Cigar salutations from the Old Glory Society*
Within hours of moving into a new house, less than a mile away, I discovered a bar owned by an Irish immigrant. In a pretty soft town, it had a hard reputation. Dudes were known to get cracked across the skull with pool cues and drunks would sit shoulder-to-shoulder in this place waiting for the sideways glance or the smug remark that would start the night’s fisticuffs. Still, a man needs a place to go.
The so-called Culebra cigar is the circus freak show of the cigar world. Three cigars impossibly twisted together, one big fat cigar band wrapped around them all and a little red ribbon tying them up at the head and foot. It’s a dumb idea … but if you ever get the chance to smoke one, it would be dumb to pass it up.
If you’re a cigar smoker, you get used to people cracking wise about the cigar in your hand or the smoke in your vicinity. They either dig cigars or despise them and that means that, instantly, they either dig or despise me unless of course I actually speak to them in which case the despise ratio goes way up. They say things like, “Is that a Cuban cigar?” or “You gonna smoke that thing?” or “Hey bro, nice stogie!” None of these people know anything about cigars and they use terms like stogie to pretend they do. I usually ignore these funny little people with their funny little quips and their tinsy-weensy IQs, but when they imply I’m somehow in possession of a stogie I take offense. And I’ll tell you why.