Picking a Winner

I love baseball, and will root for the Red Sox this year even if they show signs of a bottom-of-the-American-League-East three-peat. I, however, declare that I won't finish in the basement for the second year in a row in the fantasy home run derby league I play in.

I was born and bred a baseball fan, specifically a Red Sox rooter. My older brother, Steve, and I played Little League and Babe Ruth ball. We also played a LOT of sandlot baseball with our friends. Pilgrimages to Fenway Park to see the Sox were always a special treat. We collected baseball cards; my brother modified many of them by stapling pieces of paper to the back documenting a player's current stats.

The legend in my family is that Steve learned to read at a young age by checking the Red Sox box scores in the Hartford Courant. He loved the team only a little bit more than he loved the statistics generated during a game. He used to play "finger baseball," in which he'd set up a field on the shag rug in our family room using little pieces of paper for bases, books laid on their sides for outfield walls, and a marble for a baseball. I believe he used Major League lineups right out of that day's newspaper. I, of course, set up my own field close by. I didn't have lineups or keep score, and usually got bored of the game long before he did.

When my brother got a little older, he started playing APBA Baseball with me and our friends. What's that? Never heard of APBA?

Watch this video and then come back.

While we're both still huge Sox fans, neither of us plays fantasy sports. I do, however, compete each year in a season-long home run derby. In this contest you choose 15 players from across both the American and National leagues who you believe will hit the most combined bombs. You can't select any player who had 30 or more round-trippers the prior year, and there are no replacements allowed due to injury, death or banishment.

Last year I had a few great performers (Chris Davis of the Orioles, 46; Josh Donaldson of the Blue Jays, 41; and the Diamondbacks' Paul Goldschmidt, 33), but too many mediocre guys (the Cardinals' Brandon Moss, 19; the Tigers' Miguel Cabrera, 18) and more duds than Wile E. Coyote (the Rockies' Corey Dickerson, 10; the White Sox' Adam LaRoche, 12; and the Cubs' Jorge Soler, 10).

Soler was a promising rookie, but not as highly regarded as Kris Bryant, who at the end of a terrific season was named National League Rookie of the Year. So why didn't I choose Bryant? Well, why don't you read what I wrote about this last year: September 15, 2015, "Dead Wrong."

This year I pledge, like George Costanza, to do The Opposite:

This means I won't choose a member of the Red Sox just because I love the team (*cough cough*, Mike Napoli). Mookie Betts is tempting, but I need someone projected to hit more than two dozen home runs, and he doesn't fit that bill. This also means being unafraid of jumping on somebody's bandwagon, such as Maikel Franco of the Phillies, who has hit eight home runs in 65 at-bats this spring, or the Twins' much-touted Byung Ho Park, an unproven big leaguer (in this country) who's projected to hit as many as 29 taters.

Doing The Opposite also stipulates that I shouldn't refuse to choose Adrian Gonzalez despite lingering feelings of his being a bad sport, and it means choosing Kris Bryant because he had 26 last year and I'm not above admitting I was an idiot in passing him over.

So who's on my list, the one that if nothing else, will keep me out of last place (I hope)?

**American League East**:

BALTIMORE ORIOLES:

ADAM JONES, who I chose last year and who paid off with 27 home runs. He missed 25 games last year with a back injury, so I have to hope he stays healthy.

MARK TRUMBO, who was also on my derby team in 2015. He hit 22 round trippers last year in 142 games. One projection has him hitting 30 this year.

**American League Central**:

DETROIT TIGERS:

MIGUEL CABRERA, who was on my team last year. He hit .338 but only tallied 18 home runs while missing roughly a quarter of the season. Projections are between 25 and 28 taters.

JUSTIN UPTON, yet another guy from last year's squad. He hit 26 and is projected to hit at least that many this year.

MINNESOTA TWINS:

MIGUEL SANO -- finally a new guy! He his 18 home runs in 80 games and is predicted to hit between 32 and 38.

**American League West**:

HOUSTON ASTROS:

GEORGE SPRINGER was also on my team last year, but parked only 16, as he missed 60 games. Predictions put him between 26 and 28 home runs this year.

SEATTLE MARINERS:

KYLE SEAGER, who hit 26 last year and is projected to hit roughly that amount this season.

**National League East**:

MIAMI MARLINS:

GIANCARLO STANTON played in only 74 games last year, but still hit 27 dingers. He's young (26) and is projected to smash in the 40-45 range.

