Where there's smoke

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
And they say smoking shortens your life. A 104-year-old Haifa man has been hospitalized in Haifa's Rambam Hospital after his legs were burned when he lit up his nargila (hookah or tobacco pipe) for a smoke - something he has done every day for the past 90 years, reports www.mynet.co.il. Ya'akov Zieger, who took up smoking as a mere teenager in Yemen, said he always poured kerosene on the coals in the pipe to help them ignite, but this time it seems some of the flammable substance dripped onto his trousers, with the result that when he lit the pipe his legs were burned. But the accident has not deterred the old smoker, who asked his son to bring the pipe to the hospital so that he could smoke while recovering. "I haven't smoked for five days," he said from his hospital bed. "A little nargila, a little gat (the stimulating leaves chewed by Yemenites), a small glass of arak (aniseed-flavored alcoholic beverage) and a young woman all guarantee a long and good life," he said.