In The Cigar Box

Since the Christmas of 1980, we've turned Christmas cards into a family project.  My part has been to write a poem that tried to say something about our family while capturing a sense of the season in the mood of the times.  Sometimes the poem told a story or simply reflected on the constant blessings that have come our way.  Sometimes the words tried to give voice to the peace that reflection can bring.  In the years when we were granted grandsons, now four of them, there was a poem welcoming each new member of the clan.  Those poems and a few others were published in a small volume titled The Conductor's Call . Some of you have noticed the signature on the posts in the Cigar Box (--td) and wondered about the email address attached to it (tdpoet@gmail.com) because poems have not previously found their way here.  Well, the Christmas poems for over 30 years have been signed the same way.  Today's entry in the Cigar Box is our Christmas card for 2012....

There are phrases constructed of words that do not belong together.  For days, one of those phrases has been and will be broadcast over every television and radio station in America.  “Today another six year old was laid to rest.”  The last thing that a six year old should be doing is resting.  Six years old is the time of life of perpetual motion at full speed.  Words are completely inadequate to the task of describing a lifeless six year old body – laid to rest isn’t close.  At 9:30 this morning bells tolled and voices stilled.  In groups or sitting alone, people remembered the lives of twenty children and the 6 adults who perished while using every ounce of their being to protect children from malevolence.  Newtown knows that it is not alone in its grief.  Pain remains unabated. In the search for explanations, some have blamed the easy access to guns as the linchpin that set events in motion.  Others have leapt upon the pres...

Sometimes even simple plans go awry.  With Toys and One December , I was on my way to filling the December Cigar Box with stories connected to Christmas joys.  Those plans were cast aside by a young man I never met nor probably ever would have - a person who perpetrated the most despicable act a normal mind can conceive. Twenty six families had their simple plans, normal expectations of normal lives for children, thrown into the cauldron of endless torment when, in one short hour, the currents in one young man’s life crashed together in a monstrous act.  His life’s currents appear to include mental illness and easily available guns.  His name will not be recorded here.  We must not feed, fuel nor abet the next troubled soul or evil mind to emulate his actions for infamy or fulfillment of some twisted purpose.  Those who can muster the strength will pray for his soul but his final act shall endure as unforgivable. Christmas is a time for childre...

Frieda was pretty old for a dachshund.    The day came when the decision had to be made for her and it was my decision to make.   Jack was too young.   Gerry was away at college.   Frieda was our responsibility and had been our little sister for about a decade.   Getting old didn’t seem like something that could ever slow the unbounded energy of our auburn colored, happy little pal. Weiner dogs run like a slinky with little stubby legs and the breeze can spread their ears as though running was the prelude to flight.   Looking a dachshund in the eye makes them smile and the front part of their body seems to wag a bit before the tail gets the message. Frieda was smart.   Dad did most of the training because we were all less than 10 when Frieda became part of the family.    He taught her boundaries in the house – she never set paw on a carpeted surface.   Outside she learned our property lines without the benef...

Photos, baby book entries, plaster of paris casts of kindergarten aged hands, greeting cards made of glitter, crayon and white paste, and water color paintings of houses, yards and family members, grade cards, ribbons won and tear stained jerseys when a loss was hard – markers of childhood.  Lucky kids are presented a box of such memorabilia when they hit their fourth or fifth decade of life. Flipping through grade cards, merit badges, newspaper clippings, and school projects would have brought back happy times filled with pride for mom and dad but, for me, going through the box felt more like an archeological dig than getting lost in the reverie of long dormant memories.  But some things saved – last. Sepia toned photos were the way to preserve moments in the growth of kids. Gerry and I were dressed in sport coats and bow ties – ages 6 and 3.   Mom liked to say that the photo was entered into, or perhaps won, a photo contest of some description.  Pare...

Thanksgiving.  Here, we’ll take the day for relaxing, eating and being with friends.  A few will use the day’s closing hours for shopping.  Many of us will give thanks, heartfelt thanks.  There will be memories of loved ones who have crossed to their eternity.  People less fortunate will genuinely be remembered in prayer.  This is the day when an abundance of food is donated to people who know that being well fed can be an ephemeral luxury.  Seeing all the reasons for thanks is hard on this or any day. At about midnight tonight, here in the central US, the Thanksgiving holiday will officially begin.  At about that same time, daylight will be full over Kabul and in the provinces whose names have become familiar on the nightly news like Kandahar and Helmand.  In such places the sounds of exploding ordnance have often announced the beginning of another day.  The tedious work and critical mission will not take a break.  For the de...

