(Bildquelle: Friends of the Barnes Foundation)

Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas — we fought o’er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box — let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie’s face.

Maggie is pretty to look at — Maggie’s a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There’s peace in a Larranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay;
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away –

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown –
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty — grey and dour and old –
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!

And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar –

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket –
With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket!

Open the old cigar-box — let me consider a while.
Here is a mild Manila — there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion — bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counsellors cunning and silent — comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,

This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
With only a Suttee’s passion — to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent ‘em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o’ Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,
But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stums that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o’-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box — let me consider anew –
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba — I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse!

Im Kontext passend erscheint mir die Frage eines Freundes, die eben eingetrudelt ist:

“Kannst Du mal eine Umfrage starten nach bekannten Zigarrenraucher und Zigarrenraucherinnen? Hier ein Anfang:

Zigarrenraucher

Winston Churchill, Charles Beaudelaire, Alfred Hitchcock, Thomas Mann, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Konrad Adenauer, Fidel Castro, Ludwig Erhard, Henry Ford, Al Capone, Gerhard Schröder, Manfred Rommel, Christian Stock, Sigmund Freud, Che Guevara, Ernest Hemingway, Gaucho Marx, Mark Twain, Gottlieb Duttweiler, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Otto Graf von Bismarck, Zino Davidoff, Napoleon Bonaparte, Al Pacino

Zigarrenraucherinnen

Katharina die Große, Bonno Parker

Meine Absicht ist es, eine Galerie von diesen Persönlichkeiten zu gestalten.”

Diese Anfrage unterstütze ich gerne und bin gespannt auf die Galerie. Wer also weitere VIP-Aficionadas und -Aficionados kennt, möge diese doch bitte nennen. Gerne mache ich einen Anfang:

Kurt Tucholsky, Oscar Wilde, Hans Albers, Franz Josef Strauß, Richard Wagner, Gertrude Stein, George Sand, Bonnie Parker, Marlene Dietrich, Jodie Foster, Whoopie Goldberg, Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac, Pierre-Auguste Renard, Edouard Monet, Pablo Picasso, Frannz Liszt, George Bizet, Maurice Ravel, Albert Einstein, Thomas Alva Edison, John Quincy Adams, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Charles Chaplin, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duval, Pierce Brosnan, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson

Nicht minder wichtig sind natürlich auch “gewöhnliche”Aficionadas und Aficionados wie Du und ich. Die Aufzählung zeigt aber, dass die Zigarre auf keinen Fall ein Suchtmittel ist, das es in blinder Reglementierungswut auszugrenzen gilt. Die Zigarre steht für Genuss, eine lange Geschichte und sehr viel Kultur.

(Bildquelle: Cigar Blog)

(Bildquelle: Cigar Labels Junkie’s Passion)