As told to me by my basset hound of the time
Howard Lucas Miller died of a massive heart attack at the Main Cigar Store in 1979. He was not a happy or well liked man. He had taken lunch at the Main Cigar Store ever since he was kicked out of the Snug in 1956.
Howard was something of a Christian but that is beside the point. Howard could have been a Satanist and his god would still not welcomed his company. Mr. Miller was fated to haunt this realm until such point in time that the Gods (Protestant) figured out who should have him. They did not seem to be in any hurry to decide.
So Howard had to spend his time haunting Bluffton. For the most part he was content to annoy Frank Sr. by turning his Main Cigar's Store's Heyerlys'-ham-purchased-slightly-before-the-use-by-date rancid. This wasn't much of an issue-- one no ever purchased an uncooked sandwich from the the Main Cigar Store and the restaurant's rush time was shortly after the bars closed. Diarrhea was dismissed the next day as being caused by alcoholism rather then food poisoning.
Howard occasionally got bored and ventured further afield. Murphy's went out of business largely because someone there had managed to piss him off shortly before his death and then he became deeply offended by the end of the line 8 track selections they were selling for a dollar. Howard had opinions about music and Captain Beefheart, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and the Greatest Hits of Olivia Newton John were not to be found on the plus side of that ledger. By the end of the decade Murphy's was gone and the Dollar Store was selling nothing more offensive then a lonely cassette tape of Benny Goodman's Greatest Hits.
Howard caused other problems. The Kiwanis booth at the 1985 Street Fair paged both Jack Meoff and Wanda B. Laid because their list went mysteriously missing. Ten year old boys went on a rampage with much more success then their fourteen year old brothers had ever achieved. .
However, Howard's major haunt remained the Main Cigar Store. Things were not going well there. While the food wasn't a cause of much concern other issues came to the forefront. For one thing Howard was a keen pool player when his was alive and liked to hang out around the pool table. That section of the of the restaurant became unnaturally cold and Frank Sr. was accused of turning down the heat back there.
Howard's presence also caused the pool table to become more warped. Three generations of pool sharks had learned how to shoot pool on that table at their father's drunken side. They could no longer count on the geometry of the table to sink a ball and this offended them deeply. They started to go to a new place called Cowboy's which offered, briefly, unlimited soft drink refills.
Finally the Main Cigar Store had to shut down. Since all of Frank Sr.'s kids had went into the military, and did well by the GI Bill, there was a not an heir to the throne. More to the point the bacteria on the grill was beginning to show signs of intelligence and the health department was becoming scared enough to consider calling in the EPA. So Frank Sr.. reluctantly closed and locked the door for the first time, leaving all the unpaid bills inside.
Howard was left inside too.
So should you be in the alley between Market and Wabash streets (certainly on your way to place a classified ad in the News Banner and just taking an unusual route) and peer at the dirty windows of the Main Cigar Store note with joy that those dirty windows no longer mean that Frank simply hasn't gotten around to cleaning them. Should you hear someone pounding on the windows say a quick prayer for Howard and wonder when the hell the Eagles are going to do something about him.
