TRINKETS AND TREASURES

Hobo Art Box, made from cigar boxes and purchased by Letty Watt's dad after WWII.
(Thank you, Letty, for letting me share this photo here.)

Tales of family cars filled our mailboxes, texts, and emails a couple of weeks ago when I posted Bill's story of his childhood car adventures. Friends wrote of wind wings, Oldsmobiles, Cadillacs, and Chryslers or of no cars at all because they lived on busy city streets. No one mentioned a Peugeot, my mother's last car that she treasured fiercely, as she did with the things she loved. She finally sold the old clunker when the last mechanic who knew how to fix it (and it needed constant attention) retired.

The stories of cars brought up other objects of childhood: a dad who smoked cigars reminded people of cigar boxes and the many uses people make of them. My dad stored art materials in his. Other people used them to hold secret treasures away from the prying eyes of other family members much in the same way people kept small diaries with a key (did anyone really write anything in them?). Other memories included wearing circle pins and what their placement on your collar meant, telling lies to avoid punishment, favorite book series read over and over, and more. Can you think of another common tidbit from your childhood that still resonates with you?

Cigar boxes are harder to come by these days. I still have the lid of a King Edward Mild Tobaccos box and the bottom of an El Producto box filled with charcoal drawing sticks and a Kohinoor drafting pen that belonged to my dad. I keep them because I like examples of type styles and I know the two separate box pieces will be "useful someday." 

 On a rickety table outside of one of the few tobacco shops left in San Francisco, the owners had stacked some empty cigar boxes for $2 to $3 apiece. They were made of thin slices of wood and covered with designs and typography. I picked up an empty Arturo Fuente box, still in good condition. I opened the lid and the cigar odor came wafting out. I couldn't resist buying it. The boxes are prized by mixed media artists, who cover them with ephemera and turn them into 3-D displays. The East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse recently offered a class to learn how to collage a cigar box with leftover pieces of paper. For me, I find covering up the lettering and designs is like putting the first stroke on white paper. It's easier for me to cover up a plain substrate such as this small wooden box that now holds a diorama.

Flee by Martha Slavin

Maybe because Bill and I are in the process of decluttering, these moments of old memories keep cropping up more often. Some of these memories may remind us of difficult situations or embarrassing events when we tested our character and found ourselves wanting. Some of these memories are golden and stay with us as if we kept them secure in an old cigar box.

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You can see more stories of car memories by clicking on the Comments in the post by Bill, What Car is That?

To learn more about Hobo Art:

https://www.folkartisans.com/sup/hoboart.html

East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse offers classes using materials that are donated to the shop:

https://www.creativereuse.org

More about murals:

The National Museum of Women in the Arts is showcasing murals while construction is occurring at the museum. Check out their guide to the murals at the museum as well as a map of others around Washington, DC. Also don't miss the online exhibits, Paper Routes and the Book as Art series.

https://nmwa.org/whats-on/exhibitions/mural-guide-miss-chelove/

Elizabeth Fishel, the leader of the writers' group that I belong to, has always said that our own small moments in life can become stories that reach other people and become universal in theme. Three writers that I follow use that underlying idea in their writing :

Carrie Classon, an adventurous spirit, actor, and syndicated columnist, writes about her everyday encounters in a column called Postscript:

Postscript:  http://syndication.andrewsmcmeel.com/text_features/postscript?fbclid=IwAR2RDuu58wKHbnJ5bz-9e8DFRxfeB5i-SrLM6nEj93p_iTWr-U7C4cSI4bU

See her also on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdknJPuuPho

Audrey Ward, a former pastor and writers group member, is another explorer who writes a column in the Napa Valley Register called Regarding Children:

https://napavalleyregister.com/community/star/opinion/regarding-children-when-the-librarian-knows-your-name/article_f3a1783e-2270-11ed-aa6b-873ac813a304.html?fbclid=IwAR2qSuTYI87dLCZDF3mYZ1jjbDBerozV5Mk3Nf-Q2Z-x_uzCfnU146kmi4A 

Letty Watt writes Literally Letty, and  allowed me to show her Hobo Art box:

https://literallyletty.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-golf-gypsy-kicks-old-woman-out.html