Marlboro Man

Remember the urban legend about the Marlboro Man dying of lung cancer? It's true, times two. Two of the men used to symbolize and sell Marlboro cigarettes were killed by the product they advertised. Wayne McLaren (1940-1992) smoked a pack-and-a-half a day and died two years after his cancer diagnosis. David McLean (1922-1995) was a lifelong smoker who started suffering from emphysema in 1985 and had a tumor removed in 1994. McLaren became an anti-smoking advocate; McLean's family filed a wrongful death suit against Philip Morris, Inc.

Speaking of manly men, there is one in this poem, "Baby Girl Found" by Francette Cerulli, which I heard Garrison Keillor read when I started my mornings with The Writer's Almanac. (If you listen--recommended--the poem starts at 3:25.)