Last week, I had the privilege and pleasure of traveling to Miami for a photo shoot for an upcoming issue of ‘Cigar Press’ Magazine.

Despite the early call time (got up at 3:45am to catch a 6:00 flight), it was a day well spent. My hat’s off to Thor Nielsen (founder & editor of Cigar Press) for putting the entire concept together and coordinating a half-dozen different schedules. The idea was to shoot 6 different cigar ‘personalities’ in the same location at the same time: Pete Johnson (Tatuaje), Dion Giolito (Illusione), Jonathan Drew (Drew Estate), Matt Booth (Room 101), George Rico (Gran Habano Cigars), and yours truly.

For the 5 1/2 hours I was there, I was reminded of what I truly love about the premium cigar business. You’d be hard-pressed to find another industry where 6 ‘competitors‘ got along so well, supported each other so much, and truly wanted only success for one another. There was an amazing vibe in that room that afternoon–one of camaraderie, celebration, and unity. Later that evening, when I told my wife about the afternoon, she commented, “it sounds like a fraternity.” And, in a way, she’s right. Not a fraternity in the “Animal House” sense of the word, but rather, a fraternity in a true ‘brotherhood‘ sense of the word.

Despite the 6 truly different and unique personalities in that room that day, we all were brought together by the great ‘common denominator,‘ i.e., the love and passion for premium cigars. The cigar ‘geek‘ in me was at a ’10‘ that day, and I really had to take a step back and say to myself, ‘Am I really in the same room with these guys?–WOW.‘ To be able to spend an afternoon talking shop with some of the brightest minds in our business was amazing and surreal. The closest thing I could compare it to would be like when you were a kid and you were going away to camp with 5 of your closest friends whom you hadn’t seen in a long time.

All of which lead me to this conclusion: “Boys will be boys.”

Allow me to explain. In between photos and talks about tobacco, there we were–comparing cell phone cases, cigars, swag, ideas, etc., etc. It occurred to me that, as men, we always remain just ‘boys;‘ our exteriors change, but that boyhood spirit remains the same. The things that we ‘geeked out‘ about as kids (sports, toys, bikes, skateboards, cars, etc.) are replaced by other things like sports, toys, bikes, skateboards, cars, etc.

More proof. I’ve said that if I wasn’t in the cigar business, I’d probably be in the headwear business; either owning a haberdashery or have my own line of hats and caps. One of the things I love to do here at Crowned Heads (aside from bringing ideas of new projects to fruition) is to work on the design of our apparel–especially our headwear. When I was a kid, my Mom would occasionally ‘treat me‘ to a baseball cap of my choice that she would purchase on her lunch break at the old Roos Atkins store on Market St. in downtown San Francisco (probably long gone, I imagine). By the time I was 10 or 11, I had acquired quite a collection. And I loved each and every one of those caps, each one evoking a different memory or feel–from the ’71 Baltimore Orioles, to that ’72 mustard-Pittsburgh Pirates, to my beloved SF Giants and Oakland A’s.

So, to this day, whenever I receive a pre-pro sample of one of our hats, or when I get a ‘scholarship-care-package‘ from my good friend at New Era Caps, I’m that 7 year-old boy again feeling like a kid in a candy store when my Mom would come home from work and I’d be asking, “Did you get it, did you get it???” (referring to my cap of the week), and she would be holding that Roos Atkins bag in her hand. To this day, I wear a cap or hat to work nearly every day, and from time to time (as much as it pains me to do so), I need to ‘purge’ my collection. Right now, I probably still have over 30 caps and hats in my wardrobe at any given time.

Whenever I visit our local retail tobacconist (Uptown’s Smoke Shop located in Nashville, TN–PLUG), which is about every other week, and Scott tells me, “I got something you gotta try”–BOOM–kid in a candy store all over again. I get ‘geeked’ about cigars and hats….and sports, toys, bikes, skateboards, cars, etc.

So if you ask me, yeah–boys will be boys.