Very few still have wooden statues of Native Americans positioned at the entrances. The blue-white smoke that formed a constant cloud hanging below the tin ceilings has dissipated as anti-smoking ordinances were enacted and enforced.  But the candy cane swirl of a barber pole still announces one of the last surviving havens for guys.  These places are not salons.  You can’t make an appointment – some don’t have telephones.  Barber shops. Last week, I sat in the barber chair in Barry’s shop.  His is a traditional chair with a cast iron base and long handle with a faux ivory grip so he can operate the chair’s hydraulic pump.  The action of pumping sounds like a moose gargling while his mate is wheezing but the seat raises or lowers so the head of hair is brought to the barber’s hands and eyes.  Every shop, Barry’s included, has a picture window in front or on the end of the row of barber chairs.  Such windows are always slightly smoky with...

The lid on the Cigar Box has remained closed for several days.  In this election season, everyone has been inundated with more words and images than most of us can process or tolerate.  The unprecedented degree of patronizing, hate-filled speech stifles even the most resilient spirit.  It seemed best for the Cigar Box stories to take a break except to encourage everyone to overcome the overload long enough to cast a vote. Please remember that elections are not sports nor horse races.  When the votes are counted, we should hope and plan for everyone to celebrate the victory of self-government over being ruled by fiat or by despots.  Significant challenges remain.  We must overcome the effects of those who would co-opt power through gross mischaracterizations, hyperbole and outright falsehoods.  In resisting those forces, the accumulated wisdom of millions of voters has served us well for more than 200 years – I pray that it will again.  A...

On a lonely stretch of US40 between Kansas City and Columbia, my 1965 Corvair Monza sputtered and the engine temperature gauge spun up to the red line.  Without a radiator to boil over (the Corvair had an air cooled, rear mounted engine that Ralph Nader had declared was unsafe at any speed), an overheating engine was a pretty good reason to stop quickly or the engine could be ruined.   Searching for a wide spot on the shoulder, I opted for a gravel covered stretch just after a short bridge over one of the creeks that fed into the Blackwater River.  The tail of the bridge guard rail lent some protection from big rigs edging over and clipping the Monza while I was off to get a tow. This was the autumn of 1967.  Around half of all telephones still had rotary dials and finding one to make a call required hitching a ride or making the walk to the next town down the road.  I tried both.  For the walk, I stayed on the wrong side (walking with the traffi...

Walk with me.  When you hear those words you might immediately picture a celebrity or mogul with his entourage of minions and groupies flowing like a wave over a path lined with security and nylon ropes to a waiting limousine. The celeb might use the phrase to bestow upon one follower a moment of private conversation illuminating him in the reflected glory of being close to the source of celebrated light.  Or you might conjure a vision of a nondescript secret agent clad in an aging grayish top coat.  The coat is appropriately rumpled with subtle stains that suggest the wearer is a permanent member of the workaday world populated by millions of people – people made invisible by their gray attire and gray demeanor.  His eyes are obscured behind the gray tint of his transition lenses and generic plastic frames.  The walk is meant to hide from eavesdroppers and counterspies.  Walking is his quiet cue that the words are urgent.  Perhaps the security o...

Twelve killed, fifty-eight injured.  Thirteen years three months after Columbine. With his red dyed spiky hair casting a low shadow on the screen, the odd looking fellow seated in the first row of Theater 9 slipped out.   He left through the emergency exit, propped the door open and returned as a lone gunman strutting into the darkened theater armed like a soldier clearing houses in urban Iraq.   With nothing but malice in his mind, he emptied one magazine after another firing each new bullet faster than he could blink his eye.   People fell.   Some fell for their final time.   Others didn’t know if help would come in time.   Some of the lucky ones crouched under the relentless strafing.   In the adjacent theater 8, some patrons thought the gunfire was a scene from the movie until bullets penetrated and killed or maimed while a shrill alarm pealed a warning.   Fear gripped many – sometimes for themselves and sometimes for pr...

