Many Homes

I am a man of many homes. That’s not to say I have moved a lot in my life, because I haven’t, but rather it speaks to the mild identity crisis that befalls any child of mixed ethnicity. I am both a first generation Cuban American and the progeny of a family with a lineage traceable to the Revolutionary War; a Caribbean islander with a splash of the Highlands. To put it in terms of Good Smoke, I am Cuban filler with a Connecticut wrapper.

The beauty of the great melting pot theory is that these ethno-cultural differences take a backseat to your identity as an American. As I’ve mentioned before, by vocation I am an historian, and being a man of many homes there is a burning desire to learn all I can about the different worlds that had to come together in order for my very existence to be possible. Though I’ve spent fewer than three decades on this planet, I’ve nonetheless gotten off to a good start.

The Griffiths have been American citizens for no fewer than eight generations. Beginning with William Griffith Jr., who was five years old and living in Philadelphia, PA at the time of the first U.S. Census in 1790, my paternal line struck out West, but didn’t get very far, settling mostly in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. My Grandfather, Lee, eventually came back East to build early refrigeration units for a little known company called Stop & Shop. He and my grandmother settled in Norwood, MA and became professional foster parents until having children of their own.

Before she immigrated from Canada and married my grandfather, Grandma Griffith was Marion MacLintock, and the family hailed from Scotland. During a 2002 walking tour of the U.K., I did a little research and discovered that, traditionally, the MacLintock clan was regarded as a very small group of landless peasants. They had resided on the lands of the MacDougal clan, whom they were bound to servitude for generations. While in Scotland, I found only a single shop that carried the MacLintock tartan–an eye-wrenching combination of orange, blue, and green that my father once described as whale-barf set to plaid–and became the first person in 30 years to order the pattern.

My mother and her parents immigrated from Havana to Manhattan just before the fall of the Batista dictatorship in 1959. While my mother was an only child, my grandfather, Benigno (Papa), had an older sister, and my grandmother, Julia (Abi), was one of thirteen children. During the first trip I got to meet my grandfather’s sister, whom I didn’t know existed until we were practically on her doorstep. Papa didn’t know about her until he was in his 20’s, which is also when he met his father for the first time. He had been raised since infancy by his aunt and uncle in the wake of his mother’s passing while his father raised his sister.

Abi too was raised by a multitude of family members in a very extended household, predominantly by older siblings that were, in some cases, decades older than her. It was on my second trip to Cuba in 2002-2003 that I got to see what was graciously called the old family farmhouse. It was a single-room shack, likely no more than 400 square feet, where once upon a time more than a dozen people resided. The house in Matanzas, where they later moved, wasn’t much bigger, but was definitely cozier.

So my father, who was was in Norwood, and my mother, who happened to be attending Andover Newton Theological School n Newton Centre, MA, end up meeting one another. I’m born a few years later in Milford, MA, but we end up moving almost immediately to Port Chester, NY. Southern Westchester becomes home for nearly two decades, and after a brief stay in Oneonta, I landed in Troy, NY. After six years of renting, Dana and I decide the market is ripe for the picking, and on November 25, 2013 we bought our house in Rotterdam.

To celebrate our new home I brought a taste of an old one: The Cohiba Robusto 2012, my first Cuban since getting engaged. I had gotten a box from my uncle Tony and had been aging them for the better part of a year, waiting for a very special occasion to unleash everything this 4 7/8″ stick had packed into its 50 ring gauge. It was quite a beauty, with the telltale Cuban triple cap and oily wrapper, and after getting the house painted, cleaned, and unpacked, Joe and I popped out to the garage to enjoy a celebratory smoke.

The one thing I’ve noticed about the Cubans I have smoked is that they are virtually never harsh, even at first light. The Cohiba started out almost mild in body, with a creamy, almost buttery softness. As I puffed on, the flavor became increasingly more complex: toasted graham cracker, woodiness and honey, mildly sweet earthen flavors that eventually gave way to the quintessential white pepper that has become synonymous with Cuban tobacco. I only wish it was longer so I could have enjoyed it more, but good God was that an amazing cigar.

So there you have it. I made a home in Rotterdam via Troy, Westchester, Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, Scotland and Cuba. I have been here for hundreds of years and yet have only just arrived, a product of many blended cultures and thousands of miles of travel. I’m fiercely proud of where I come from, of the people who came before me, and the groundwork they laid so that I can be who I am today. I look at my son and see not only my own lineage, but the rich history of his mother as well, written across his face. We all keep a multitude of homes in our hearts, homes kept warm with love, legacy, and Good Smoke.

Your’s Truly,

W.S. Cruzgriffith