Still, I have this gnawing feeling that there's something not quite right about the Duke Homestead Tobacco Museum. Even in Durham, a city built by tobacco, it's generally agreed upon that smoking is, and was, bad for you, no?

Then why did my recent visit to the Duke Homestead leave me feeling like I'd just walked through a mock exhibit on tobacco where the joys of nicotine are still cherished? Or that I'd possibly entered some vortex, or some Simpsons-esque museum where everything is irreverent and, well, opposite of what it should be.

When one enters the historic site, it's suddenly 1954. I kept waiting for someone to appear and offer me a cigarette. Even my husband and his oldest friend, both of whom smoked as teenagers, found it a bit ridiculous.

Yes, there were many wholesome, interesting exhibits that offered insight to the sheer industrial effort that went into mass-cigarette production, as well as a fascinating peek into what life was like 100 years ago. Still, I couldn't help but feel I had entered a realm where the last few decades of scientific findings had been simply dismissed. Not forgotten -- dismissed.

Commercials for Lucky Strike, among others, are viewable at the touch of a button in a re-creation of a 1950s living room. Displays of ornate pipes, vintage vending machines and an homage to tobacco advertising were all present.

What was lacking was any hint that these happy smokers were actually causing themselves irreparable harm. If anything, there was an air of nostalgia -- remember those good old days when people smoked and it was sexy?

But even those parts of the museum seemed benign in comparison to an exhibit titled "The Tobacco Debate Through The Ages." Debate!?!? A handful of historic warnings are mounted on a wall, the only hint throughout the entire museum that smoking was a quick way to poison our entire bodies.

And all the while, the hypnotic sounds of a tobacco auctioneer play throughout, the cadence of his bargain-driven mantra inescapable.

Alison Holcomb, assistant site manager, said I am not the only person to take issue, particularly with the lack of medical history. "We know it's no longer a debate," she said. The staff wants to update the exhibits, but "it's just a matter of getting funds," she said. As a state-funded organization, the museum constantly petitions for money to improve its services.

"The goal is to have everything you could possibly include, but no museum is perfect," she said. "It's still a very valuable place for people to come visit." In the meantime, temporary exhibits address those discrepancies. The staff is choosing now between a new display on health and one on slavery.

Which brings me to another key issue I have with this museum: Slavery is all but ignored. If it weren't for a slave's involvement in creating brightleaf tobacco, they might not be mentioned at all.

Don't think I don't appreciate the importance of our tobacco heritage. I see the glory of Durham's heyday as a tobacco hub every time I drive past West Village and Brightleaf Square. I understand that Durham would not be Durham if it weren't for tobacco, and that many families were able to support themselves thanks to its popularity.

I also know the breadth of smoking's harm was not fully understood until recent decades.

Still, it seemed almost shameful that there were odes to the glories smoking has brought our state -- churches, schools, universities and cultural centers all funded with tobacco money. It was like a desperate reminder to just be thankful and not ask questions -- not a particularly moral lesson.

I have not lost a loved one directly to smoking, though my grandmother, a longtime smoker, suffered a stroke in her 50s and my grandfather has had numerous cancers since quitting more than 20 years ago. But I do live in fear that the smoking my husband did as an adolescent will ultimately rob us of time together when we're older.

For all of those people who died due to their addiction, and those who were left behind, there should be some acknowledgement that in the end, all of those advertisements of rugged cowboys, skinny ladies and animated camels brought much more harm than good.