Other than on a store shelf, I don’t think I have ever seen a cigar box with cigars in it. Humidors were of no use to me. Cigars were of no use to me, especially as a second-grader.
I have only ever known repurposed humidors; repurposed for everything imaginable.
Every August we kids would search out the dads of our neighborhood friends who smoked cigars so we could salvage them for school—crayons, pencils, paper clips, rubber bands, love notes (oh, the love notes: “Do you like me? Circle yes or no”). If it would fit, into the box it would go. I put a piece of tape on mine so no one would get into it.
Cigar boxes were an integral part of our culture, and I think a child who never had a cigar box has been terribly deprived.
At Mom’s workplace the cigar box contained petty change and stamps; they were interchangeable.
My Dad had a couple of cigar boxes, organizing manly paraphernalia interpretable by some Rosetta Stone that resided in his head alone—bolts, washers, screws, nails, oil, drill bits, allen wrenches.
A saintly senescent woman in our church kept her wooden, loaf-shaped BREAD OF LIFE container in her cigar box—those small, plain white cards that were about an inch-and-a-half wide and three-quarters of an inch high. The chapter and verse were on the obverse and the text on the reverse so that you could quiz yourself either way. She also kept her prayer list in there. It comforted me to know I was on that list.
You can imagine, then, how nostalgic this poem made me feel when I discovered it.
The Cigar Box
(Copyright © John Cassens | Year Posted 2007)
I have a cigar box with corners frayed and lid barely holding on.
Its contents being small things I’ve made and objects that I’ve found.
An odd-shaped rock, a marble, a feather are three of many that lasted well.
But the little objects are no better than the stories they could tell.
I held these things so precious once when I was a wide-eyed boy.
Now in my hand this timeless bunch of memories bring me joy.
I lay the treasures cross the table to see what I once had found.
I conclude that tomorrow if I’m able I’ll walk and search the ground.
Somewhere in that old creek bed or on the side of the grassy hill,
memories are no longer dead and find them I surely will.
Something lying there since time began, hidden so none before could see.
But now as if somehow planned, it would be given just to me.
The creases corner my eyes today as I’ve far from weathered well.
The box’s edges also appear that way but we both have stories still to tell.
I am weathered so like this old box and both of us remember when
we found the feather and the rock with their stories locked within.
Regardless how worn we may seem, the box and I contain the past.
Beyond aged exteriors lies the dream that memories do not die but last.
* * * *
Cigar boxes have a fascinating history. Introduced in 1840, by 1863 they were regulated by American law. As early as the Civil War they were being up-cycled into musical instruments, either fiddles, banjos, or guitars.
As time passed, some cigar boxes were as or even more expensive than the cigars, especially in their repurposed life. Many are collector’s items. Elegant cigar boxes are often up-cycled into furniture, cedar chest-of-drawers, jewelry boxes, baby beds, toy trucks, cuckoo clocks, almost anything you can imagine.
The cigar box on my desk is much humbler. It is King Edward The Seventh Imperial—in 1940 the “world’s best selling cigar”—a kind of garish gold, cardboard, perfectly worn all over. It has crayon markings and a scorch mark in the bottom from something like a candle. It was once owned by a woman named Ellen, who inscribed her name in that elegant old script that was taught in the early twentieth century. Someone, evidently later than Ellen, kept keys in this box, because “Keys” is written in an entirely different hand-writing. Around 1985, someone kept stamps, because it says so right on the box: Stamps 22¢. I judge this cigar box to be about 60 years old, but that is only a guess. It does not smell at all like tobacco.
I imagine in the mind and heart of a cigar box, it would Nirvana to be up-cycled into a cigar box guitar. You can find cigar box guitars online that are extraordinarily delicate and expensive. “Ronnie Wood (the Rolling Stones) is using one on an album due in 2016. Paul McCartney played a slide cigar box 4-string while fronting the Foo Fighters on TV. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Tom Waits and Ed Kind (Lynyrd Skynyerd) have played them. Buddy Guy got his start on a homemade 2-stoiring ‘Diddley bow,’ and Blind Willie Johnson learned his craft on a 1-string—as did thousands more obscure and unknown musicians, who made that blues sound famous.” (https://www.famous-smoke.com/cigaradvisor/5-things-about-cigar-boxes)
* * * *
I tend to press analogies too far, but my life is kind of like a cigar box. In this analogy, God looks at me the way I look at cigar boxes: “Son, I have no need for the stuff that’s in you right now. Let’s get all of that out and I will repurpose you into something useful and noble.”
