A Cigar With My Father

[bsslack]

Father's Day was yesterday.

Whether you are a Father or not, you technically had one. It's always a good day to reflect on Family and the path we as individuals and our Families have traveled. I'm 55 years old, My Father died in The Service of His Country in November of 1963. Leaving a Family of 6, the youngest were twin boys aged 18 months. I had no living memory of him except pictures on the wall. Late last year I moved back home to be there for my Mother who's 82 now. I graduated HS and left to see the world in May of 1980. I had visited home over the years, but had spent no real time there. So, the point being that I had not been home on Father's day in 38 years. Since returning home my mother gave me access to a treasure trove of photographs. Many of them, I and most of my siblings, had never seen before. I was also in for a bit of a surprise. My Father Loved to Smoke Cigars! I have dozens of pictures of him with a cigar in his hand. Several of them taken during his deployment to Korea. Some are at Heartbreak Ridge, after the intense battle there. I was stunned and pleased, both. So, I decided to spend part of my Fathers day having my very first cigar with my Father. I took a recently gifted Bolivar PC that had a decent bit of age on it, if the green band was any indication. I took a bottle of water and went out to the old cemetery. I trimmed off the errant grass, small bits of debris and such, stood the flowers up straight on his and his Mother and Father's markers. I guess I spent an hour there. In that time 3 people (complete strangers) stopped and greeted me, they spoke for a moment and went on their way. None mentioned the cigar or seemed anything but thoughtful and friendly. We were all there, after all, for the exact same reason, to offer our respects and sentiments to a passed loved one.

As I puffed away and thought about his life that ended at 33 years old, 53 years ago. Then to me, the irony rich fact that I "randomly" started smoking cigars and that it was not an off and on thing. That I developed an sincere and genuine continuing appreciation of them, just like he did. I found surprising common ground with my long passed Father and I felt comforted by that previously unknown bond. It had always been there waiting to be discovered. Yet again, the cigar arts see fit to present me with confirmation that it is right and meant to be. It had freely given me another way to know and feel closer to him. So, I paid my respects to Him, His Life and His Sacrifice.

I did so, by having My First Cigar with My Father.


-slack

[Smokestack Jack]

As I read your post, I became overwhelmed with emotion. I too, lost my Father when I was young. I was only 22. I think about him every day, and have a memorial to him in my man cave. Yesterday I also sat and reflected, not only about my Father but his brother also. Uncle John was a pipe and cigar smoker and I thought about how great it would have been if he could have joined me in a smoke. I then called my son, wished him a happy father's day and told him I was proud of him and loved him. They say that time heals, but does it really?

[CSMAnderson]

Very emotional thread. I lost my father at age 12, he died of a stroke. Life was never easy after that. My mom was a waitress and did the best she could to provide, but it was tough without my dad. My dad was the wrestling champ of the South Pacific during WW ll. I can remember him letting me swing on his arm as he made muscle curl. I think of him often, wishing he had not died so early in my life. I miss him daily.

[xrundog]

Nice posts guys. Really nice.

[beevod]

THIS is why this is such a great site. Thanks, BigO.

[BigO]

I had nothing to do with it. I got emotional reading it myself. My father is still with us, and our relationship is better than it's ever been. Last year for Father's Day, I wrote to him what I would have said about him at the inevitable eulogy as the first born I will be called on to deliver.

This was not a morbid task. I wanted to tell him what he meant to me and the values that I hold dear and that he was instrumental in shaping from example as well as teaching. I'll post a link soon.

My father's early years were in the family business of selling sundries. Cigars, candy bars cigarettes and the like. He smoked cigars and pipes until I was about 15.

I got married in 2000. My dad hadn't smoked since about 1982 I have a picture of him, my younger brother and I smoking Cuban cigars at the reception dinner. I really treasure that picture, even though they didn't enjoy the cigars (told me years later). 18 years ago. It's the only time I ever smoked a cigar with my dad.

[BigO]

Last year's letter to my Dad:

Things My Father Taught Me – Whether He Realizes It Or Not


Through my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, I was often at odds with my father. Growing up, I felt as though I couldn't measure up to his expectations. More often than not, that was true. But it wasn't that he had scorn for me, but I believe now that he was trying to teach me to achieve on a level higher than his own. In my adolescence and early adulthood, I rebelled against him in just about every imaginable way and must have embarassed him terribly at times. I wasn't an easy person to be around, even as a child (and my wife will tell you that it may have gotten worse rather than better as I age). I swore that I would never be a father myself.


