In The Cigar Box

Eat here, get gas. Winnie and I have been coming here since 1969.  We’ve owned a place here for some of those years and have rented when we didn’t have a place of our own.  It has been a second home and in most respects we feel like locals when we’re in this beautiful valley that has Gore Creek and the Eagle River defining the base line for the path through these mountains.  This is the Vail Valley. For forty years on Route 6 just west of Dowd’s Junction sat the Route 6 Diner and Gas Station.  Housed in an early vintage metal building, this was a place where the locals could fill their tank and their bellies with fuel for the day.  In the days before I-70 cut a wider notch through the Junction, US 40 crossed Route 6 near the diner that served the people who converted the valley ranch land into one of the largest and best known ski resorts in the world.  The diner sat on the north side and sharply below the highway.  If you didn’t stop, you’d ...

“…I can sing this song, … you can sing this song when I’m gone.” Accompanied by four voices and his solo guitar, James Taylor closed his show at Starlight Theater with You Can Close Your Eyes , his so-long song.  The milling around ceased.   Those who had headed to the parking lots to beat the traffic stopped.  Even the cicadas seemed to pause.  Quiet reflection engulfed the crowd as though heaven descended and embraced those gathered there for a few short seconds. “We’re gonna have a good time.  And no one’s gonna take that time away.” We did have a good time.  At show time the temperature was still tickling the century mark.  Families and friends sang along, clapped (mostly with the beat) and a few hugged as memories were triggered by the melodies.  Everyone held a cold drink and the concession stands offered free ice.  Cold towels draped around some necks and ladies had their skirts hiked high upon their laps.  Swea...

Mostly the line moved easily.  A simple question or two (Where are you from?  Where are you going? What’s the purpose of your trip?) and a brief look at ID’s was sufficient to be waived on through.  We disrupted that sequence. A little north of Watertown, NY was the border crossing from the US into Canada where any simple ID was usually acceptable – passports were unnecessary.  Customs agents asked us to leave our car and escorted us to separate buildings that looked like large construction office trailers with temporary steps, few windows and ballasted screw jacks to secure the trailers to the ground.  There were guards who had pistols, holstered, not brandished like one might see in other parts of the world.  While we waited, a thorough search of our car and our luggage took place.  July 20, 1976. The item that drew the most interest was a recent invention that had caught on quickly – an AirPot, a pump type thermos for dispensing coffee wit...

Dah-di-dah-dit / Dah-dah-di-dah.   Dah-di-dah-dit / Dah-dah-di-dah.   CQ.   CQ.   Twenty-first Century social media helped the people gathered in Tahrir Square tell people living continents away about their mission for freedom – event by event, tweeting impressions, and writing about the depth of their resolve.   Craving connection to distant places, foreign people and the rest of the world has been part of human nature since long, long before the internet or Twitter. In Kansas City’s summer weeks when the daytime highs never retreat below the century mark and when air conditioning was a single window unit in the living room (if you lived in a fortunate household), the place to escape the heat was the basement.   Most basements were cool, damp, dim and carried a faint musty smell.   For a kid, it was a place where imagination ran free.   In the center of the basement stood a furnace with its octopus tentacles reaching out to carr...

It’s All Star week in Kansas City.   When all the gear weighs as much as the catcher and he waddles like the Michelin Man, you’re watching a baseball game among kids less than eight years old.   Crouching down behind home plate is a mechanical process that is difficult to reverse when the ball slips past an outstretched glove to the screen.   The shin guards are fastened on with buckles and Velcro.   Re-buckling and re-Velcroing occurs about twice per inning because buckles pop loose when small legs squat.   That is what it looked like when I watched my grandson play but things have changed a bit since the 1950’s.   Sure, there was a chest protector and a catcher’s mask.   The old chest protector hung over the shoulders, was made of a dozen layers of cotton and canvas and had a short tail that was meant to cover your crotch.   Today there is a helmet under the straps of the mask and the cage is made of space age material that fle...

It happened.  This morning it happened.  The morning began in the usual way.  I rise shortly after sunlight brightens Eva’s room enough that she voices her mournful morning sigh and lets us know she wants out where the people are.   My first couple of hours are spent getting ready for work, reading the paper and playing ball or tug with Eva.  This was to be a typical day. “As hot as the hubs of you know where” – that’s what my Dad would have said after walking out to pick up the morning paper from the driveway.  Yesterday’s heat took up residence in the concrete drive and walks.  The soles of slippers were made for cool tile floors or carpeted dens – not for hot concrete on a July morning.  New heat was riding in on a stifling south breeze and built quickly as the sun began its trek across the cloudless sky.  Such weather exacerbated my morning grumbling as the mercury pushed into the upper reaches of the antique thermometer ha...

Only three days remain until the two hundred thirty-sixth anniversary of the day when fifty-six men affixed their signatures to the most important document in our nation’s history.  Each year there are patriotic celebrations punctuated with flags flying, fighter planes in formation, and displays of aerial repeaters, flying spinners, roman candles, and every variation of fireworks fountains.  The most often cited excerpt from that Declaration signed so long ago, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...”, is again recited with multitudes of patriotic backdrops.  Professional actors give dramatic voice to the written words of our Declaration. This is the day each year when the glow from fireworks exploding in the sky softly dances on the faces of awestruck children and reflective adults.  It has...