NEW YORK METS:

LUCAS DUDA missed 27 games last year and hit 27 home runs. He could hit 25-30 this year.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES:

MAIKEL FRANCO is my dark horse. He's only 23 years old, and hit 14 homers last year in limited action. He hit 9 round trippers during spring training, and while he's only projected to hit in the 24 range, I'm banking on him surpassing that mark. Last year Kris Bryant nine bombs in spring training and I didn't choose him. I hope I chose right with Franco.

**National League Central**:

CHICAGO CUBS:

KRIS BRYANT, the guy I went against last year, hit 26 gopher balls. He's projected to hit at least 30.

KYLE SCHWARBER is only 23 years old, but hit 16 round trippers last year in limited action. Baseball pundits have him in the 25-27 range this year.

CINCINNATI REDS:

JOEY VOTTO is 32 years old, but hit 29 last year, and is seen as landing in the two dozen range this year.

MILWAUKEE BREWERS:

CHRIS CARTER smacked 24 taters last year and, if the numbers are right, will hit 28-30 this season.

**National League West**:

LOS ANGELES DODGERS:

ADRIAN GONZALEZ isn't young (34) but hit 28 big flies last year and is projected to hit 25-28 this year.

The season starts tonight. I'll update my progress occasionally, especially if I'm doing well.

In the Spotlight

My dad knew how to put the "ham" in Brigham from the time he was young. As a middle schooler in Springfield, Mass., he and his neighborhood friends put on shows in somebody's barn, just like Mickey Rooney and his gang in "Babes in Arms."

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of seeing my dad in shows put on by the school where he taught, as well as shows at church and in community theaters. He played an apple-throwing tree in "The Wizard of Oz," as well as the wizard; TV personality Melvin Thorpe in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"; the Commissioner in "Damn Yankees"; a variety of roles in "Mark Twain - The Musical"; Captain Hook in "Peter Pan"; and countless other roles in dozens of shows.

I was always so excited to go backstage after the shows to see him, and I never failed to laugh at how much make-up he and the other actors wore. I felt so proud when his fellow thespians would tell us how great a job my dad had done.

He continued acting long after retiring from teaching, and was featured in this 1996 Hartford Courant article about seniors who love to act.

He passed on the "ham gene" to my brother, sister and me in varying degrees. My sister can be gregarious and loud, and loves to laugh and isn't afraid to jump in the spotlight at family events. She worked backstage on many of my dad's productions, and even had a few small stage roles. My brother is no stranger to breaking out into song (much to the annoyance of his 12-year-old daughter) and has graced karaoke stages and the sidelines of Clark University basketball games as a tongue-in-cheek Cougarette cheerleader.

As for me, I overcame my shyness and played in a band for two years during college. We played several shows on campus, and one at the opening of a local music shop. I wasn't a wild man, don't get me wrong, but I sang lead vocals on a bunch of songs and pleasantly surprised myself by getting on stage in front of dozens of people, and on a few occasions, more than a hundred.

The next generation of Brighams has had its share of stage time, as well. My niece, Grace, has starred in a few plays in her school in Maryland. I'm not sure whether her 7-year-old brother, Isaiah, has done any shows, but he certainly isn't shy. As for my kids, 8-year-old Amelia has been in the chorus of her after-school program's annual play the last three years, and she'll be in this year's show as well. Owen, who's 13, played chocolate-loving Augustus Gloop in his 4th grade production of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

Unlike his sister, however, Owen never wanted to be in the after-school program production. He's a shy kid, so we didn't push him to try it.

Watching Amelia in last June's after-school show, I had mixed emotions. I was proud of her for singing in the chorus, and for seeming to know more of the words than she had for the previous year's production. But I couldn't help wishing that our family could celebrate an equal accomplishment of Owen's. He had a difficult end of 7th grade, as well as 6th grade.

Later in the month we celebrated the Bat Mitzvah of our friends' daughter, and then the next month we saw the daughter of another set of friends in a musical production. Both were such great celebrations and so much fun, but again put me to thinking that after being so socially uncomfortable in his first two years of middle school, Owen needed a victory, a celebration, a sense of accomplishment.

He entered a new school in late August, and struggled. After six or seven weeks, though, he began to feel comfortable with the teachers, his fellow students and especially the handful of dogs that are regularly in the school. All of us -- me, my wife, our families, his teachers and of course Owen -- breathed a sigh of relief. We'd found the right place for him!

