December 1, 2023

John and Nancy Forever

The street is busy.

It’s the first Friday in December and the town is hosting its annual Christmas Walk and Holiday of Windows. The shops and restaurants are all open and there are cookies, hot chocolate, carolers, Santa and Mrs. Claus, rides in horse-drawn wagons and, in rebellion against the rain, a generous dose of merriment.

The shops that seem to get the most attention are the thrift stores and one offers free beer or wine to anyone who walks through the door, no purchase required.

But the offer, though not taken, is appreciated, and the obligation to buy something is real. A good real. It’s not an obligation, it’s an opportunity.

There are vintage, second-hand Christmas ornaments, and also plates, jewelry, trinkets, postcards, magazines, billiard balls and other citizens of the United States of nostalgia.

We have to buy something but we need none of those things. We need nothing at all.

Matchbooks. We don’t smoke. No one does. But we have candles and a bowl of unopened matchbooks has the charm and allure of a smoke ring from days that slipped away.

Two months ago we were in a bar in New York City and wanted a token of the bar’s name, Annie Moore’s, but they had no matchbooks, “no one does,” the bartender with the Irish brogue said with a smile and generously offered a few business cards instead.

The matchbooks we found on this night advertised The Waterfront – Prime Seafood, and Thunderbird Hotel and Casino – Las Vegas, Nevada, and also “It’s easy to make up to $100 a week and get Free Shoes For Life, Too!”

Precious. And that should be our favorite. Maybe it is.

But the fourth one we plucked from the pile and paid 50 cents for was white with gold lettering and two bells united by lace and proclaimed John and Nancy – June 5, 1976.

The clerks smiled when this was pointed out to them and we dug two weathered dollar bills from our pocket and the proprietors suggested we Google John and Nancy’s wedding. A joke was then made that they probably got divorced because one of them smoked.

The matchbooks, including John and Nancy, found a home in our inside pocket and we walked out into the rain and the Christmas music tip-toed through the cold.

John and Nancy, forty-seven years ago. John and Nancy, Nancy and John, me and you forever baby in a banquet hall of big ties and long hair and a million puffs of smoke from a June night to a Christmas morning to the ends of light and promise.

A Cadillac and a Corvette and a Bicentennial of endless belief.

John and Nancy forever. Light a match. Follow the smoke. --TK