What might that be, I wonder. Oh, I’d love to become a cigar box guitar, especially one of those fancy ones that sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars. Or even an elegant, expensive, showy cedar chest or coffee table.
I don’t think I would like to hold keys or crayons or stamps. That would be so…ordinary, mundane, banal. But if my experience is any indication, God sometimes needs us to do exactly that kind of pedestrian, modest, quotidian kinds of task. “Son, I’ve got folks lined up to be one of those cigar box guitars. If you really want to help me, you can do this [insert humble task].”
Every cigar box wishes it were originally made of cedar with brass hinges and handmade fittings. Every cigar box wishes it were up-cycled into a cigar box guitar, or a jewelry box, or polished into an antique piece. But most are not. Most are humble, especially in their re-purposed life.
I wonder what this cigar box would say for itself.
The Cigar Box
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
The cigar box reposed upon the closet shelf for nigh on fifty years.
Oft his family wondered what it held. Perhaps some treasured souvenirs?
The old man, a veteran, had fought in the European Theater of Operations.
He never talked about that nor did he ever boast of any special decorations.
Alas, he mustered for that final call of the roll to begin his eternal bourne.
His passing left behind a loving family and a grateful nation to mourn.
Rifle shots echoed o’er the hills – the clarion sound of “Taps” was played.
The Chaplain rendered words of hope and in hallowed clay he was laid.
His son sorted through his Dad’s things learning facts he never knew.
Neatly folded in a trunk was his army uniform looking almost new.
He found hundreds of ribbon-bound V-mail letters to his beloved wife,
Expressing his love and hope for their life together beyond the terrible strife.
He was curious about the cigar box and pulled it down from the shelf.
There he found treasured things that his Dad had kept to himself.
His dog tags on a chain, faded snapshots of his wife and old army pals,
Staff sergeant chevrons, his honorable discharge and some old decals.
He choked back tears of pride as he discovered the coveted Silver Star,
and the citation that read of his bravery for heroic actions on the Saar!
There was also a Purple Heart and two Bronze Star Medals he had earned.
He was in awe of his humble but heroic Dad and the things he had learned!
* * * *
You just have to believe that this cigar box did not originally hold expensive, Cuban stokes. It almost certainly was not made of cedar. There was nothing about it that drew attention to itself. It just had to be a humble, King Edward The Seventh Imperial, made of cardboard and weathered and so ordinary as to be almost invisible.
I am sure this cigar box wanted to be repurposed into something ostentatious, flamboyant, noteworthy.
But that was not its calling. Its calling was to hide something precious to someone particular, to be placed on a closet shelf for fifty years, and then to be discovered, not on eBay or Amazon or an antique store, but by a son. Once its precious cargo was disclosed, it could easily be discarded, and probably was, having performed the purpose its owner re-purposed it for.
Most of us wish we had been originally made of cedar with brass hinges and handmade fittings. Failing that, and having given up our original contents, we sometimes wish we had been up-cycled into an expensive piece of furniture, perhaps a cedar chest-of-drawers, or best of all, a cigar box guitar.
But often God asks us to give up our insides and be turned over completely to Him for a purpose exactly as nondescript as holding keys, or stamps, or petty change, or love letters, or war medals that no one would see for fifty years, and then only by his son.
St. Paul admonishes us to be content. I’m working on that. I sit here looking at a King Edward The Seventh Imperial, a kind of garish gold, made of cardboard and weathered and so ordinary it is almost invisible. And it’s a fine cigar box. It has history. It has scars. It has character. It has served many owners well and admirably. Its tasks have been most very humble.
The first poet above expresses my sentiments:
The creases corner my eyes today as I’ve far from weathered well.
The box’s edges also appear that way but we both have stories still to tell.
I am weathered so like this old box and both of us remember when
We found the feather and the rock with their stories locked within.
Regardless how worn we may seem, the box and I contain the past.
Beyond aged exteriors lies the dream that memories do not die but last.
My cigar box sits in front of me on my desk.
It’s a fine box.
And I’m okay.
Dear Theophilus 