But we knew that his challenges were far from over. From the moment we'd first heard about the Corwin-Russell School, we knew that during January and early February, they produced a play. During those five weeks, the kids had no classes or homework, but they had to hang out at a community theater, learn songs and choreography and prepare themselves for being on stage, many of them for the first time.

"How will Owen deal with that?" we asked ourselves. His teachers told us to prepare for more anxiety and possible refusal to attend, something we'd dealt with during the previous two school years. We knew that the dogs for the most part wouldn't be at the theater.

Well, we needn't have worried.

The first day back after winter break, Owen went off to school with no complaints. The students and teachers assembled at the school that day, but immediately set about working on the play, "The Little Mermaid." The next day, Owen told me, some kids would be going to the theater, but he wasn't one of them. Well, when I picked him up, he informed me that as it turns out, he did end up going to the theater with some of the kids and a few of the teachers. They worked on choreography. He wasn't fazed at all.

For several weeks in the fall, when I picked up Owen at school, he would tell me about which dogs he'd taken out for a walk or otherwise spent time with. The first week of January, however, he began talking more about his classmates. By that Thursday, he'd been added to a group text and ever since he's excited to pass along stupid jokes and comments from a variety of his friends.

Frankly, Beth and I are amazed. Owen has always been such a great kid, but his anxieties sometimes hold back his better qualities -- his sense of humor, his kindness, his willingness to be goofy. For the last five weeks he has complained little, if at all, about school and the play. He sometimes sings a snippet of one of the songs he'll be performing as part of the seagull chorus. He busts out a few basic dance moves that he'll show off as a fish in the production.

Finally, last night was performance night, the first of two.

As much as we'd heard from other parents whose kids have been in previous productions about how amazing the shows are, nothing prepared me for how fantastic it all really was. The sets are beautiful, the costumes unbelievably complex and professional, the lighting and sound system top notch. But of course it's the performances that touch everyone's hearts.

All of the lead characters -- Ariel, King Triton, Prince Eric, Ursula the Seawitch -- were absolutely fantastic. I'd spent time observing these kids during my time hanging out with Owen at school during September and October, and would never have guessed the talents that these kids possessed. So many of them seem quiet and even shy during the school day, but they absolutely shine on stage. It was really cool to witness their transformations.

And of course I'm still in awe of Owen and his ability to not only go through rehearsals without complaint, and with no shortage of excitement for the process, but also his utter lack of (outward) nerves leading up to last night's show. And to see him on stage, dancing and singing in a fish costume and a seagull costume, a big smile on his face, brought the biggest smile it was possible to bring to my face, and to Beth's, too.

Here he is in a dress rehearsal photo, in his gull costume:

I can't express how proud Beth and I are of Owen. He's matured so much just in the last few months. We're looking forward to another performance tonight, and are happy that Beth's parents will get to see him (Beth's sister and her family were at last night's show). Unfortunately, my mother won't be able to make it for the show. I promised her as soon as the school makes a DVD available, I'll show her how great her grandson was in his first stage performance.

Congratulations, Owen. Your Big Gramps would be so proud of you!

Inane in the Membrane

For no reason whatsoever, I recently found myself repeating four words that sound nonsensical, which is appropriate, because they connote idiocy.

Pell mell.

Harum scarum.

Willy-nilly.

Helter-skelter.

I'm a word nerd, a grammar geek, a usage unicorn. Wait, that last one doesn't make sense. I love using obsolete or obscure words and phrases, such as "What the deuce!" and "satchel." So as I repeated the four words above, I realized I needed to know more about them. So on, then, to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

Pell mell -- adv.: in a confused and hurried way; Middle French pêlemêle; first known use, 1590.

Via Google Books, I found a great usage of the word from Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art. In an essay dated December 28, 1889 and titled, "Remarkable Charities," the author recalls days gone by when the well-to-do of England would donate food, drink and tobacco to the poor.

Referring to "the lord of the manor" giving "a bull, a boar, a sack of wheat, and a sack of malt" to the less fortunate, the author says that at some point this practice was discontinued in favor of beef and mutton being distributed.

"The origin of this seems lost in obscurity, and the practice whilst it lasted seems to have been productive of much intoxication and riot; the poor paraded the streets during the whole night preceding the distribution with an incessant clamor. In the morning they marched in crowds to the donor's house, and when the doors were opened, rushed in pell-mell to the feast prepared for them, often inflicting wounds on one another with their knives in their struggle for priority."

