before I began to sip my two shots of Basil Hayden bourbon, a fine, light bourbon, just right for a 70 degree late summer night with puffy white clouds.
A Romeo Y Julieta Edicion Limitada, approximately 7.5x48 in size, and a cigar I believe I have aged for at least two and a half years. Withdrawn from Desk Top II, which lately has had humidity levels in the low 70's, as have all my desk tops, it was a bit mushy, a bad thing for a Cuban cigar, yes a real Cuban, but it was going to get smoked, no matter what.
I put a chair outside my screen door, on my front step, behind a hedge, facing the road, but perfectly hidden, and in a place where even my next door neighbors on either side can't see me, unless they came out a ways from their houses. Not that it matters, but it's cool to be sitting outside facing the front road and not be able to be seen, but everybody can smell you!!!
I had taken out my best crowbar, the titanium one (swings faster, hits harder, the rest is history), a flashlight, and I was wearing both my best knives. The night before yet another episode portending bigger things to come had occurred in the forum of what basically is, . . .
young people growing up to be rowdy, disrespectful, unmindful of community spirit, lacking in self-dignity, and working their way in some cases toward becoming violent career criminals.
I smelled it when I moved up to this beautiful little corner of the Hudson Valley four and half years ago. In the summer of 2000, I told my closest neighbors, who had gone out of their way to be good to me and let me know they'd be looking out for me, that I had looked at a few faces, and in a few eyes, and made predictions that in three years, trouble would start. And indeed it did, with two episodes, one a group of 12-13 year old girls casing my house in the summer of '03, and then an egg and paintballing of my house the day before Thanksgiving.
And it has escalated this summer, with young men and young girls getting older and bolder, and well, let's just say that quite a few units showed up at the scene in front of my house and covering an area a block down ahead of me, since I'm sort of on a corner, or across from one, and a block down to the right of me. Yup, right here in Pleasant Valley Sunday, 71 driving miles from midtown Manhattan, rolling hills, still a few farms, nice people (well, that's changing), beautiful landscapes, old trees, woods, a real climate, real animals, woodchucks, rabbits, deer, foxes, birds galore, spread out semi-rural Suburbia.
Not extension-of-the-city suburbia, but real nice suburbia. A wonderful, blessed life, or at least that's the way I feel. And I grew up in some of the worst neighborhoods in the 60's and 70's in New York City. And I've got friends who are dead or in jail. And I've got friends who are cops, secretaries, one ex-high school classmate who's the director of The Human Genome Project!!! I've known and grown up with people from all walks of life.
You'd think some people would just stop choosing to become lifetime troublemakers and career criminals.
Not these kids. We live in an America where young women can aspire to be admired and respected porn queens, and men can earn their stripes, bars and stars by starting fights, breaking into homes, holding up the 7-11 and if you really want to become a 4-Star General, all you gotta do is whack someone!!! And if ya spend 18 years in jail, when you come back home, you get HUGE RESPECT!!!!
So there I was on my front step, with my titanium crowbar, my creaky, old, but still extremely fit, well-built and athletic 205 pound body, a Super Bad Ass knife, a semi bad ass knife, a flashlight, two shots of Basil Hayden, and . . .
a wonderful Cuban cigar, which had lost any bite, harshness or excess kick it may once have had. That's why I aged it so long in the first place. Beautiful, thick smoke wafting up into the night, moving down the block toward the H.O.T. (House Of Trouble), or at least where it all starts, and where most of the low life pieces of walking garbage around here live. Rich, earth flavors, light powdery lilacs, a bit of a problem with the draw, but every puff still reminding me of why a good Cuban cigar is the best cigar.
Then further down, a bit of neutralizing, but emerging as pungent, spicy tobacco flavors, with a bit of sweet nectar or honey, then the earth flavors returning with very thick smoke toward the last third. It was a quiet night for the most part in this little corner of the world that God has placed me in, but I could tell hanging out was going on in the three houses where late night hanging of young people is always going on. Just no fights tonight, nothing spilling out of houses, and out onto the otherwise, pleasant, serene and beautiful road.
And at 2358 hours, it was time to say goodbye to a beautiful, genuine Cuban cigar from a special friend in days gone by on "another web site", and one minute later, it was time for the last sip of Basil Hayden.
