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In order to give customers that Cuban feeling it helps to have a cuban
artist paint you a 36ft long 8 ft high mural of cuban workers in cuban
fields picking cuban tobacco.
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here is Mr. Victor himself painting a part of the mural from his
memories of working in the fields...at least that what was he said :)
I had mentioned that there would be lots of guys in the shop and he
wanted to give them a pleasant view. If you will notice the final mural
above I had to ask him to modestly clothe our pretty lady.
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| This
was the back of the shop with the walk-in humidor in the building back
there. The floor I painted myself to be a map of the world with the
tobacco countries highlighted and those are flags of the tobacco
countries on the wall.
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it or not here is a pic of me (Lance) Vero & Martin sitting in the
lounge. This was the only way Vero & the boys really got to see me
in those early yrs. Either I would pick up the boys and bring them to
the shop in the afternoon or Vero would come up at dinner time.
I still like to wear those shirts!
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| We had many different promotions at Tobacco Plantations but sometimes you had to give a kid away to sell something.
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| If
you are gonna be a cool cigar shop then you need a cool cigar car. This
was our company car. A 74 MGB painted to look like a cigar with a band
around the hood. And yes that is a cigar smoking fish on the hood. He
was our mascot that customers could take places and come back with pics
to put on the wall of fish travels.
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of course since that was Tobacco Plantation breed of cigar fish he
really knew how to travel and more importantly who to travel with.
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| Sooner or later all great journeys must come to an end...even those of the great cigar fish.
Now just so you know I am not sitting in that bush just for fun. That
is where I landed after flying off a bridge, out the convertible top
and head first into the sand. This pic was taken about 3min after the
crash when the guy on the highway behind me stopped. After he freaked
out about my leg 4ft away from me...I ask him to gather my stuff and
start taking pic with my camera since no on e would believe me.
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Well it seems
that God does look out for children & fools..needless to say I
don't look too much like a kid.
So this is what a MG looks like after you
drive it off a bridge, fly out the roof and flip it on its top &
side. Knocked my leg right off me! Best of all I walked (hopped really)
away with only a couple of scratches on my elbow and sore chest
muscles...tore the seat belt right out of the floor though.
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