Most restaurants - not only in Denver, but in much of the world - are now smoke-free. I certainly don't miss the cigarette smoke, but I do miss the matchbook covers that restaurants used to provide their patrons and which served as free advertising for them. Like my brother-in-law George, I began to collect them wherever I went, and wound up with two large bowls of them, which still sit in the living room of my condo here in Denver. When I look at them now, I realize that almost every one holds special memories of vacations, family gatherings, and romantic evenings, not to mention youthful disasters. I put together the matchbook cover collage on the left for one of the photo classes I took at the University of Denver years ago, but decided against using it since it wasn't artistic enough. But as regular readers know, this Blog is no work of art, and so here it is. When I look at this collage, I remember having dinner with my then wife Lisa at La Plaza, and none other than Father Bob and his posse walking in, intending on having a jolly evening away from St. Thomas Seminary, where they all either taught or studied. I remember the years when my sister Susan, brother-in-law George, and I would spend Thanksgiving in Santa Fe, New Mexico and have Thanksgiving dinner at La Casa Sena. I remember having dinner with my parents at Casablanca, right after they first moved to Stuart, Florida, and getting pizza at Two Guys with my parents and then wife Lisa after watching the turtles hatch from nests on Stuart Beach and then make a mad dash for the sea. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I suspect many of you have your own matchbooks and matchbook memories, too. And thank God for those memories.
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