Smoking A Cigar With Dad

At forty three there are a lot of really cool things that I have done in my short life.  Dining in Paris with my wife, smoking Cubans and drinking Japanese whiskey in Tokyo, buying my first BMW, and smoking with my dad.  

I am the product of a nuclear family. I never woke up in the morning wondering where my mother and father were.  They were both in the bedroom down the hall.  As a child I did not know the value of my homely situation.  In fact, it was pretty much the norm to have a father in the home but some of my friends saw there fathers sparingly to say the least.  As teens I started to see the difference with kids that did not have a 200 pound hulking male ready to kick down your bedroom door for sleeping too late when there was grass to cut and house to clean.  Someone that would punch me in the chest for disrespecting my mother in the slightest manner.  A man that went to work every morning and worked the night shift at a factory to carry the family.  He was pure man with no pretension, no games, and no vanity.  

Its been my pleasure on occasion to smoke a cigar and drink a bottle of Scotch (usually Oban) with my father on the back porch.  We talk, we stare at each other, we notice the passage of time, but most importantly we relish the fact that we are here together sharing a precious moment.  I have said before that smoking a cigar is like slowing down the world and smoking the moment. When I smoke with my father I cannot hold on to the moment long enough.  He not only gave me life he also gave me a life by showing me what it means to be a man, a father, good human being, an intellectual, a warrior, and a husband.  

Billie B

Leaf&Barrel