My Imaginary Friend

Came from a Cigar Box

I grew up in Rochester, NY, a land not know for its springtime. In fact, due to a very large lake to our north that takes a while to heat up, it’s like living next to a 393.5 cubic mile air conditioning unit.

So, how do you get through the late-winter/early spring in this part of the country? Well, I did it with the help of an imaginary friend.

Now, I suppose you are wondering what a cigar box has to do with an imaginary friend, and what either of those have to do with Rochester’s climate?

I guess I should start with the cigar boxes. My dad, who was infinity frugal and practical, used to get empty cigar boxes from a tobacco store downtown. Now, a cigar box is a wonderful example of design: cardboard held together and hinged with paper. Brand graphics embellished every side. Anyway, my dad collected all sorts of scrap hardware, like eyeglass frame screws, nuts and bolts, and anything recovered from something that fell apart. Each cigar box was carefully labelled. I used to rummage through them as if they were little treasure chests.

Now, no cigar brand is without an august personage on the cover, and many of our boxes featured the elegantly sashed King Edward of England. There was something about his perfection of dress and demanor that gave me a sense of order.

So, King Edward conveniently morphed into a much younger Prince, who didn’t mind accompanying me home from my after school adventures in the days of the crunchy, black-tipped snow at the end (or past the end) of winter.

The tree lawns between the sidewalk and the roads were piled with snow after each successive blizzard. The “walkers” at my elementary school would wear down these piles until they had the form of rolling hills. Our entire path to school was traversed on this pedestrian roller-coaster. Sometimes I would walk along this route. At other times, I had to cut through backyards, the trees bleak and dark, the chain link fences gray, unforgiving. Occasionally, a dog would bark.

I imagined myself in postwar Dresden. Honestly, I have never been to Dresden or even seen pictures of it. But I must have overheard at some point how badly it had been bombed by the Allies in the Second World War. It must have been very melancholy. I am not quite sure how I would have made it into the safe zone without the wise advice of Prince Edward. He was always there, in his regal attire, discussing my crushes and worries as if they were great matters of state. We paid no attention to the cold and gray surroundings through which we traveled.

As we approached civilization, and my home, we never said goodbye. He would just vanish. He only entered my consciousness when I was really alone.

Rochester still doesn’t have a spring to speak of. And I no longer have an imaginary friend. But I still love empty cigar boxes.