Lodi NJ. The place where I lived. Perhaps even the place where I grew up. I have almost no ties to that borough though. My family lived on Riverview Avenue, closer to Rochelle Park and Saddle Brook. My father was a member of the Saddle Brook VFW Post 3484 as well as the Saddle Brook American Legion.

The VFW was where I learned how to smoke and watched the veterans get drunk and smoke cigars, which can explain a lot about me. Not so much the drinking but rather the smoking aspect. Initially it was cigarettes about for the past 25 years or so it’s been cigars more and more. If Gauloises were still manufactured, I’d probably be smoking those roll ups.

I do recall hanging around some bad boys at the Boys’ Club in Lodi, trying to bum a cigarette, maybe around 1972. I certainly remember being at the VFW with some other bad boys who actually taught me how to smoke and flick a cigarette to the curb.

And then there was Johnny Serpone, with whom I planned to get some cigarettes from his father and go to Industrial Lane on a weekend and smoke some Salem cigarettes. One cigarette was all it took, I got high and promptly rode my bike home furiously pedalling my bike home, trying to gulp as much air as possible so that my parents or my siblings would not smell the cigarettes on me. It was not until sometime later that I realized there was no way they could smell the cigarettes on me since just about everything smelled of cigarettes back then.

Cigars always got my attention though. Something about them appealed to me. The smell, the look of a man smoking one. Not every man, but there is a type. And of course, there is an erotic connection for me, which brought Mike into my life.

But where I smoke cigars whenever possible, Mike only smokes if he is in front of a camera. It was that look that got me on the hook. He recognizes me as a cigar man and I suppose I am.

I worked as you know at Davidoff in Columbus Circle, the Time Warner Mall. I wrote about it as the cigar shack, and I made friends with some of the customers and two or three staff members, I did not find any of the customers to be sexy.

There were the two guys from Delaware, in town for a car show. They let me know they were coming and we hit it off but it never went any further than the walk in humidor. One of the couple did post a tasty erotic video that has provided some enjoyment before bedtime.

This was supposed to be about Lodi NJ but here I am writing about my history with nicotine. I admit that I am happy with Bill enjoying cigars though not with the passion I have. He smokes in a manner I would call theatrical. Lots of flourish and exaggeration.

I am a daily smoker and I ain’t got no time for that. Is it something to be proud of? I can’t say. I know other people would put me down for this vice, and there is always the chance this vice will kill me one way or another but that makes me tense, and to relieve tension, I will smoke…