Thanks be to The Lord, in this tired, wicked old world, I still find beauty and richness in every day.
A Romeo Y Julieta Edicion Limitada, approximately 7.5x48 in size, and a cigar I believe I have aged for at least two and a half years. Withdrawn from Desk Top II, which lately has had humidity levels in the low 70's, as have all my desk tops, it was a bit mushy, a bad thing for a Cuban cigar, yes a real Cuban, but it was going to get smoked, no matter what.
I put a chair outside my screen door, on my front step, behind a hedge, facing the road, but perfectly hidden, and in a place where even my next door neighbors on either side can't see me, unless they came out a ways from their houses. Not that it matters, but it's cool to be sitting outside facing the front road and not be able to be seen, but everybody can smell you!!!
I had taken out my best crowbar, the titanium one (swings faster, hits harder, the rest is history), a flashlight, and I was wearing both my best knives. The night before yet another episode portending bigger things to come had occurred in the forum of what basically is, . . .
young people growing up to be rowdy, disrespectful, unmindful of community spirit, lacking in self-dignity, and working their way in some cases toward becoming violent career criminals.
I smelled it when I moved up to this beautiful little corner of the Hudson Valley four and half years ago. In the summer of 2000, I told my closest neighbors, who had gone out of their way to be good to me and let me know they'd be looking out for me, that I had looked at a few faces, and in a few eyes, and made predictions that in three years, trouble would start. And indeed it did, with two episodes, one a group of 12-13 year old girls casing my house in the summer of '03, and then an egg and paintballing of my house the day before Thanksgiving.
And it has escalated this summer, with young men and young girls getting older and bolder, and well, let's just say that quite a few units showed up at the scene in front of my house and covering an area a block down ahead of me, since I'm sort of on a corner, or across from one, and a block down to the right of me. Yup, right here in Pleasant Valley Sunday, 71 driving miles from midtown Manhattan, rolling hills, still a few farms, nice people (well, that's changing), beautiful landscapes, old trees, woods, a real climate, real animals, woodchucks, rabbits, deer, foxes, birds galore, spread out semi-rural Suburbia.
Not extension-of-the-city suburbia, but real nice suburbia. A wonderful, blessed life, or at least that's the way I feel. And I grew up in some of the worst neighborhoods in the 60's and 70's in New York City. And I've got friends who are dead or in jail. And I've got friends who are cops, secretaries, one ex-high school classmate who's the director of The Human Genome Project!!! I've known and grown up with people from all walks of life.
You'd think some people would just stop choosing to become lifetime troublemakers and career criminals.
Not these kids. We live in an America where young women can aspire to be admired and respected porn queens, and men can earn their stripes, bars and stars by starting fights, breaking into homes, holding up the 7-11 and if you really want to become a 4-Star General, all you gotta do is whack someone!!! And if ya spend 18 years in jail, when you come back home, you get HUGE RESPECT!!!!
So there I was on my front step, with my titanium crowbar, my creaky, old, but still extremely fit, well-built and athletic 205 pound body, a Super Bad Ass knife, a semi bad ass knife, a flashlight, two shots of Basil Hayden, and . . .
a wonderful Cuban cigar, which had lost any bite, harshness or excess kick it may once have had. That's why I aged it so long in the first place. Beautiful, thick smoke wafting up into the night, moving down the block toward the H.O.T. (House Of Trouble), or at least where it all starts, and where most of the low life pieces of walking garbage around here live. Rich, earth flavors, light powdery lilacs, a bit of a problem with the draw, but every puff still reminding me of why a good Cuban cigar is the best cigar.
Then further down, a bit of neutralizing, but emerging as pungent, spicy tobacco flavors, with a bit of sweet nectar or honey, then the earth flavors returning with very thick smoke toward the last third. It was a quiet night for the most part in this little corner of the world that God has placed me in, but I could tell hanging out was going on in the three houses where late night hanging of young people is always going on. Just no fights tonight, nothing spilling out of houses, and out onto the otherwise, pleasant, serene and beautiful road.
And at 2358 hours, it was time to say goodbye to a beautiful, genuine Cuban cigar from a special friend in days gone by on "another web site", and one minute later, it was time for the last sip of Basil Hayden.
Thanks be to The Lord, in this tired, wicked old world, I still find beauty and richness in every day.