Cigars & Sherlock

He was right you know?

Sherlock said smoking allowed him the time and space to think.

To impress a girl I liked in 1972 I took the proffered cigarette and smoked for the next fifteen years. Then at the age of thirty three I quit.

This year the wife goes to Florida attending a union function. She brings home a cigar.
What can it hurt? You do not inhale, you smoke many fewer...how bad can this be?

Well, it is another addiction to be sure. Although the reasoning behind it is different. A cigarettes allure is that it calms you...relaxes you. It is a false promise as the satisfaction is incredibly short lived and so you need a constant stream to maintain that perceived level of calm.

A cigar, at least a "real" one, takes an hour to consume and enforces solitude since no one wants to be near you, except another smoker.
You think.
Some of you may look at your smartphone...ah well. I cannot save everyone.

But if you are like me, you take a drink...a book and yourself.
And you immerse yourself in whatever for that hour.

I tend to smell them a lot. They provoke memories. My grandfather's brother always had a cigar in his mouth. Two of my summer job bosses as a kid smoked cigars. Sargent Rock always had a stub of a cigar clamped between his teeth as he charged into the fray.

And now I know why they also had little brown patches in the corners of their mouths. Or why they always seemed to be on the verge of drooling.

And then I realize, like beer or any other acquired taste, there is an age when it becomes the thing to try. You turn fifty and want a motorcycle.

And I think I am at that age (60) where if it kills me in thirty years...so be it, right?