What I remember best in the world of ceegars were/are the Dago Stinkers. Now I have smoked some fine cigars but what always comes to mind are those damn things. I'd been smoking cigaettes fro a few years before I tried one, recalling all of those guys back home who had one clamped in their teeth. Do you know these things? Parodi is a main manufacturer. I have no idea what is in them but they smell to high heavens. It seemed the other place I always saw them was in the men's room of theatres and police stations lying in the bottom of a urinal...What a distinctive aroma that is!!! gawdddam......I can smell it NOW!!!

I figure they were made out of the stalks of tobacco plants, assorted floor sweeepings, wrapped in the worst leaf to be found, and then coated with tar or pitch or something.... They are about 4 inches long and have the consistency of a petrified twig. So wanting to be cool, I bought a two-pack and lit one up. Lighting them takes about a book of matches because they just don't seem to want to burn. After much sucking an flame, I got the thing going. Now I inhale cigars....I know that's not the deal, but if you really smoke, you inhale everything. So I take a big drag............The world suddenly went sideways, started spinning in different directions, and my knees buckled. I wind up on the ground on my hands and knees alternately farting and coughing and considering barfing. This preceded a truly monstrous coughing fit during which I began to understand why so many guys chewed them and only lit them rarely. Used in that way, a Dago Stinker would last you all day!

I got up from my hands and knees and wobbled down to get some water and find some Maalox. Several times since I have given them a try but the result has always been very similar. I conclude that they are best boughten, lit with a torch, and then thrown into the nearest urinal.

Spaw