[An update from June 9, 2019] Years ago, I’d smoke a cigar from time to time. Usually while driving or on the golf course. One day, I was in the back yard – puffing a stogie.  My 6 year old daughter came up to me and said “Daddy please. Don’t smoke. It’s bad for you.” And she stood there arms akimbo. Looking at me. I took a puff, dropped the cigar and stepped on it. From then on, cigars were a rarity until one final day nearly two decades ago. I’ve recently thought about cigars again. Please don’t tell my wife. Or daughter. 

In his 1924 classic Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway constructs a dialogue between himself and another American on the subjects of bullfighting, soccer and football.  The number of young men injured, paralyzed and killed playing football numbered in the thousands (today, it’s the tens of thousands).  The number of young men hurt playing soccer is minimal by comparison.  And then there is bullfighting.  Where humans occasionally get hurt – but rarely killed.  Hemingway’s point — those who decry bullfighting rarely raise a whisper about American football.   

Many years ago, in another lifetime, Donna and I spent the better part of a month following the corrida de toros circuit in Spain.  Diego Puerta was a favorite.  Madrid.  Cordoba.  Malaga.  Sevilla.  And others.  It was pretty special.  I still have great pictures from those Sundays.  Artistry.  Tension.  Spectacle.   A unique smell.   There was the classic music.  And the denouement. . . . .  

The last time I went to a bullfight was in Monterrey Mexico with my good friend Antonio G.  The Plaza de Toros Monumental on the Avenida Alfonso Reyes.  That was the last time too when I had a cigar.  A gigantic Cuban.  Hand-rolled.  Cohiba Robusto.  Go to a bullfight one day – or just read Hemingway’s classic.   And get yourself a big hand-rolled Cohiba Robusto . . . . .