Sigh...must we have another hookah foolery conversation? From the headmaster of The Haverford School's wife no less?

Ok yes she has her own life, own identity. But like it or not, liberated gal or not, she is the wife of in effect, a high school principal. Which means, like it or not, what she does reflect on him and his teachers.

So she writes in Main Line Today Magazine about a visit to Omar's Hookah Bar. Seriously? Even if she wouldn't do it again - hookah is a lot more lethal then even regular smoking which is bad and addictive enough, and if schools are supposed to encourage students NOT to smoke, what is the message here if you are a kid reading it? Try it anyway? And Omar's is BYOB too, so is this advisable?

Not trying to be a puritan here, but this kind of just struck me as maybe she should have had a different topic? Or in addition wondering again about middle aged women coming to terms with aging? I am younger then her, but still qualify as a middle aged woman. No, I am not a parent, but the parents I know do not want their kids in hookah bars. And while I enjoyed being a teen, those days are done. I think this woman, much like Philly Post writer Kelly Rowell and her image issues just need to get a grip.

Is aging fun? Ask me again in 10 years. But right now, I know who I am, and I don't need to visit hookah bars to be that person. Jet the horse has more sense then the headmaster's wife...

Smoke Screen
What happens at the hookah bar stays at the hookah bar.
By Kathy Stevenson
Illustration by Dewey Saunders Published March 23, 2011 at 09:00 PM

The flyer in the window planted the first seed in my mind: “Hookah café opening soon.” On my daily walks around the neighborhood, I often notice odd sights—but a hookah café? In Bryn Mawr? The very idea of it was tinged with an air of slightly seedy mystery. I figured it must involve smoking something, but since it was right there on Lancaster Avenue, right in plain sight, I also knew that whatever was going to be smoked would have to be legal.

....I Googled “hookah.” It turns out I’d seen a hookah at parties in the early 1970s—a water pipe.....So why did I still want to go? Was it a desire to cast my inhibitions aside and throw off the shackles of middle age? That was the case, I’m afraid. So I spent an evening at Omar’s with a younger male friend and his buddies.

At first, I sipped my BYOB wine and observed with detached neutrality. But after my third glass, I seemed even to myself to be a prude, a dullard, a party pooper of the first degree.

And so, dear reader, I inhaled many flavors of tobacco (favoring the fruity ones). I drank more wine. I conversed loudly with my five hookah mates.....