Two Grand Old Ladies and One Honest Cigar (Featuring the JFR Titan (20 Years))

And tonight… it’s doing what cigars have done for centuries. This JFR Titan (20 Years) is doing its job.

It’s helping a man think.

Because the last 48 hours have been… well… let’s just say the universe filed two departure notices.  The passing of my Aunt and my beloved Tribble.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Good evening, friends, neighbors, fellow lovers of liberty, and anyone who believes a porch, a chair, and a good cigar might be among the last truly free institutions in America. Hello. Tonight's episode of Liberty on Nicotine is coming to you from the front porch of Liberty on Nicotine headquarters, where the breeze is gentle, the sky is beginning to fade into that Carolina twilight, and in my hand, thank goodness, is the JFR Titan, 20 years cigars. This thing is not a cigar so much as a constitutional amendment made of tobacco. It is large, unapologetic, and clearly written in a language understood by free men everywhere. And tonight, it's doing what cigars have done for centuries helping a man cope, helping a man think. Because the last 48 hours have been, well, let's just say the universe filed two departure notices. First, my godmother, my beloved beautiful Amp Bernice, 103 years old. 103. Now, if you're a libertarian like me, you admire longevity because it means someone managed to survive a full century of government programs and still kept breathing. Now that takes grit. That woman bold. That woman had stamina. She outlived most politicians, several economic systems, and probably three or four definitions of the word inflation. And then today, my beloved dog, the triple, 13 and a half years old. Now for a dog, that's about 95 in people years, which frankly is a better actuarial table than Social Security uses. She passed peacefully at just age, same as Ambernie's. Two remarkable ladies both simply ran out the clock. And now there's the thing about loss. It has a way of quieting the noise in the world, the nonsense, the drama, the endless internet shouting matches about who's running civilization this week. Because when someone you love leaves, suddenly the whole political circus looks like what it always was: a traveling carnival of temporary importance. Meanwhile, the real things remain family, memory, and sometimes a dog sleeping in the sun while you build a fence or drink coffee. Now let's talk about this JFR Titan 20 years for just a moment. Because if cigars were military ranks, this one would be a four-star general, huge, solid, and absolutely unwilling to apologize for existing. That first draw is rich, peppery, a little earthy, and exactly the kind of cigar you might light when life hands you a reflective moment, which is the whole point of the cigar ritual. It slows time down. The modern world wants everything instant: instant messages, instant news, instant outrage. But the cigar says, sit down, this is gonna take a while. You can't rush it, you can't microwave it, you can't download it, you light it. And for the next hour and a half, the clock belongs to the cigar. Frankly, if Congress had to smoke a cigar before passing legislation, we'd probably cut the federal spending by 60%. Half of them would fall asleep before the bill reached the page four. Now, as I sit here on the porch with my Pepsi Zero, the official soft drink of people who believe in free markets and not free sugar, I found myself thinking about my Ampernie. She had that old Midwestern practicality, the kind that came from growing up before everything required an app and a password. If something broke, you fixed it. If something needed building, you built it. If somebody needed help, you helped them. No government grant required, just neighbors. Funny how that used to be normal. Libertarians call it civil society. Everybody else calls it the way things used to work before bureaucracy discovered clipboards. And then there was the trouble. Now, if you've ever had a good dog, you know something. Dogs are the most libertarian creatures on earth. They believe strongly in property rights, their toys, voluntary association, they choose their people. And limited government, unless the government is opening a can of food. And the Tribble had a philosophy that I admired deeply. Sleep when tired, eat when hungry, chase squirrels with maximum enthusiasm when you're young, and greet your people like they've returned from war, even though they just went to the mailbox. Honestly, if if half the think tanks in Washington adopted that system, we'd probably be a lot better off. What fascinates me about longevity is perspective, my auntie saw an entire century unfold. Think about that. When she was young, aviation was a novelty. By the end of her life, people were arguing on the internet about Wi-Fi speed on airplanes. Civilization moves torrently fast. But people move at the same pace we've always have. One day at a time, one porch conversation, one memory after another, and eventually we pass the torch. Or in my case, we pass the lighter. Now, tomorrow begins the preparation for Friday's trip north, southern Wisconsin, back to the homeland. Funerals have a strange role in life. They're sad, of course, but they're also gathering of stories. Everyone remembers something different. Someone will say, Remember when Bernice did this? Another will say, Oh, you should have seen her when. And suddenly the person isn't gone. They're everywhere in the room. Stories are the real inheritance. Not money, not property, stories. Memories. And I suspect there will be more than quite a few. A woman who made it to 103 probably collected a library. And then there's the quiet space left by a little dog. If you've ever lost one, you know exactly what I mean. You expect to hear them. You expect to see them waiting. You walk past the food bowl and realize things have changed. Dogs don't occupy a lot of square footage in a house, but they occupy a remarkable amount of heart real estate. The Triple was there for countless episodes of this podcast, sunbathing nearby, occasionally judging my cigar selections with quiet skepticism of someone who thinks that all sticks should be chewable. Now, here's something funny. When people talk about grief, they imagine constant sadness. But that's not really how it works. It comes in waves, kind of like the Atlantic this last Sunday. One moment you're quiet, the next moment you remember something ridiculous. The next time your dog tried to fight a vacuum cleaner, or the way your aunt told a story that started in 1947 and somehow ended with a pie recipe. And suddenly grief and gratitude occupy the same chair. Kind of like two political parties forced to share the same couch. Which brings me back to my cigars. Cigar culture has always been about reflection. Historically, cigars appear in moments where people slow down. Statesmen, writers, old porch philosophers. The cigar isn't about nicotine. It's about a time carved out of chaos. Tonight that time is doing exactly as it should. Letting me remember two remarkable ladies, one human, one canine, both stubborn enough to stick around for a very long time. And as the JFR Titan burns slowly toward the final third, this evening settles in, the porch light hums, the Carolina breeze drifts through, the Pepsi Zero, it's almost gone. And somewhere in the universe, I like to imagine Aunt Bernice and the Tribble have already met. Bernice probably telling a story, the Tribble probably trying to figure out if heaven includes squirrels, I suspect it does. Seems like the sort of place that would respect natural rights. So tonight's lesson from Liberty on Nicotine is simple. Life is temporary. Government programs are not. But the things that matter most were never created by either. They're created by people, family, friends, dogs, cats, stories, and the quiet ritual of sitting on a porch with a good cigar and remembering it all. Here's to my Aunt Bernice, 103 years of stubborn Midwestern excellence, and to the Tribble, 13 and a half years of loyalty, sunshine naps, and anti-squirrel vigilance. And to all of you listening out there, light something good tonight. Call somebody you love. And remember, liberty, like a fine cigar, is best enjoyed slowly. Good night, my friends.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Midnight smoke curls round my fingers like the whispers of real name. Each little drag tells a story of a love the never take. Leather seeds and in the corners with the moon like belly shines. We don't need no golden cages, just your lips pressed against mine. Liberty Freedom Freedom can come. Liberty. No chains can hold this passion when we move in smoky ways. Let it fall Weekend.