The Cigar – The Best Friend A Guy Could Ever Have, by Tommy Zman
Over the years there have been a lot of guys I would truly call my best friend. Damn, all the way back to third grade, I remember when the teacher took away my baseball cards and good old Greg Marciano snuck into her desk and got them back for me. And the time he kicked Bernie Goldberg’s ass for calling me a whimp, yeah, that kid was a gamer and he had those ‘best friend’ attributes through and through. I think a real best friend is there whenever you need him. Whether you’re in your wheelhouse or the doghouse, your best bud will never judge or say, “I told you so”, he’ll just be there to ease your mind and comfort your soul for as long as you need him there.
God-dayum… sounds an awful lot like a cigar doesn’t it?
There is no question in my mind that the cigar has often been my very best buddy when I needed a good pal. And it’s not always in times of solitude and deep thought, but he’s there for me when no one else is around as he helps me pass the time with total enjoyment… like barbeing outside on the grill, or while taking that long drive on the open road. Nothing like rolling the window down, cranking some rockin’ tunes, and sparking up a big old bad-boy like a Bolivar Cofradia Oscuro #754 to make that highway journey a memorable one – cruising the world in style, just you and your hand rolled compadre. Even a ten-hour trek will pass by in no time when your leafy amigo rides shotgun for the trip.
While I love to golf with my best pals, a good cigar will always be there at tee-time making for the perfect fifth-some. A 10-holer like the Arturo Fuente Canones often accommodates my day on the links. And while the course rules say only two golfers to a cart, when my stogie-buddy comes along for the ride, let’s just say that three is definitely a charm.
Now people often say that your woman should be your best friend in life, but there are times when my cigar is most definitely the perfect soul mate. Face it, a cigar has never yelled at me for making a wrong turn, not taking out the garbage, nagged me to death for being a tubby load or not making enough money, yada, yada, yada. And the one thing it will NEVER do is give me crap for coming home reeking like smoke! Wow, do you think it’s legal in any of the 50 states to marry a cigar?… Cuz, I might just look into that.
About 15 years ago I had the pleasure of interviewing the great sports impressionist painter, Leroy Neiman at his studio on Central Park South in Manhattan. He was known for always having a large cigar dangling below his bushy trademark moustache. His spacious studio was filled with cigar boxes, floor to ceiling, leafy gifts from everyone who entered his abode. It struck me rather peculiar that in our conversation he would constantly refer to his cigars as his ‘friends’. When I asked him about that, he got kind of serious, much like when a parent talks about his children. When I asked him why he felt his cigars were his friends, his answer pretty much blew me away. He said, “Tommy, a cigar is honest. There is nothing pretentious about it whatsoever, and it is there for you at the moment you need it. You light it, then smoke it, and it merely does the job it was intended to do – and you simply cannot have a better friend than that.”
Wow… that was a pretty deep moment but I knew what Neiman meant as I too felt the same way. The cigar may be an inanimate object created thousands of miles away by men with names like Manuel Labor and Manuel Dexterity, but there is a personal relationship – a true bonding that we lovers of the leaf hold within out hearts. And for this reason we must continue to fight for our right to smoke and tell the FDA to keep their stinkin’ paws off of our precious hand rolled cigars.
So PLEASE SUPPORT Cigar Rights of America as they continue to deal with congress, the senate, and all US legislators who need to be made aware that our cigars are the best friends we know of and we will fight like hell to keep them in our lives! http://cigarrrights.org
Stay Smoky My friends,
JR Cigars Blog with the Zman
CLICK HERE to Check out this week’s J•R CIGARS Weekly Special!
