I quit cigarettes over two decades ago, but still enjoy a periodic cigar. By periodic, I mean every couple of months or so. There is a genuine self-indulgent pleasure in buying a Cohiba, Romeo y Julieta or a Partagás and strolling down to the river to enjoy it on a park bench.

I appreciate that cigar smoke it is not to everyone's taste, and I take considerable pains to find solitude to smoke one. On the other hand, some people go in search of difficulty. Last month, for example, on a cool and overcast day I did what I describe above. In my town there is a long (nearly half mile) boardwalk by the river. On the day in question, I strolled to the end of it, finding it all but deserted due to weather, cut and lit my cigar and enjoyed it and the passage of the river. Twenty minutes later, two people showed up. I had seen them coming virtually the entire length of the boardwalk, whereby they passed at least twenty benches, all of them unoccupied. They sat down at the next bench to me, (the one downwind, ignoring the upwind one) and then proceeded to berate me for my lack of consideration.

I politely suggested that they perform an act of sexual congress on themselves.

Although they have very different smells, they're no different to me than cigarettes. Smoke is smoke. Cough, hack, sputter, choke!

Can anyone see me with a cigar sticking out of my mouth?

No... because they won't. :-)

I have been smoking cigars for the last 25 years of my life and enjoy every one of them. My favorites are Hav-a-Tampa Jewels Sweet, with a sweet birch wood tip, but I have and enjoy occasionally some good Dominican cigars.

Unlike cigarettes, the smell of a good cigar can be somewhat pleasant. However they can still give you cancer. I think that cigar smokers are more prone to mouth cancer than lung cancer due the fact that you're not supposed to inhale cigar smoke.