The Treasure In Old Briefcases

Inside of an old briefcase where my childhood family pictures are stored there lay a small blue tin.

Below the "Black Cat Virginia Cigarettes", labeling there are the enticing words ...

Mild Quality Superfine. 

It has been a long time since I smoked cigarettes but in my younger days this would have led me to lift the lid and slowly inhale the sweet aroma of fine tobacco. Then lift one to my lips and light it ever so deftly with the flick of a match and savor the find of such a treasure. One by one they would have been smoked until the thrill was forgotten and the tin tossed away, never to be seen again.

Well, that was then and this is now. The tin is now slightly rusted and some 50 years old; a similar one sold recently on eBay for $20.00, which is almost the current market price for a pack of cigarettes. How times have changed, indeed.

My excitement came upon opening and finding inside there were postcards and a poem, now how cool is that! Someone, perhaps my mother, the cigarette smoker in the family, found a useful purpose for this icon of that which eventually took her life.

Anyway, I will share with you the contents of said tin, the sum total of 22 postcards, only one of which was ever sent and one handwritten poem:

 

 Bahia Mar Yacht Basin, Ft Lauderdale, Florida

The New York Stock Exchange

 A diorama of the founding of the stock exchange

 Mural " Stength and Beauty" by Dean Cornwell 

General Motors Building, 1939 New York World's Fair

 

The Transparent Car - General Motors Building

1939 New York World' Fair

 Mt Sopris, Carbondale, Colorado

 An unusual postcard

 Two from The Village Barn, Greenwich Village NY

one advertising... Excellent Dinners for $2.95

 American Airlines 

First with Jets across the U.S.A.

The Jet-Powered Electra Flagships

 The Mourne Mountains, Co. Down N. Ireland

 St. Patrick's Grave

postmarked from Co. Down N. Ireland

 The Royal Courts of Justice - Belfast, N. Ireland

 NY World's Fair posers

on the left are my mother and father

 My ever dapper father...

"Where d'yuh get dat beer stuff? 

Beer, hell! Beer's for goils - and Dutchmen. 

Me for somep'n wit a kick to it! Gimme a drink, one of youse guys."

- Eugene O.Neil

Three beautiful pen an inks honoring

Mattapoiset, Massachusetts

by JAlves

 

Mattapoisett, MA

A little below Cape Cod 

where I spent summer vacations

 

Marsh scene with one of

the bridges over the Cape Cod Canal

in the background

Mid-Cape highway heading to Provincetown

" Bartholomew Gosnold's Dream," 

is often quoted as one of the poems

referring to the christening of the Cape, 

a few of its stanzas will be deemed appropriate :

"There sailed an ancient mariner.
Bart Gosnold was he hight,—
The Cape was all a wilderness
When Gosnold hove in sight.

''He saw canoes and wigwams rude,
By ruder builders made,
Squaws pounded samp about the door,
And dark pappooses played.

"The hills were bold and fair to view,
    And covered o'er with trees,
Said Gosnold, 'Bring a fishing line,
    While lulls the evening breeze.

"'I'll christen that there sandy shore
    From the first fish I take—
Tautog, or toadfish, cusk or cod,
    Horse-mackerel or hake,

"'Hard-head or haddock, sculpin, squid,
    Goose-fish, pipe-fish or cunner,—
No matter what—shall with its name
    Yon promontory honor.'

"Old Neptune heard the promise made,
    Down dove the water-god—
He drove the meaner fish away
    And hooked the mammoth cod.

"Quick Gosnold hauled. 'Cape—Cape—Cape—Cod.'
    'Cape Cod,' the crew cried louder ;
'Here, steward ! take the fish along,
    And give the boys a chowder.' "

There you have a  brief collage of sacred memories neatly placed into a small cigarette tin and stored away.

Oh yes, what about the Poem in the tin with all of this... 

the author is unknown and there are several versions circulating but this was handwritten with care in very good penmanship. On unlined paper the words lay across the page as if by typewriter in a forward leaning slant to lead you on to the next verse.

Whether my mother wrote it or someone gave it to her when she was being treated for her emphysema and cancer, I will never know, but I do know that this would be her doing, to place all this in a cigarette tin for me to find years after she'd gone; 

I present it in Edwardian Script to render it as close to the original.

There’s nothing whatever the matter with me

I’m just as healthy as I can be

I have Arthritis in both my knees

And when I talk’ I talk with a wheeze

My pulse is weak and my hair is thin

But I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in

I think my liver is out of whack

And a terrible pain is in my back

My hearing is poor and my sight is dim

Most everything else is out of trim

My Doctor says that my days are few

Every week he finds something new

And the way I stagger is sure a crime

I’m likely to drop at any time

I jump like mad at the drop of a pin

But I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in

I have arch supports for both my feet 

Or I wouldn’t be able to walk on the street

Sleeplessness I have night after night

And in the morning I’m a perfect sight

My memory’s failing, my head’s in a spin

I’m awfully well for the shape I’m in

There are treasures everywhere, sometimes where you least expect them and if you take the time they will always present you with their wonderful stories.

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