The Cigar Box

What I remember most is how it smelled.  Grandpa's cellar wasn't like a basement where old clothes and toys turn greenish-black with dust and mold.  Nope.  The upstairs door and rickety steps were my own rabbit hole.  In that world down and apart, Grandpa's cellar held a forest of shelves all stocked with candy bars, cartons of cigarettes and 45 RPM records.  This room below held the bottle of magic where C & F Music began.  The door opened and a shaft of sunlight shot a sparkling streamer down the steps.  Milk chocolate, new vinyl and tobacco spun their smells to overcome the dank odor every cellar shared.  As that smell rose to the nose of a nine year old boy, the entrance to his magical world flung open.

C & F stood for Clayton and Forest, father and son.  Theirs was a business that fed the fads and desires of young adults who began the boom and came of age in the 50's and 60's.  It was a world where Grandpa knew every restaurant, bar and tavern needed a juke box with the latest hits and a cigarette machine well stocked with Winstons, Marlboros, and Camels - with one slot saved for Salems.  A cigarette and a candy machine were as common at every gas station as the kid who pumped the gas and washed your windshield.  It was a time when everyone danced, lots of people smoked and gas was 22 cents a gallon.

The "route" was the sequence of stops at those places quite exotic and very adult to a pre-teen lad.  Even at midday, most were dark, hazy and a little stale inside.  But even amid the dark and quiet, the walls let on that daytime was just a necessary pause between sessions of exploding energy.  There was always a big wooden bar with a row of stools and a well scuffed dance floor near the glowing Rock-O-La juke box.  Every barman smiled and greeted us.  He was Cappy to them - Grandpa to me.

At each stop along the route, we would check the juke box, see which songs had the most plays and check the records for scratches.  We dumped the coin boxes on a table in a back corner to count out this week's take.  After the count, we rolled the coins, wrote up the form for the owner to sign and gave him his cut.  Our coins, both rolled and loose, and the important papers went into the cigar box that was always tucked under grandpa's arm.  Put the new 45s and their labels in the right slots, move the cigarettes and candy so the old are dispensed first and we were off to the next stop.  We always left the juke box playing Jim Croce, The Drifters, the Platters, or whoever was the owner's favorite.

One day, at the end of the route and after everything was carried to the cellar, grandpa and I sat on the stools by the counter at the bottom of the stairs.  The old Underwood typewriter sat silent but ready for the next day's typing of new labels for tomorrow's route of juke boxes.  Grandpa reached under the counter and brought out a cigar box - not the one he used on the route but pretty much like it.  He handed it to me and said I'd been a big help to him.  He said it was time I had a safe place to keep important things.  In it was a role of dimes and a paper that said I was a good helper.

After I glanced inside and an uncontrolled smile occupied my face, I tucked the box under my arm and headed up the stairs.  We locked the door behind us. My only sadness was that this stay with Grandpa was over.  Dad hugged me tight and grinned when he spied the box before we headed out to Hiway 40 and to the long drive home.


Decades later, I was closing up things after Dad's passing. In his desk drawer I discovered a well-worn cigar box.  It's tiny treasures brought a tear and a smile.

--td

This blog will be a cigar box to save snippets of time.  It cannot hold coins.  It will never have the feel of a gilded, pasteboard box with a little nail that holds the lid down tight.   In this age, it's a digital box.  One day may arrive when my grandsons see what's here and keep what they want.  I hope it will make them smile.