My Little Cigar Box

When I was a little kid, one of the best things I could get was an old cigar box. Colorful and sturdy, and just the right size to store my most valuable things. Growing up in a Cuban family, there were always a few of these beautiful boxes laying around, but once I settled on “the box”, that was that — I only needed one, and everything went in. Huddled in the privacy in the back of my closet with the door closed and flashlight in hand, opening it up was always a surprise. The box and everything in it felt deeply personal although my possessions were far from valuable. 

It consisted of a few mementos: a plastic army soldier,  dinosaur, special rocks and beans I found on the ground, a couple of foreign coins somebody had given to me, scraps of old tickets to an Astros game, handwritten notes from my friends, or receipts for this and that. Maybe there was even a happy face sticker or a handwritten greeting card. Nothing at all... and everything to me, all in one cigar box. Never have I had greater treasure than I did then in that little box.

My cigar box now

If I had a cigar box these days, I wonder what I would deem most important to put in it. I have so much more now than I did back then. Most of what I think is important now would never fit into a cigar box.

And maybe that’s the main issue — these last couple of years have been big. Various descriptions like, "existential, monumental, catastrophic, life-changing" have been used to describe these times. And it’s true, nothing has been simple about it.

On top of the big pandemic we’ve been dealing with, everything these days seems to demand bigger, louder, more expensive, riskier... simply, MORE.  

Perhaps this is why I want to harken back to the days when I had less — everything I had seemed so much more valuable back then. 

That’s why I have decided to create a new little (virtual) cigar box — placing some of the things I have been saving over the years in it. I hope these things will tell me more about myself in the current, the now, and perhaps will also reveal a few small things I’d be willing to share with you, too. 

For example... I’ve been saving stuff over the years: mementos, objects, reminders of moments I want to remember. So I have something to rummage through. I had never been quite sure why I was doing this — perhaps it was for a season such as the one we’re all in now. A season when I needed these small bits of ephemera to remind me of who I am, and where I’ve been; what I consider to be valuable.

Here’s what I’ve dug up... what I’ve placed into my new cigar box.

My Cigar Box

Envelope from Reeve Aleutian Airlines. We bought their hangar in Anchorage in the early 2000s after they called it quits. A historic and gutsy little airline was formed to fly out to the various Aleutian islands after WWII. I love this envelope because it actually shows the flight routes. This reminds me of how much of a frontier Alaska has always been. That’s a big part of its charm.

Matchbox from the Penisula Hotel, Hong Kong. Remember when we all collected matchboxes from various bars, restaurants, and hotels. Everybody smoked (except for me) and most establishments offered these matches for on-premise use, and as marketing. This trinket is an object from those times. It’s also a remembrance of my first great international trip, in 1972, to meet my father on a business trip throughout Southeast Asia. My first stop was Hong Kong, and he had booked me into this fabulous old-school colonial hotel, which sent a courtesy car to pick me up at the airport, which was a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. I had never seen anything like it, had no money to pay the man (luckily, it was included in the cost of the room), and it all generally scared the hell out of me. I survived, I remembered, and I cherish every moment of those first days out of my American nest.

Koala bear paperweight. Given to me a lifetime ago by a friend in Australia and a wonderful example of the lovely sweetness of little things. It’s still one of my favorite belongings.

Holiday card from my Grandma Vera Brimble. Vera was a stark woman, born into Colorado mining wealth, but ran off with one of her dad’s employees, a miner named Brimble to Texas, to live in relative squalor as he worked in the oilpatch for the rest of their lives. But one thing about her — she had old-time religion. Babtist to be exact. Not the big box, fancy Babtist stuff we have today. Hers was a one-roomed chapel, humble, spirit of service to the Lord. Somehow or another, she spotted me as a fellow spiritual being, and tutored me in the most hands-off way, mostly through these occasional holiday cards, and other little writings of this and that. As much or more as the church I attended growing up, my Grandma introduced me to my spiritual self, and for this, I will always thank her. 

Delft (Netherlands) football (soccer) club pennant. I established a company with a Dutch partner in Delft in 1987, called Loosbrock Europe Trade and Supply. My partner talked me into having the company sponsor the local football club. We got this pennant as their symbol of thanks.  Delft was the worst team in Holland, so one day I made a bullshit, Heineken-induced challenge to the team that if they won their division the following year, I would pay for all of them to come to the States. Incredibly they won! More incredibly, they let me renege my offer. But we had fun with it, and they never let me forget it. I certainly haven’t.

