Memories

For some reason, last night while trying to fall asleep, I began reminiscing about this old lighter that I had stolen from my dad as a kid. It was a beautiful, pewter pipe lighter with pictures of different varieties of pipes on it. When I took it from my dad it didn't work, which may be one reason he left it out where I could get to it. I was the kind of kid who gravitated towards anything shiny. The lighter didn't work for the first few years that I had it, and I really didn't know what to do to fix it. If I had been old enough to drive, I may have taken it to the local tobacconist to repair, but at the time I would have had to get a ride and then my parents would have known that I took the lighter. Eventually, when I was old enough, I bought a bottle of butane and fixed the lighter myself by spraying butane into it with the cap open until it cleared whatever was blocking the fuel line. The lighter worked well for a while, but when I was in college it stopped working again. Then, while my sister and I were visiting my brother in New York when I was taking a year off from school in 1994, miraculously, just when we needed it, the lighter sputtered back to life. I kept that lighter until 2002 when it accidentally went through the washing machine in a pair of pants and was destroyed. It was in so many pieces, and some of them apparently missing, that I was unable to reassemble it. That was the best lighter I have ever had, and I have never been able to find a suitable replacement. So this morning I decided to try and figure out who made the lighter, how much it cost, and whether or not it could be replaced. Fortunately, it wasn't that hard to find. I had a little help from my friend Jim who has a lighter by the same brand, IM Corona. My lighter was an IM Corona Old Boy Pewter Shape Chart lighter [pictured above] which you can get from PipesandCigars.com on sale for $107.99 (down from $135). Not a bad deal. I might have to get one for my dad for Father's Day to replace the one I stole from him about twenty years ago. I'm really surprised that they even still make these lighters! Now the mystery is solved and tonight hopefully I will be able to sleep a little better.