Like Dave Barry, I often find myself, when confronted with an interesting word or phrase, thinking, "That would be a good band name."

Ladies and gentlemen, Pell Mell:

I picked this song at random on YouTube, but realized almost immediately that it was familiar. Turns out it was played on HBO's "Six Feet Under" for the first two seasons during the previous episode recap at the beginning of each show.

Harum scarum -- adj.: reckless, irresponsible; perhaps from archaic hare to harass, and scare; first known use, 1751.

Also, an Elvis Presley movie, "where the slave girls and sultans are swingers":

You see, The King is in Iraq, I think, or perhaps Saudi Arabia or even the Garden of Paradise, and all those swingin' chicks are his harem, so, well you can make the connection.

Willy-nilly -- adv. or adj.: in a careless and unplanned way; in a haphazard or spontaneous way; alteration of will I nill or will ye nill ye; first known use, 1608.

You could straight up use Willy Nilly as a punk rock stage name, or perhaps a porn appellation. Singer/songwriter/dancer/comic entertainer Rufus Thomas ("Do the Funky Chicken") used it as a title for a catchy R&B romp:

Helter-skelter -- adv.: in a confused and careless way; perhaps from Middle English, skelten, to come, go. First known use, 1593.

This one, of course, also has a music tie-in, but it's a bit more complicated than the other ones. Paul McCartney wrote "Helter Skelter," so the story goes, in an effort to pen the loudest, most un-ballad-like song he could muster. Released on the White album, the song relies on two definitions of "helter-skelter": the one I've indicated above, but also the British term for an amusement park slide ("When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide").

Let's listen to it, shall we, in all its mania and dishevelment, before we discuss the darkness. Unfortunately, the Overlords of Beatles Central have evidently made sure that YouTube is void of any decent McCartney/Lennon version of this song, so you get this gamer's video featuring "Helter Skelter" as a soundtrack, and not the full song.

Helter Skelter from Dag@bert on Vimeo.

Charles Manson. Yes, we need to discuss the mastermind behind the Tate-LaBianca murders, in which seven people were killed in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969. Somehow, he interpreted the lyrics in "Helter Skelter" as a call to wage an apocalyptic race war.

"Helter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down fast. If you don't see the confusion coming down fast, you can call it what you wish. It's not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says 'Rise!' It says 'Kill!' Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness."-- Charles Manson, November 1970 (I took this from The Beatles Bible web site)

Well, let's not waste any more time on that.

Did I forget any similar words? Let me know. Now pardon me while I go run amok.

Hunchin' with Hasil

No, no that Hazel.

This one.

I'm a little fuzzy on just when and how I found out about Hasil Adkins, the West Virginia wild man who sang songs about hot dogs, cutting the heads off his girlfriends, and doing chicken dances and "hunching," which is a word you might never have heard, but it's synonymous with what most rock singers want to do in their songs, if you catch my drift.

Norton Records issued an Adkins compilation, Out to Hunch, in 1986 but I didn't learn about it until the late '90s.

When I'm unclear about where to give credit for my musical choices, I usually dish it out to college radio. From the spring of 1995 to late 2001, I worked for Webnoize (R.I.P.). During those years, I listened a lot to MIT's radio station, WMBR, and Boston College's station, WZBC, both in the office and in my car on the way in to the office. They can share the credit (blame?).

I was happy when Webnoize West Coast correspondent Mark Lewis told me he was into Hasil Adkins as well. We talked about the crazy redneck rockabilly rebel and nobody else really knew, or cared, to join us.

By some miracle, ol' Hasil played a gig at the original House of Blues, in Harvard Square. He was on a 1999 Fat Possum tour with T-Model Ford; my buddy Jeff and I thoroughly enjoyed that show. I had no idea that Adkins was a one-man band. He ambled onto the stage, his wild mop of white hair stuffed under a floppy hat, sat behind a set of drums, got his guitar on and started wailing away simultaneously on the axe and the kit, while howling away into the microphone.

He flailed at the cymbals with his bare hands and kicked the bass drum, amazingly, in rhythm. He was missing numerous teeth and was most likely drunk. It was, as you can imagine, awesome.

Among the bands to cover Adkins' music are The Cramps and Flat Duo Jets.