Guitar pick, Mexican buckeye, pendant from Korean Olympic team. Nameplate from the first car I ever bought. For years I played guitar and never left the house without a pick in my pocket. You never know when you might need one. Buckeye. I have always been fascinated by the beans and pods dropped by native trees. This buckeye is smooth and dark and feels perfect in your hand. I taught my kids to pick them up and we call them magic beans — the magic is only released when it is given by one person to another.  Ah, my first car- really crappy Chevy, but hell… It was a V8!

Winnie the Pooh. I traveled a lot when my kids were young. My daughter absolutely hated to see me go, but would very sweetly hide her favorite toys in my suitcase so I could find them sometime during my trip. This Winnie to Pooh doll became my talisman during my frequent trips to Vienna. It reminded me of the sweetness of home, my family, and my life. Coincidentally, when we closed the deal to sell the Vienna CargoPort, a Viennese cake was served to me which contained a likeness of Winnie the Pooh’s head. They could not have known this about me. I took it as a beautiful affirmation.

Parking pass for a Houston Texans football game. A yellow piece of paper. Not even the actual ticket to the game. But it’s a reminder of a wonderful day spent with my son, Ben, in Houston, watching pro football, going to eat Mexican food at Ninfas, and just hanging out. It was one of my favorite days, ever.

Card found on my bedside table at hotel in Marfa. The train came right through the center of town… many times a day… and it was LOUD. This card seems to want to excuse away the train and its noise, as history. And besides, you can always wear these earplugs. Lucky for me, I loved the train and the sound. Always have. I also love Marfa, especially because it has this loud train rumbling through town many times a day.

My ticket to graduation ceremonies, USC, 2019, to celebrate my daughter Noelle’s great accomplishment. I think this might have been more emotional and meaningful for me as her father, than even for her. One of the great days of my life!

Article in the Houston Chronicle about an offshore rig venture. Mike Simmons (pictured with me) and I came up with a completely hair-brained scheme to buy offshore drilling rigs out of bankruptcy, for pennies on the dollar, during the worst oilfield crash in history in the mid-1980s. It worked! A case of being too naïve to know we should have never tried that.

Value is what we make it

This brings me to what I really wanted to tell you. It starts with a discussion of the “value of value”. Better put, it could be the “truth of value” and the “value of truth”. Both truth and value have lately been under attack. Both Bitcoin and NFTs could be used as good examples of created or perceived value. If someone else thinks it's valuable and is willing to pay more for it than you did, then the value is created. So says the man in charge of counting the number of chairs before the music stops to make sure there is at least one less than the number of people in the room.

Is value perceived or inherent? What makes a diamond valuable?

In our increasingly digital world, the idea that all things “of value” must be from the physical realm seems, well... quaint. 

Nevertheless, it does seem like value is more and more of something that is declared, rather than created or captured.

I am not a bitcoin or NFT fan, but I think they’re onto something. Value is what someone thinks it should be. Value is not always what the so-called “experts” say it should be. Nor is it always subject to general consensus. Speculation of value comes in when folks depend on others’ expression of value and take their word for it. 

Declaration of value in the physical world never does this, right? (Says any kind of wine, art, car, real estate, or for that matter, stock market speculator.) 

The reality of value

Point is, value speculation is the reality in every realm. The reality of value is what we think it is, and what we think it's worth until it’s not, or unless the value we place on it is personal. Those expressions of value might be the greatest expressions of truth.

To find my truths, I rummage around through the contents in my little cigar box. Not the physical objects and mementos the box holds, but rather, the memories, expressions, stories, feelings, and moments of which the things in there represent. The value lies in their ability to help me to recall my life, people, and even my own stories. Value is created when I remember. And when I have forgotten, value is suppressed. There is absolutely no tradable, fungible value in anything in that box, except to me personally. This is a private value. Bitcoin or shares of stock have public value — somebody could buy them from you. Which sort of value is more valuable to you: private or public? The way you live your life, love your loves, and what version of yourself emerges as dominant, is influenced by how you perceive the correct answer to this question.

This is the main thing I wanted to pull out of my new cigar box to show you. Choose what you value wisely. Once you have identified them, invest in those things which you value vigorously, enjoy them enormously, and love them all without reservation. If you do this, you will discover that the value of everything you cherish in your little cigar box will have skyrocketed, even if nary another soul would ever pay you a dime for the entire lot.