Leave winners and losers to the NFL or the NBA.  Winners and losers have no place nor standing in a system of self-governance. When races are cast as races, we demand to know who won.  When polls are taken, our competitive spirits are engaged.  The American psyche is hard wired to be competitive and in a competition winning is the solitary goal.  Lombardi is credited for having said, “Winning is not the most important thing, winning is the only thing.”  Certainly the stories about competitors who put sportsmanship above victory  are celebrated but they are miniscule in number when compared to the stories about the victors, the winners, the undefeated. Last Saturday night, we Americans, including non-golfers, were already gloating about the American Ryder Cup team who held such a commanding lead that victory was ordained.  No shrift was given that the invading Europeans could go head to head with a truly remarkable team of Americans and domina...

Through seven different residences and about 40 years, I kept a wooden trunk.  Some might have called it a footlocker.   We built it as a Boy Scout project for my older brother to use at camp in Oceola, Missouri.  When Gerry aged out of scouting (long before it was known that scouting and I didn’t fit together – a different story), the trunk passed to me.   He had tired of it.  To me it was a treasure chest – a safe place for prized possessions.  Sky blue on the outside and lacquered on the inside, it had Gerry’s name stenciled on top and a hasp on the lid where I could put a spin dial padlock.  Secure.  Even Mom and Dad didn’t know the combination – at least I don’t think they did.  Early on, it held a few scraps of memorabilia.  But it was mostly empty.  I wanted it to hold something important, something that would be meaningful when I was old – like twenty or thirty or fifty?! My first real job was a pape...

If it ever ends…..  Was this the question she asked herself all evening?  Was she deciding what to do once the evening finally expired?  Was she sorry she’d agreed to this date? Adolescent fears are mostly exaggerated feelings that spin around too much self-absorption.  My fears and insecurities were no exception.  So, I did the usual thing and went way over the top trying to impress this new girl whose life intersected with mine in a most unlikely way.  We drove along Blue Ridge Boulevard and through Swope Park and I talked about the mysteries of Colonel Swope.  (The traffic in the park was light and a good ghost story might lead to a snuggle.)  Starlight Theater was an open air theater and I said it would be neat to see a show there (trying to express my grasp of the arts!)  I showed her through Waldo and my old house and then through Brookside on the way to the Plaza.  Along Brush Creek Boulevard I told her about Boss Tom Pe...

The winter of 1963 really began when Lee Harvey Oswald took the life of President Kennedy.   As if the weather felt compelled to mimic the mood of the times, winter turned long and dark and tested everyone with persistent icy winds.   Spring’s arrival felt unlikely.      But spring can come at any time and is always beautiful. As I remember it, the time was about 7:15am on a mid-June day.   High school graduation had been a couple of weeks before.   Paul Mason and I were back at work in our summer job – busting freight for Hicks-Ashby earning money for college.   Always trying to control costs, we carpooled from Raytown to 1610 Baltimore in Downtown KC.   After only a week or two, Paul told me that there was a girl – a friend of his girlfriend’s sister – who would like to join the carpool.   Winnie Wilson.   On that first morning, we were in her driveway at 7:15am, tapping the horn lightly like real gentlemen, but ...

Proving the power of an omen, or sometimes a curse, is work reserved to mystics and to those claiming ESP or using LSD.   None of that here.   The facts can speak for themselves. I told them, “Take the ashes and scatter them there.”   The place, well it’s the grassy knoll in front of where the portico of a remarkable landmark stood until January 9, 1892.   Academic Hall lasted a mere seventy-one days after the tradition, the rivalry, (perhaps the curse) began in Kansas City. In the fall of 1891, Kansas was the first of a four game season that included the Kansas City YMCA, Washburn, and Drury.   While Kansas was marching to victory (22-10) wearing leather helmets designed by James Naismith (who spent his off hours inventing basketball) the rivalry between Tigers and Jayhawks moved to the football field.   Jaded  memories of deeds perpetrated by the Jayhawkers, Quantrill’s Raiders and lots of ordinary citizens got funneled to th...