Here is the opening paragraph to a book I am writing:

I remember my father’s hands. His fingers were long and slender, tipped by beautiful, strong fingernails. During the 13 short years that I knew him, his long, slender fingers began to grow crooked and clawlike from hard work; the knuckles swollen and misshapen from arthritis. His hands were dark, burnt by the sun. They were the hands of a man who spent most of his life making a living out in the fields: planting, harvesting, tending livestock and repairing machinery. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand were stained brownish yellow from the nicotine of the unfiltered cigarettes he smoked. To this day, the smell of cigarette smoke can take me back to a bright Autumn day when he took me to the cornfield with him to pick corn.