Although cigars hold no appeal to me, I adore cigar boxes. I consider them to be “treasure chests.”
I like cigar boxes when they are empty of cigars but full of prized possessions. That’s what I use them for these days: the tiny treasures. I have several “vintage” cigar boxes dating from the 1950s and 1960s that hold cards from friends, snippings from the newspapers, pressed flowers, and tiny trinkets my children gave me when they were small. They hold the “flotsam and jetsam” of my life. The contents are inconsequential things with which I simply cannot bear to part. There is no rhyme or reason to it, and I never know what I’ll find in any particular box. That’s part of the fun of opening one of them.
Those colorful boxes symbolize the past for me. That wasn’t always the case. When I was young, a cigar box symbolized “new beginnings.”
I had forgotten that fact, until my friend Consuelo Samarripa told a story about her grandmother giving her a cigar box on the first day of school. That brought the memories flooding back. We did the very same thing. Did you?
Back in the old days, we didn’t have fancy schmancy plastic boxes to hold our school supplies. We went down to Mr. Burrus’s grocery store weeks before school began to sweet talk Mr. B. out of a cigar box to hold our crayons, pencils, and scissors (I’ve always been pretty darned good at “sweet talking”). Sometimes it took several trips to successfully procure a box, because the store ran out of boxes. It seems there were a lot of kids sweet talking Mr. B! In those days, one could get a cigar box for free … but I’m told that nowadays the boxes cost as much as the cigars. I’d have to take out a loan to buy one.
I think that those cigar boxes, and the school supplies (tiny treasures) that they held were my favorite part of a new school year. On the first day of school, we always compared our cigar boxes to see who had the prettiest. Some people covered theirs, or painted them, but I liked mine to be just the way it came from the store. My cigar box was “unadulterated.”
For the first few weeks of school, the classroom smelled like a cigar factory, but gradually the smell of cigar was overpowered by the scent of the crayolas. I don’t know for sure, but I think I preferred the smell of tobacco!
I can never look at a closed cigar box without peeking inside to see if there is treasure inside. These days, when I smell a cigar box, I’m not put off by that tobacco scent at all. That empty cigar box smells of memories and of the possibilities of a new beginning.
What do you remember about the first day of school? Did you go inside the classroom with a cigar box full of school supplies tucked under your arm?
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Let’s see, what do I remember about the first day of school. Not much I’m afraid. I remember school though, and we didn’t use the cigar boxes. If I remember, I had a fabric pouch with pencils, eraser and carons.
I must say, I am a cigar smoker, and like some Presidents before me, I don’t inhale. I roll the smoke around in my mouth and blow it out. It’s the only vice I have left as I gave up drugs, drinking, gambling and loose women a long time ago.
But speaking of cigar boxes, there just so happens to be an auction of cigar box art. You can go to my blog, Round Circle to read about it. Proceeds go for a good cause, but the artwork is fabulous.
By the way, I have at least a dozen cigar boxes laying around, both the usual cardboard and some wooden, (cedar). I didn’t know they were worth anything, I’ll have to check that out.
Peace.
.-= Spadoman´s last blog ..Art Auction for a Great Cause =-.
How strange that our minds are “in synch” with the cigar boxes! I had written this post days ago and “scheduled” it, since I knew I was going to be busy investigating a haunted house. I don’t know how much those cigar boxes would be worth (but maybe you could donate them to the artists you talk about so they can use them to benefit the children of Oaxaca?
I used to work near a convenience store that sold cigars and sometimes we got the boxes for free. I loved to open them to smell this good and comforting cigar smell…unlit cigar smell. Of course. I prefer the pipe, more of a musky vanilla scent.
.-= Terry Elisabeth´s last blog ..Surprise Me =-.
I prefer the pipe smell, too … though I confess to liking the smell of the cigar. Perhaps it’s a lingering memory from those cigar boxes, but more likely it’s the memory of men in my family who smoked them (and inhaled:lol:)
I remember the cigar boxes, but in our school, the teacher had a supply of them and doled them out. Of course, thinking of that made me think of the brown-paper book covers. Did anybody else have those? They were printed with advertisements from local businesses and came semi-fitted. You had to fit them to your books, which then had to remain covered all year.
Our oldest son worked for a couple of years after college at a local tobacconist, and I have an excellent, lifetime supply of nice wooden and heavy cardboard cigar boxes.
.-= Anne´s last blog ..A Short Break =-.
Oh, yeah! I never did a very good job with those paper covers. We had them, and I remember all the advertisements, too! Thanks for reminding me of those.
Keep those cigar boxes, because they sure come in handy for sorting all the tiny stuff!
First day of grade school:
o The cool morning air of early fall while waiting for the school bus.
o Wearing brand new clothes, knee socks and blindingly white saddle shoes.
o Making paper book covers for all my textbooks.
o Certainly brand new school supplies; a pencil box with a slide top that doubled as a ruler.
o Little trolls that attached to the top of pencils.
o New Barbie lunchbox and thermos.
Saddle shoes! I haven’t thought about those in years! I think I can stand to avoid thinking about them a little longer
Cool memories.
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