Line of demarcation

Occasionally on social media the subject of quicksand will come up in the context of generational differences. The joke usually goes along the lines of “I thought there’d be a lot more quicksand when I grew up.” We blame TV of the Boomer generation. Whether it was a Western, a sitcom, or a kids’ show, people were always getting trapped in quicksand with certain death impending unless Lassie came along with Timmy and a rope.

Yet you don’t really hear about a lot of quicksand deaths or near-deaths, and unless they’ve watched old TV shows in syndication, people younger than a certain age get a blank look when they hear the word “quicksand.”

Somewhat related, for some reason, I woke up this morning thinking of a lost artifact of the Boomers: the humble cardboard cigar box. People of a certain age remember craft projects at school or home in which macaroni or seashells or buttons were glued to the cigar box. Then it was all painted–often GOLD!–and presented to a parent at Christmas, Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, to be placed on dressers to hold whatever things adults are supposed to keep in boxes on dressers.

When I thought about it, my concern wasn’t that kids don’t do this anymore because 1. all that glue can’t be healthy, 2. that gold paint is the devil to wash off your hands, and 3. OUR PARENTS DIDN’T REALLY WANT THOSE HIDEOUS BOXES.

Nope, my concern was: Why did every household have cardboard cigar boxes in the first place? Why were schools able to produce hundreds of them? WHO WAS SMOKING ALL THOSE CIGARS? I think I saw my own father smoke a cigar like three times over the course of my life. Why did we have cigar boxes in our house? Was it the dog? Who was buying cigars for Dopey when I was being told we couldn’t afford a new Barbie doll?

Now cigar boxes are wooden and you can still find people using empty ones for crafting. But in a Google image search, I couldn’t find a single gold-painted, macaroni-bearing contemporary cigar box.

I’m grateful for that.