In Which We Do a Third-Rate Lileks Impression

James Lileks is the foremost archivist of 20th century ephemera on these here inter-tubes and is a joy to read (or look at), given as how he discovers THE most interesting artifacts and presents them with such rare grace and humor.  Alas, Gentle Reader, you'll find neither grace nor humor in our Lileks impression... just nostalgia for Former Happy Days.  But let's get to it...

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that you could (a) smoke in bars, restaurants, hotels, and just about anywhere you had a mind to and (b) the proprietors of said bars, hotels, restaurants, and other such venues had personalized matches available for you, on demand, to put fire to your cigar, cigarette, or pipe.  And, in some cases... if you happened to be in certain establishments in, say, Amsterdam or sub-rosa dives here in the USofA... joints.  Those days are long gone, as smoking in bars, yadda, yadda, is pretty well prohibited everywhere in these United States, a great part o' Europe, and even in a growing number o' Asian countries.  (sigh)

But, as I said... this wasn't always so.  Herewith a small sampling of matchbooks I acquired over the years.

As always, click to embiggen.

This is about five percent of my small collection; I've known other folks with collections that exceeded mine by an order o' magnitude, to say the very least.  There's a story behind each and every matchbook in those two illustrations, some of which I can actually remember and some of which I've posted about here at EIP.  Most, however, are meaningful only to me.  Like the "Governor's Residence" one, which I picked up in the Michigan governor's mansion at a reception for EDS at the conclusion of a successful contract; the "Harbor Lights" book, which is where The Second Mrs. Pennington and I spent the first night of our honeymoon; "Sweet Lorraine's," TSMP's and my favorite restaurant while we lived in Dee-troit; and the "Sometime" piano bar in Tokyo, a smoky lil place with an outstanding ambiance where TSMP and I hung out a LOT.  And you know there may be more... stories.

It's a pretty sad state o' affairs that the matchbook has gone the way o' ink wells, the typewriter, and steam locomotives.  All o' the foregoing were replaced with sumthin' better but such is NOT the case with matchbooks.  We've lost an entire way o' life, a way o' marking the places we've been, and a lot o' memories in the process, as well.

It is to weep.