When I was growing up, my Dad smoked cigarettes. He started when he was a teen and smoked till his end. When I was young, it was before the dangers of smoking had become a huge public issue, so we thought nothing of it.
My Grandfather smoked too, my mother's father, we called him Pa. It was just a thang and nobody paid any attention to it or indicated anything negative about it.
Opps ! ha ha.... Pa with a cig and my younger brother with a banana.
Back in the day though, before lighters became disposable and throw away, my Dad always had a Zippo lighter in his pocket, which occasionally he would have to fill with lighter fluid to keep it lighting up. I can still see him, flipping open the top that had a distinctive "clink" and dragging his thumb across the flint wheel causing an instant flame to pop up. It also had a distinctive clack as he closed it back. It had an interesting smell too, the lighter did, of light fuel and singed wick. Not wonderful, but somehow not bad either.
I have always found this photo humorous. He was conducting a burning school, teaching volunteer fire fighters how to safely put out burning houses.....with a lit cigarette in his mouth? LOL.... I don't know exactly why that is humorous to me, but it is.
The point is really, that is just some of the history for the rest of the story.
In the fall of 2015 my older brother David had been diagnosed with cancer. We often communicated by emails because he lived an hour's drive away. We always had communicated a lot by email, so that was not new to that particular time. Although I can't remember how it came up, one time he shared that he had a Zippo lighter like Dad's. He had never smoked, but on rare occasion, he would come across it, take it out, flip the top open a few times, listening to that familiar clink from so long ago. (You have to hold it in one hand and flip it open with your thumb to get just the right clink) Then he would light it up for a moment, then flip the top back down to extinguish the flame and in a minute, open it back up to get a whiff of that smell that reached deep into that long ago, familiar place of memories.
When he wrote about it, I could actually hear that clink in my head and remember that light smell that only wafted for a scant moment. I told him that I remembered that too and maybe, just maybe, I would buy myself one too at some point.
Before the end of that very week, I received an Amazon package and found that he had sent me one and had also included the biggest can of lighter fluid I had ever seen !
I had not expected that at all and was so very delighted.
I immediately pulled it apart and added the lighter fluid, opened and closed it several times using only one hand and then ran my thumb across the flint wheel immediately causing a flame to appear
I kept it out and about for a long while and occasionally would light it up a few times. I might have even refilled it a couple of times too. Eventually I put the lighter back in the velvet drawstring pouch it came in and boxed it up to move. I keep it in a small treasure box that holds small trinkets and etc associated with my brother and dad.
Now it not only holds old sweet memories of my Dad, but also my brother who gifted me with it.
Before it goes back up now, I will have to strike it up a few times here and there, listening to that familiar clink & clack and getting a light whiff of that long ago memory.
After a while, when it runs out of fluid again, I will move it back to the treasure box.... till next time.
It's Vaca Wednesday here again. I am working on small projects of cleaning out my house still, lazily that is and doing some of nothing and other stuff. LOL
Hope you are all doing well.
Love you !
Jacey
Sometimes Small Things Hold Very Fond Memories....
