Although smokers are rapidly disappearing from public view under the oppressive, fascist rule of political correctness, the fact is that a lot of us who fish and hunt are smokers who carry lighters in our pockets.
 
We won't be able to light 'em up in Nicks English Hut or any other public watering hole in Bloomington come Jan. 1; however, there remain pockets of freedom in small towns in surrounding areas, and that means an important male bonding ritual will survive even as Bloomington moves toward banning maleness altogether.
 
The lighter game is a relatively new form of male bonding, dating to the appearance of cheap, plastic lighters that replaced your old Zippo.  A Bic only costs a buck-and-a-half, and there are cheaper versions, under a dollar.  Before these cheap plastic lighters, using a favorite Zippo as a game piece wasn’t so trivial and therefore the game was not as popular as it has become.
 
The Lighter Game represents one aspect of what some anthropologists call the male joking relationship that can be found in nearly every human culture. In its most basic forms, male joking relationships involve one or more fellows making disparaging, lewd, often sexual comments about one of their group, or making one of your buddies look foolish in front of others. 
 
Here is a great example of how the Lighter Game works.  I have changed the names of the players to protect them from anti-smoking zealots, but the facts remain. The place isn’t really important, although the Lighter Game often takes place while fishing or while sitting around recreating before or after fishing.  The idea is to borrow your buddy’s cigarette lighter and pocket it until called on it.
 
My old, old, really old friend Cash Currant loves to play the lighter game, and he particularly delights in pulling my lighter out of his pocket.  Over the years, we have exchanged so many lighters that we cant be sure who started out with a specific one; however in one case, with one specific lighter, the aging Currant made the fatal mistake of issuing a challenge.
 
"Heres a lighter you will never get," he bragged, showing me a brand new Chicago Cubs lighter bought at Wrigley Field.  He passed it before my eyes, gloried in letting me look but not touch, much as one might dangle a carrot in front of a donkey.
 
Within 30 minutes, I had the treasured Cub lighter in my pocket, as Cash’s attention span was focused on something else, probably one of his rammy dogs on the tear, he didn’t even know the lighter was missing until three months later.
 
We were playing cribbage when I pulled out the Cubs lighter as Cash asked for a light. 
 
"Here, Ive got this old Cubs lighter," I said, innocently.  "I dont know where it came from."
 
Stunned, Cash stared at the lighter, then at me:  "Jordan, you son-of-a-$#%$@!  That's my Cubs lighter!"
 
"Yeah, the one you said I would never get from you, remember?  I had it in my pocket in fifteen minutes.  Ha, ha," I taunted.

"I'll get even for this one," warned Cash. 

Proabably, for that is part of the game too.
 
Another remarkable Lighter Game story I recall was a backward sting operation conceived to teach the worst lighter klepto I know a lesson.  This fellow, an elderly cabin builder and jokester of ill repute, delighted in snatching up every lighter he could see, and one summer he had managed to get lighters from everyone in town.  He had a veritable Fort Knox of cigarette lighters stashed in his gear.
 
Well aware of Cabin Builder's lighter pilfering propensities, I saved every empty, useless plastic lighter I could find for months.  Then, before leaving a cabin he often visits, I salted the dirty floor under an outdoor porch with the dud lighters.  You see, the porch's floor boards are spaced so that there is just enough room for a lighter or a fork or whatnot to fall through the spaces. I dropped them far enough from the edges that a crawl under the porch would be required to reach the lighters.
 
"Hey Elderly Cabin Builder," I called just before leaving.  "I dropped at least three or four lighters through the porch over at the cabin.  If you have to get under there for something, theyre all yours."
 
I chuckled to myself for months but never heard a thing until the following year when I visited the cabin again. 
 
"Hey Jordan, you know I crawled under the porch to get those lighters after you left last year.   You know, none of them worked. All that crawling under there for nothing," said Elderly Cabin Builder.
 
"No kidding, gee that was a bummer, huh?" I couldnt stop a chuckle, then an outright "Haw! Haw! Haw!"
 
The old cabin builder to finally get the point.
 
"You put those under there knowing they weren't any good, didn't you?" he asked, incredulous.  "You bas&*%$!"
 
I laughed out loud and lept off the porch with the would-be lighter rescuer on my heels, yelling threats and promising to get even.

He probably will, because thats one aspect of the Lighter Game and male joking that never changes -- it never ends and everyone ends up getting a laugh, even the butt of the joke, so to speak.