I started writing this post a few weeks, but got sidetracked. I might've had a larger purpose in mind, but I think just sharing my love of Hasil Adkins with the world is enough, and will have to do. Of course, if you want to learn more, you might want to check out the movie, "My Blue Star," although I'm unsure whether it's available. Here's the trailer:

Dream car

Could President Abraham Lincoln have imagined upon his death bed 150 years ago that one day there would be such a fine automobile as this named after him?

My son, Owen, has really gotten into cars of late. He had a thing for them many years ago, probably at a point when his fascination for subway trains ebbed a bit. We've gone to the annual auto show in Boston each of the last several years. He's excited for this year's show, which is sometime just after the New Year.

When I was his age my thing was 18-wheelers: Peterbilts were my favorite, followed by Kenworths. I was into cars, too, but not like Owen is right now. How excited is he by cars? When I told him today that I bought him the 2016 auto issue of Consumer Reports, he looked at me like I'd just told him he'd won the lottery.

"You did?" he asked as we drove home from school. "Thanks," he said with a handsome grin.

My dad liked to talk about cars. He enjoyed pointing out that "1 in 5 cars you see broken down on the highway is a General Motors car." I don't know a damn thing about how cars work or how to fix them, but I enjoy calling out classic muscle cars and restored gems from the 1930s through 1950s. Owen pays them little mind.

Named for the 16th president of our fine United States, the Lincoln Motor Company was founded in 1917 by Henry Leland, who'd voted for Honest Abe in 1864, according to Wikipedia. Five short years later the company was in financial straits, and was acquired by Ford Motor Company.

So many car companies have gone under over the last 115 years. It's nice to see a classic one like Lincoln still around almost 100 years after its founding. Now, if they could just do something about those annoying Matthew McConaughey commercials.

Well, at least Jim Carrey put the naked bongo player in his place:

Dead Wrong

Sometimes, I act a little too much like this guy:

Yes, Leonard "Lenny" Kosnowski, the Lone Wolf himself. Don't get me wrong: I like being alone to read and write, do crossword puzzles, listen to music and watch TV. I crave quietude. But too often I reject popular opinions or fads because I think I'm above such things. I'm not, but for some reason I like to give the impression that I can't be bothered with mania.

In high school, my good friend Andy was really into Elvis Costello. For a long period, whenever I was in his two-door Toyota station wagon (which looked sorta like this, and which on at least one occasion crossed north of the 100-m.p.h. mark on a late night in our sleepy hometown, but you couldn't prove it by me) he'd be cranking My Aim Is True, This Year's Model or Armed Forces. These albums were chock fulla great songs -- "(The Angels Wanna Wear) My Red Shoes," "Less Than Zero," "Pump It Up," "Lip Service," "Accidents Will Happen" and "Oliver's Army," to name just a few. Andy got our friend Bene (R.I.P.) into Costello and his band, the Attractions. So Bene would often blast the Artist Formerly Known as Declan Mcmanus as well.

And they'd sing along and rewind songs (yes, rewind, kids; this was the olden days) to hear favorite parts, and replay the same songs ad nauseam. They'd pound the steering wheel and dashboard, pretending they were Pete Thomas on the drums. I liked Elvis, sure, but I didn't want to hear his music so much. So, rather than join in the fun and just go with it, I'd give them shit about it.

"Why are you playing Elvis again? He's not even that good!"

Eventually we went to see him live, and he was terrific. And at some point, after their mania died down, I admitted to myself, and perhaps to my friends, that this Costello guy was pretty damn talented. I don't own a lot of his albums, but I have a few and really enjoy them.

I've had this contrarian reaction to plenty of other things in my life. My wife and her family decide to drink Dark 'n' Stormys during our annual Cape Cod vacation, and I opt for something, anything, different.

I bought a liter of Orange Crush and mixed it with vodka, dubbed it Orange Crash and pretended that it was just as good as their beverage.

At a family gathering, my family -- sister, brother, cousins, wife, kids -- were having a fantastic time playing Heads Up! on somebody's iPhone, howling with laughter as they acted out clues. Along with a few other folks, I was chilling in my sister's living room when the whole Heads Up! gang rushed into the room, insisting that I had to play.

I didn't react well. Not at all. I pulled the Grumpy Old Man and told them I didn't want to play, and that if I'd wanted to, I wouldn't have been hanging out in the quiet living room, would I?

They shrugged me off and went back to their fun. I felt like an idiot.

