TAN hammah

If you're reading this, I just want you to know that I love you.

No, I'm not going to give the standard canned answer for why. "God has charged me to love all people." No, no - my reason is much more shallow than that. I just love you because you're one of the few people that's actually checked my blog. Over the past three years I've slowly stopped posting as often, and the post I do manage are, well, how do I put this gently so as not to harm my own ego...
well...they suck.

Some day I'm quite sure that I'll come back and look at what I've written going into my last year of college and every word of it will be something special that I'll use to ponder over the meaning of life in general. Well, ok, that's a stretch, but when I get to this point in the story of WilmingSloan, it's going to get a bit dry.

In response to the dryness of this recent blogging, I have decided to make up a story of relative excitement and relay it on here. If you're incredibly bored, you can pretend this really happened to me.

--

So the other day I was walking in downtown Wilmington (I get breaks from Caswell occasionally) and this ond man is sitting outside a cigar shop on Front Street. I was with a buddy of mine and the old man stops us both. He tells us that the store is closing down and they need to sell the rest of their stock. I tell him politely that I don't smoke but he just won't listen. Then he starts babbling about the Humo Uno. Finally, after calming him down, we get a solid explanation.

The Humo Uno is a mythical cigar, rolled by the very hand of Cuban Communism, Fidel Castro. He took lessons the early 70s and rolled 20 cigars. Of the 20, only one was deemed smoke-worthy, but no one had the...bolas...to smoke it, including Castro himself. It is said that the night it was rolled, a butler in Castro's palace who was a witch-doctor, cursed the cigar behind his master's back. Fidel had him killed, but kept the cigar in a safe, he was too scared to have it burned or destroyed in any way.

One day, Fidel was moving all of his valuables from safe to safe and they discovered that the Humo Uno was unaccounted for. Considering that the other priceless valuables Castro kept were left in place, he feared for the worst. Someone would use the Cigar and the curse would be let free on him.

28 years went by and no one heard anything about the Humo Uno. Slowly, it became a mere legend, only whispered about in hallways for fear of upsetting Castro. Finally, all people considered it lost.

Back to the old man. He was babbling the history of this cigar and finally he got to the point.

"My HOUSE!" he said, "They're going to take my house, I can't afford to keep this shop....I can't afford to keep - it any more. Please! Buy something, I'm desparate...I'll even sell you Humo Uno for...for...$20!"

Sensing the old man's knack for spinning a good yarn we snorted a little and turned away from him again.

"PLEASE! WAIT!" he said, "$5.00, I am making a mistake but I must do this!"

My friend and I looked at each other. 5 dollars seemed like a paltry price for a good laugh, and I considered it a worthy tip for such a good story, likely made up on the spot.

"All right," I said, "we'll take it."

He led us into the dark and dusty shop, through shelves of ancient carved mahogany and into a beautifully ornate glassed-in humidor room. To our surprise, he didn't slow down. When he reached the back corner he lifted a cigar box and pulled a lever hidden behind it. The back wall opened up and a staircase led down into a cellar as old as Front Street itself. He led. We followed. I heard the familiar click of a pull-string light bulb fixture and suddenly the staircase was illuminated. So was the basement. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Crates and crates of ancient cigar gear. It was like the last scene from Raider of the Lost Ark, only with cigar boxes. The old man moved to the back corner to a light green box with a quarter-inch chain and padlock around it. He took out a key and removed the binding. Mumbling something in spanish under his breath, he opened it. We feasted our eyes on the Humo Uno for the first time.

BLACK. Black like the heart of communism was the wrapper. The strong scent of life, death, and tobacco greeted us instantly. My eyes even teared up for a moment. Speechlessly, I paid him with a lincoln and took my prize.

On the way back, we considered not lighting it. It did have an aura about it, maybe the old man was telling the truth? Staring at it made me dizzy. I couldn't think straight. It was as if it wanted to be smoked. In a daze I laughed it off.

"Yeah, right," I said, "The old man puts a new cigar right back in that box every time and waits for another gullible pair to walk by."

I held it up in the orange glow of the setting sun that poured in through the windshield and spun it on my fingertips.

"Let's smoke it."

Back on Oak Island we picked a random beach access to smoke at. The night was freshly fallen as we clamored over the dunes. We tossed our sneakers off, made our way to a driftwood log and had a seat. My buddy pulled out a silver butane lighter that he kept in his glove compartment. We looked at each other, then at the cigar in my trembling hand. I heard the metal and flit strike, then the hiss of the butane gas. I punched out the back with the help of it's blue light. Slowly, I placed the it between my lips and watched as the flame came closer to the end of the Humo Uno. Those couple of seconds seemed to stretch on for hours as I waited for the fire to hit and the slow glowing of the tip to signal that the time had come.

TO BE CONTINUED