke there is fire.
When there is fire, I get to kick doors in, run into burning buildings and put it out.
The heat bears down, my mask steams up, I can hear the roar, and I wouldn't want to be any place else in the world at that moment.
After the fire, my bunker gear smells like smoke for a while, and it smells good.
In the figurative sense I use the word more sparingly:
"Dude, you smoked that thing" (smoked almost always is accompanied by "dude") and if you smoked something you must be "on fire".
Or other times, I use it to describe something that I consider hot:
"Dude, did you see those (________), they were smokin'!"
And sometimes, though overly sentimental, there's this one song that reminds me of a different era in my current relationship, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, by The Platters.
"When your heart's on fire, you must realize, smoke gets in your eyes..."
Buy me a Belgian and I'll tell you more tales about smoke.