I'm an introvert, plain and simple. This doesn't mean that I don't like to have fun, but it does mean that I have a hard time joining large gatherings and being spontaneous. But my oppositional attitude is more than that. I want to be cool, to be the one who discovers an awesome thing, whether it's a band (I take at least a little credit, but none of the blame, for the popularity and longevity of the Flaming Lips) or a TV show ("American Gypsies," which turned out pretty stupid).

On those times when I follow the trends, I often get burned -- "Heroes," "Nashville" and the first season of "Glee," I'm talkin' 'bout you.

In the grand scheme of things, this quality of mine isn't a big deal. I joke about it. I'm comfortable with it for the most part.

This topic has been on mind a bit in the last few months, as I watch my fortunes fall in a fantasy home run derby contest run by my wife's brother-in-law.

The contest goes like this: before the MLB season starts, each person picks a team of 15 guys who he thinks will hit a ton of home runs during the season. You can't pick anyone who had 30 or more round-trippers the previous year. I've played three or four years now, and have never done all that well. I've had times during the season when I'm hanging in the Top 10 (there are usually between 25 and 40 competitors) but eventually I fade. I finished very close to the bottom a few years ago.

This year, like every year, I swore I was going to climb up the rankings by conducting exhaustive research into players, teams, power rankings, Fantasy Baseball listings, etc. I don't play regular Fantasy so I don't follow the game too much outside the Red Sox and the American League East.

But I put in the pre-season number crunching and scouting to see which older players might have some power left, which up-and-comers are gonna break out, and which superstars who were injured the prior year might be eligible this time around.

This year the big story of spring training across the league was Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs. A rookie, Bryant hit more home runs than anyone during pre-season. I had him on my radar, of course, but was also looking at one of his teammates, Jorge Soler. A rookie like Bryant, he was projected to do well and hit a fair number of home runs. But the odds-on favorite for biggest breakout star, and probably Rookie of the Year, was Bryant.

I went with Soler.

As of this writing, Soler has 7 long balls, and is injured. Bryant has 24 and is the awesome player everyone expected and most people, perhaps everyone, went with on their derby teams.

I thought I knew better. Just like I figured Mike Napoli's great spring training would translate over to the regular season, despite his being on the old side and never having hit more than 30 home runs, and that was four years ago.

With two and a half weeks in the season, I'm in last place. By a lot.

I was, as it turns out, dead wrong.

Si Amadon Opens the Valise

The valise was where Mr. Farquhar said it would be, under the red maple tree just past the ".5 miles to summit" sign. Normally, Si Amadon would have put Pierre to the task. But this was a delicate mission. "Discreet, all the way," Amadon told Mr. Farquhar.

Getting his oft-shined boots dusty in the pursuit of contraband was hardly Si Amadon's forte. Dapper as Clark Gable, Si Amadon was a teetotaler and physical fitness enthusiast, the living embodiment of his banking business: tightly controlled, disdainful of G-men and zip-lipped.

On occasion, though, he sought out adventure, as it reminded him of tramping through the woods on his family farm as a boy. Though he'd chosen finance as a way out of the hinterland, he still kept in his heart memories of his favorite book, "The Pirate's Treasure or the Strange Adventures of Jack Adams on the Spanish Main."

And so he walked up the mount, his freshly pressed, Hart Schaffner double-breasted overcoat pulled close to maximize a quick ascent. Before he reached the red maple, he caught a whiff of his quarry. His heart fluttered like a money-counting machine and he allowed himself to skip, just once, before reaching behind the tree and taking hold of Mr. Farquhar's gripsack.

Within the folded red silk of the case, under the Kipling book and bottle of powdered rhubarb, beneath the false bottom, Si Amadon found the prize.

Lifting the box, he looked 'round for interlopers. Seeing none, he opened the lid, bent forward just a bit and let the waft rise to his ample nostrils. It was deep and earthy, but also heavenly and capable of transporting him to an exotic, foreign land. He fumbled in his coat pocket for his lighter. Removing it, he admired its dazzling sheen and likeness of a bathing beauty. He fired it and smiled.

Holding the box steady with his left hand, he carefully removed the cigar with his right. It was a Sancho Panza Molinos, trucked up two days ago after arriving in the port of New London. She was a beauty, hand-rolled in Cuba and stashed in a bag of sugarcane. He lit the cigar and savored it. As instructed by Mr. Farquhar, he emptied the box into his coat pockets and placed it back in the valise with the other items.

Then he turned to descend, back to the bank, back to his wife and children, back to a place where nobody knew his vice. There, standing in the middle of the path stood Bigfoot, who snapped this picture.