My Cigar Box

My Cigar Box


Way back when I was a little boy I was collecting a lot of
things from crackerjacks that where very popular when I was young. My
friends and I would buy them for a nickel a box in the late 40's and
the early fifties. We would trade back and forth with each other and
other neighborhood kids that had anything of interest. We would collect
all these neat little toys that the company would put in to Cracker
Jacks to make them more popular. It was great because my friends and I
would collect them from many different places, some we would send for
and some were from games like Monopoly. There were some neat tokens
that were in the Monopoly games, the tokens were made out of heavy
metal and the hotels were made out of wood. Today they are made mostly
out of plastic.
It is really neat having the original ones. Over the years my family
moved to another state but I continued to collect a lot of small stuff
such as pocket knives, yo-yo's, Zippo lighters and little buttons that
you would pin on your shirt that said "I like Ike" Eisenhower for
president. I also collected some special marbles, rings,
bracelets
and this one pocket watch that was dated back to the late 1800's and an
assortment of old Coins. I ended up with some great stuff. I kept most
of the small stuff in a sock in my dresser drawer. One day my mother
was in my room straitening up things and when she opened my dresser
drawer, she asked me what is all this stuff that you have collected and
had stuffed away in this sock? I reached in the drawer and grabbed the
sock and opened it up and showed my Mother all the things that I had
been saving for years. She looked through a few of them with amazement
on her face. She turned slowly around and put her arms around me and
said, you are so cute and I love you but don't keep all this stuff in a
sock, ask your father for a little box to keep those small items in.
The next day when my father got home from work,I asked him if he had a
box that I could put these little things in that I've been collecting
for a years.
When I showed him what I had been saving, he smiled and said, I have an
empty box perfect for you. Come with me. We went out to the back yard
where his workshop was at, he reached up on the shelf and grabbed this
old wood "cigar box" and handed it to me. I think this will work pretty
good for your stuff. My dad said I've had that cigar box for a number
of years, save it with the rest of your stuff, some day it might be
worth something. Dad it's perfect,I will keep this forever. I went to
my bedroom with the cigar box. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked
at my cigar box and all my little things that I was going to put into
it. My father came walking into the room and said, put these with your
collection and don't ever lose them. He opened the palm of his hand and
had a silver dollar and next to it was a Indian head penny. I put the
cigar box down on the bed and grabbed my father around the waist and
hugged him, thanks dad, I will keep them forever. As the years went
on
I was keeping a lot of little trinkets, things that didn't mean
anything to anyone else. I would tell myself that no one else would
have these things years from now. I collected some baseball cards and
ticket stubs from the forty's, from games my dad took me too. One of
the best things that I saved was from the early fifties. It was a Roy
Rogers ring with a little metal bullet attached to the top of it where
you could put
a secret note in it. There was one other ring with a little whistle
attached to the top of it that I collected from a cereal box. I
remember when kids would be blowing those whistles all the time. I even
had a few heavy plastic bullets with a small picture of Hop-along
Cassidy
stamped on the side of them that I got at a rodeo they had in long
Beach California in the '50s. As the years went on my mother and father
sadly had passed away. Years later I married a woman who also enjoyed
collecting. She collected old comic books and old western novels that
she enjoyed reading as a child.
We had two kids, they were seven and eight years old in the '70s. I
caught myself telling them a number of times
to save little toys and things that would not take up too much room and
someday they might be worth something.
I could tell that they were not into collecting like I was when I was
young. Over the years a few of my old friends would come by and I would
show them some of the stuff that I had saved in my cigar box, they
would say some of your collection looks like it would be worth some
money.
My friend Jerry said you should try to sell some of this stuff, why
save it forever? Because it reminds me of when I was young, I said
remember when we used to play games like kick the can and other games
and how much fun it was. Jerry looked straight at me with these big
thick
glasses with black frames that he wore and slowly said "yea" I remember
those games, they were a lot of fun, "I see what you mean" That's why I
just can't bring myself to sell any of it. I've had it for most of my
life and I enjoy looking at it ever so often, it takes me back to
when I was a kid. Years later there was a time in the winter when it
was raining on and off for two days and I was sitting on the couch
watching TV. They were talking about antiques on this program. I
started thinking way back about a little metal hat that was in the
Monopoly sets years ago. I had one of the original ones from the '40's
in my cigar box. So while the kids were at school and my wife was out
shopping I went upstairs and retrieved the cigar box from the closet
shelf and sat on the edge of the bed and for a few seconds holding the
cigar box close to me, I looked towards the door as if my father would
walk into the room as he had many years ago. The first thing that I
would always look at in the cigar box would be dads silver dollar and
the Indian Head penny that he gave me when I was nine years old. I
would sit there for long periods of time like a little kid looking
through all the little things that I saved over all those years and how
it brought back so many memories, especially of my father.



A story by Norman Clifford
8-5-03