Last Things

I've been promising myself that I wouldn't get overly sentimental and weepy in these blog posts, but there are times...

In 48 hours I'll be resting from the first day of the "great adventure" as we head across America from the Pacific time zone to the Eastern time zone. We'll be in Phoenix, AZ that night and I will have left California after spending all but 2 years of my life living here. My wife has spent her entire life living here. We both have wanted to escape for years, but now that the time is here, it's hard not to linger on those things we are losing.

Tonight I had what is likely the last cigar I will smoke on the back patio of our house in La Mirada. It was a La Flor Dominicana Ligero Lancero. I enjoyed it with the last of a bottle of Russell's Reserve bourbon and finished it quickly so I could hurry inside and watch William Peterson's last episode of CSI. All things I've come to enjoy very much in the last few years.

Last night I took time out from the packing and craziness to spend one last time smoking cigars with all my best friends at Taps. Someone asked "What will you miss? Besides us, I mean." The answer is...not much...and everything. I've lived here all my life, but never felt that strong a connection with SoCal. When I was a boy I wanted to move to Colorado to be with my cousins and aunts and uncles there, but most of them have died or moved on..and the place is just too cold in the winter (even if it is a "dry cold").

My wife and I thought about Oregon until we saw that the housing prices were rapidly increasing. Then we realized that we really didn't know anyone there, so it just seemed like a huge mistake even if it is a beautiful place.

So Tennessee it is. The land of my birth. The land of the birth of my father and mother. The land where my mother's father worked the land and died before I was born. The land where my parents moved back to because it was "home." There were times I swore I would never call it that, but time has changed me, it seems.

For those of you I am leaving, I miss you already. I hope there is a time we can all be together again...maybe at the Big Smoke later this year (Ray promised!). I hope there's a way that some of you may one day live within a decent driving distance. I hope that you carry on the tradition of the Tiki Bar: a place where friends can come together, smoke a good cigar, enjoy an adult beverage, and talk about the things that concern us with passion but with the understanding that we don't have to agree on everything to be friends...brothers.

Another last...tomorrow is my last full day as a resident of California. It will be filled with work, packing, friends, last minute plans, errands, and all other manner of insanity. But I think it will be a good day.