Then something happened. I married a widow with a very young son. Suddenly, I was a role model to him and I never really realized the enormity of the task before me. This was further complicated by having two daughters later on. I really didn't know what it meant to be a role model, but like every other parent, I was determined not to make the same mistakes my parents did. Unfortunately, I haven't always lived up to that ideal, but it has left me with a lot of understanding of the facts that parents don't really know what they are doing, but instead bounce from crisis to crisis and just muddle on the best we can. I have learned that temper—especially in words—can be just as harmful as physical violence and that patience is indeed a virtue because it is so much easier to be impatient instead. Now, that is not an indictment of my father, although I will say the fellow has mellowed tremendously since us kids left the nest. Hopefully I will learn more about how to do that before it is too late for my own kids to benefit from.


My dad is getting older, as I am myself, and I am beginning to learn that the body isn't always capable of what the mind can conceive. As the eldest son, when the day approaches—and I hope it is long on the future-- I will be called on to eulogize my father. Now let me be crystal clear, this is not meant to be macabre, morose, ironic, or even funny. The one thing that is a constant as my friends bury their own parents is that they wish they had said things when they were still around. This Father's Day, I would like to try to say those things in a positive way. Here's to you, Dad, the man in my life I admire most—even if it did take me 50 years to really understand why.


First and foremost, my father is an achiever. He sets difficult goals for himself and has the ability to focus singularly on the pursuit, sacrificing as much of himself and his own needs along the way--moreso than in any man I have ever witnessed. A man that can finish a business PhD in three years and live almost entirely on savings and assistantships is a very driven man indeed. Yet, despite how busy he was in pursuing a goal, he still made time for his kids. Trips to the pool, the library and even occasional trips to the Dairy Queen for a Dilly bar were still made room for. I never really appreciated how frugal we were being in that period, only the selfish wants of an immature child who was only thinking of his own desires instead of being grateful for what we did have. He taught me to set goals for myself, but I never really had the intensity of drive he had. Even when working two full time jobs or working in a factory during the day and trying to improve my grades attending night school I was performing at half his level. It never really got any easier for him after the PhD, but he endured the demands for what was best for the family and not his personal comfort.


He taught me to look at the world from different perspectives instead of just accepting the world as is it appears. That might seem to be relative to politics—and it was at times—but also in the natural, physical world. “Why?” was not an invective. It was a challenge to understand a problem or situation from a number of angles and to reason through them. The result is that he taught me to see a larger picture and that every event is neither isolated, nor unrelated to other events. This made me a pretty good historian, because I could see that there is virtually nothing that happens in the world that isn't somehow an effect which might be traceable to a number of causes. As I get older, I am aware of how rare a skill that is in the world. He taught me that no matter how hard you had worked to get something done in life, there's no avoiding Murphy's Law. He taught me that being able to read a person's body language and that it was more indicative of how the person is thinking than the words they speak (another valuable skill).


He taught me the value of honesty (even if it was with his belt when I had been particularly naughty and dishonest) and that the word “truth” was not relative in most situations. That there is good and evil in the world and acknowledging and naming the evil in the world was something that required both strength and courage. That being a man of your word is not an easy task, Especially when you are like me and your mouth writes checks that your butt has trouble cashing. Honesty and integrity are also the foundation for consistency, as the truth is always consistent (but sometimes inconvenient) and integrity buys a man the benefit of the doubt when there is a gray area.


He taught me the value of a dollar. Now that isn't a simple task by any means. Value isn't always cheap. The effort to earn a dollar is important, as is the deferral of gratification to save for what delivers the best value of a dollar when you spend it. He taught me that it costs money to make money and that it is far better to work using your brain than it is using your body. That may sound a bit callous on the surface, but education brings opportunities that manual labor almost never does. That doesn't in any way mean that there isn't value in manual labor and that there was no job that was 'beneath' a man. When I was managing a restaurant, the fact that I was willing to do whatever job needed to be done to finish the day earned a lot of respect from the employees. That lesson alone made me an effective manager when I was charged with doing so.


He taught me that people are people no matter where they come from or look like. This involved several moves to accomplish, but it led me to become essentially colorblind when it came to people and that underneath all of the rhetoric and prejudice, the person across from you has the same needs as you but may have a different path in getting there.


