McNeil was telling me about a journal he has kept for decades and I begged to read it but he said no. Finally, he let me see a sliver from 2003, when I telephoned to inform him about a Bob Hope LP I had purchased. Even though Bob was wearing an ascot on the cover, according to McNeil's journal, I had absolutely no memory of the conversation or the recording. McNeil jostled my memory, and kept jostling it, until the record came dimly back into what I laughingly call my mind. I promised to look for it! For, you see, back in 2003, I had read McNeil the liner notes over the phone, and he wanted to hear them again, now, in our present day. Here's the problem! When we moved into this house, I just threw stuff all over the place. The records are not in any order. Anyway, I finally tracked it down, and I guess the portentousness had amused me, a lot of stuff like, "jokes and comedy are not the whole of Bob Hope. It must also be added that he is a man of song." But! That's not why I called you here today. While McNeil was going through an old box, he found a pack of his grandfather's cigarettes. "Half the smokes are still there!" McNeil boasted. I was most impressed by the brand name... Spud Imperial. I've never heard such a bewitching combination of words. I noticed the word "SAFETY" on the side of the pack (though I seem to have cut it off above), and a little rooting around on the "internet" led me to some magazine ads for Spud Imperial. "They're not a remedy," one warned, in case that was what you thought! I don't "blog" anymore, but when I saw the brand name Spud Imperial, I knew at once that an exception had to be made.
