In The Cigar Box

We hadn’t driven to the levee and it was too early in the day for whiskey or rye.  On this day the good old boys, now old men, gathered at the diner like we do every Tuesday at noon.  Once each week for about ninety minutes, lots of humor lay like an afghan over more than a thousand years of accumulated living and wisdom present in that room.     Someone mentioned that his newspaper hadn’t arrived in his driveway until after 7:30 that morning.  Another said his paper hadn’t been delivered at all on several recent days.  Yet another commented that it really didn’t qualify as news anyway.  The paper is printed in Des Moines, about a three hour drive from Kansas City, so a recap of the Thursday Royals game wouldn’t meet the Friday printing deadline.  With no Saturday paper, the recap would first appear in Sunday’s edition.  That drew a laugh because the team is in such a slump that the newspaper schedule w...

To restart posts I had planned to revisit the first post once again.   Ukraine gave me pause, and still does, but here we go now.   On March 18, 2012, I posted a story “ In The Cigar Box ” for the first time.  The post recounted a long ago memory that gave rise to this blog’s odd name.  Ten years have passed - seems longer; feels like yesterday.     The people and places in that first post are nearly all gone now.  Grandpa, Dad and Uncle Forest (we called him Dick) had passed before the post was published.  In 2012, 45 rpm vinyl records could be found in undisturbed attics, vintage music stores or on eBay.  The juke boxes that played those records were still around but most were converted to CDs and you sure couldn’t play a song for a nickel.   Saying that all the juke boxes are gone makes me want to add a new verse to the song from that era,  Where Have All The Flowers Gone .  It might start,...

I was wrong.  Frank Bruni reminded me, “We are only as good as the information we seek.”     When I wrote  Confronting Sophie’s Choice , I was reeling from the images being transmitted from the war in Ukraine.  I was not wrong to treat that travesty as a compelling call on the consciences of every human on the planet.  This week's images continue to portray crimes and tragedies greater than the ones that led me to write.  Now I think that I was wrong about the kind of retribution free societies should inflict on the invaders and their leader.   I encouraged considering a no-fly zone over Ukraine or some equivalent escalation as a way to protect children, the elderly and frail from indiscriminate devastation by the invading force.  I wanted the children who had serious health issues to get uninterrupted treatment.  I wanted old people or those with terminal illnesses who were living in assistance centers to be ab...

I watched CNN.  Anderson Cooper was interviewing patients and their parents at a hospital filled with seriously ill children.  I tried to imagine the worries that must torment a little girl whose chemotherapy treatment is suspended while air raid sirens wail their haunting alarm.  Fear on top of fear demanding more courage on top of bravery.  A parent must wonder where the love of God goes when a child fighting for breath is disconnected from oxygen so he can be moved to a basement because a manmade hell rains down outside? As I watched from my recliner, thousands of miles from the bombardment of Ukraine, the urge to help, to actually bear arms soaked my soul.  If one of those kids had been mine – but then, aren’t they all our children too?  Those thoughts addled my mind and squeezed my chest.  Every Ukrainian interviewed has begged NATO and the USA to establish a no-fly zone, an umbrella over their homeland to deter the b...

Nudged.  I’ve been nudged.  Sometimes the nudging is subtle; sometimes it’s plainly said, “I wish you’d start writing the blog again.”  I always enjoyed writing the posts that appeared in my blog ( www.inthecigarbox.blogspot.com ) but the time required bumped up against life's other demands and I had to cut way back on the blog.     The nudges worked and time demands have changed. I’ve decided to give the effort another go.     Originally, the blog was built mostly around memories or odd observations.  It included lots of family stories.  The stories grew out of my own memories regardless how flawed those memories may have been.  Some stories may have been fictional in the details but were always true to the feeling or the motivation that drove the writing.   In this restart there will be echoes of stories already told.  There will be new stories of real people and real events that cross ...