He taught me that in adulthood, it might look rosy from a child's perspective, but the reality is that there are far more “have to” things in life than there are “want to's”. How true that turned out to be. He also amply (and often) illustrated that there are almost three things that have to be done before you start to do the thing that you set out to do and that any home improvement project or repair that did not require at least three trips to the hardware store is something to be suspicious of. Just because an appliance might be broken, that didn't necessarily mean you were going to make it worse by trying to repair it your self and (maybe) save money doing so. It never ceases to amaze me that when I take that approach to a repair, I more often than not surprise myself what I can accomplish even by simply paying close attention to the symptoms. He also taught me that a job that required more than three goddamnits was a job that was probably better left to a professional. One of the simplest but useful things my dad taught me was how to drive a crooked nail. Now that might sound a bit trivial, but if you are as clumsy as I am, it's a skill that saves a lot on time and material if you're trying to build something. “Measure twice, cut once” has also been pretty useful in that regard, and not just in building things.


He has also convinced me that there is a creative spark in every human being. If you had told me 30 years ago that my father would retire early from teaching and focus on being a professional artist, I would have laughed in your face. But, he's done so, and his work is highly regarded not only for its creativity and execution as well as his ability to pass his knowledge along by teaching others how it is done. I would have never believed that you could teach a blind man how to turn a bowl, but he's done it. I treasure each and every gift of his work that I receive because I know it isn't just an object, but a gift of time and energy, no less that the wooden stilts and the homemade kitchen set he built for us one Christmas when he couldn't afford to buy store-bought gifts.


By living by his principles no matter what the situation was, he taught as much by example as he has through the daily disputes of life. Being a man has less to do with your physical strength and prowess than it does by living by a set of principles and sticking to them even when they are not easy or convenient. And if you run into something that goes against your principles or core beliefs, quitting or bending them isn't an option.


My father is by no means a perfect man. In fact he has things about him that can be pretty maddening at times. But when it has counted, whether immediately visible or not, he has been there to lead the way and provide for his family no matter what. These last few pages are only some of the reasons I have grown to admire my dad. There are many others to mention them all.


Happy Father's Day, Dad. I love you.

[Rob G]

Originally Posted by bsslack

Father's Day was yesterday.

Whether you are a Father or not, you technically had one. It's always a good day to reflect on Family and the path we as individuals and our Families have traveled. I'm 55 years old, My Father died in The Service of His Country in November of 1963. Leaving a Family of 6, the youngest were twin boys aged 18 months. I had no living memory of him except pictures on the wall. Late last year I moved back home to be there for my Mother who's 82 now. I graduated HS and left to see the world in May of 1980. I had visited home over the years, but had spent no real time there. So, the point being that I had not been home on Father's day in 38 years. Since returning home my mother gave me access to a treasure trove of photographs. Many of them, I and most of my siblings, had never seen before. I was also in for a bit of a surprise. My Father Loved to Smoke Cigars! I have dozens of pictures of him with a cigar in his hand. Several of them taken during his deployment to Korea. Some are at Heartbreak Ridge, after the intense battle there. I was stunned and pleased, both. So, I decided to spend part of my Fathers day having my very first cigar with my Father. I took a recently gifted Bolivar PC that had a decent bit of age on it, if the green band was any indication. I took a bottle of water and went out to the old cemetery. I trimmed off the errant grass, small bits of debris and such, stood the flowers up straight on his and his Mother and Father's markers. I guess I spent an hour there. In that time 3 people (complete strangers) stopped and greeted me, they spoke for a moment and went on their way. None mentioned the cigar or seemed anything but thoughtful and friendly. We were all there, after all, for the exact same reason, to offer our respects and sentiments to a passed loved one.

As I puffed away and thought about his life that ended at 33 years old, 53 years ago. Then to me, the irony rich fact that I "randomly" started smoking cigars and that it was not an off and on thing. That I developed an sincere and genuine continuing appreciation of them, just like he did. I found surprising common ground with my long passed Father and I felt comforted by that previously unknown bond. It had always been there waiting to be discovered. Yet again, the cigar arts see fit to present me with confirmation that it is right and meant to be. It had freely given me another way to know and feel closer to him. So, I paid my respects to Him, His Life and His Sacrifice.

I did so, by having My First Cigar with My Father.


-slack

Just beautiful.

[TommyBB]

All of this is so wonderful.

[bsslack]

Thanks Everyone for Your stories and your Feelings.

Jason that missive was candid, thoughtful and earnest. Those are the three very best adjectives to have in any prose and that's what it is. Human Prose, the likes of which we rarely see or hear in our modern world. A world that sadly rewards pretension over honest words, such as yours. Plus, my Admiration in saying it to Your Father, when it Truly counts, while he is still here to hear. All should do this.

Leave not your Hearts True Words until they can only fall upon the saddened ears and broken hearts, already filled with the loudness of grief.


Thank You for sharing My Friend.


-slack