I don't know about it being the "golden age," but as I remember there were no restrictions on smoking anywhere. Grocery stores seemed to always have the scent of cigar mixing with that of fruit and vegetables in my memory, often emanating from the meat cutter out back if not from a customer. As a child, my dentist used to work on me with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. People who objected were a rare breed; I can't even remember any. It all went to hell when restaurants and airplanes banned pipes and cigars, sometime in the late 70s, as I remember. To the extent of my knowledge, it was done voluntarily, often with the connivance and snickering of cigarette smokers, another reason to hate the silly bastards.