Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Heimhenge said
So then I just Googled the phrase "cigar boxes for shoes" (in quotes, so it searches for the complete phrase) and found two citations here and here. Interestingly, both citations appear to be from different editions of the same cookbook. One usage refers to 1928, the other to simply "late 1920s" so that would indeed place the phrase as in use during the Great Depression era.

But the context of their use suggest to me that the phrase is a warning or caution that, if not successful, they would no longer be able to own real shoes and have to resort to something less expensive. Like cigar boxes. So "Stick with me kid and you'll be wearing cigar boxes for shoes" seems to be a warning NOT to stick with him.

In February, 1929, Harry Rosen opened the Enduro sandwich shop in Brooklyn over the objection of his fiance, Sarah.  You'll never sell enough sandwiches to pay the rent, she said.  "If I listen to you, my darling," he said, "we'll be wearing cigar boxes for shoes".  In September 1929, the two married, and while on their honeymoon at Niagara Falls, the stock market crash occurred.  It wasn't until after a second big drop six months later that the economy went into a nosedive.

Unless Loose Lips Sink Economies, I don't think this pgrase and the Grreat Depression are connected.  I don't doubt the use ofr that expression burned itself into the family history, and there would be documentation as to when the Enduro opened and when they married.  The expression probably never was in wide use, ever, but it was being used in Brooklyn in early 1929.  Perhaps a local wag coined the expression and used it to complain about politicians, like people have been saying for 7 years that Barack was going to confiscate guns asnd ship us all off to concenttration camps.  

Why the expression used "cigar boxes" as the euphemism for a "poor man's shoe" instead of say, rags or socks or something else that more easily fits a foot, I have absolutely no idea.

A cigar box is typically 5.5" by 8", by 2" tall.  Impossible to shove a foot in one.  Sorta like buying a new bass boat and concealing it from the wife by hiding it under the bed.  When complaining about politicians, the more absurd the claim, the better. If you claim gas prices will jump to $10/gallon, you get peoles' attention, and if the price goes up 30c, the absurdity of your claim means you can say, "What did I tell you"; if you predicted a 50c jump, people would be saying "It didn't hit 50c, doofus!" 

A general search for the relevant terms found that, in the depression era, when a lot of stuff got reused, cigar boxes were used to make crude guitars, hold jewelry, and even (with a strap attached) as purses. But no mention was made about using them being used as shoes

Not just in the Great Depression.  If you look past the dessert cookbook and the cheesecake to their memoir of Brooklyn life (with recipes), Mamma worked in "drug-less store" - soda fountain, magazines, penny candy, stationery, etc., in the 1950s, and she said that people who normally bought 2 cigars at a time would buy 10 if that's all that remained in the box, because they'd have first claim on the box.  She claimed that in five years, she was only able to glom onto 2 boxes for herself, and they ere highly prized.  In the late 1960s, the Ben Franklin where I worked part time would sell *hundreds* of cigar boxes manufactured expressly to be sold for kids to keep pencils, crayons, protractor, etc., in.  Amazon currently offers boxes in which cigars were packed (as opposed to the dime store boxes, which were neew, with kid graphics) at $25 for 10 cardboard boxes, $35 for 5 wooden ones.

As few people make their own clothes, they probably aren't used much as button boxes any more, but they'd work fine for loose nails and screws.  People use steel boxes to hold garage sales out of, but when we sold tomatoes along the road in te 1950s and 1960s, our cash box said Antonio y Cleopatra Panatela.

Sure would like to read through those cookbooks!

Heimhenge said
And yes, I buy the more expensive brands a box at a time. Everyone needs at least one vice.

Yes, but wimmen are more fun, even though tobacco is less likely to kill ya.

Back when I was teaching, I'd bring in my empty boxes, leave them in the teachers lounge with a "first come first served" note on them, and they were always gone by the end of the day. The English teacher got one from a box of Hemingways, which he appreciated being fan of the author. Teachers always have lots of small items to store, and the boxes have colorful labels, solid wood (not cardboard like the cheaper brands), and hinges plus a latch.

When I was in high school, the spinster English teacher moved, and asked around for cardboard boxes.  The chemistry/physics teacher bowl with a huy who worked at the State Store, and got a dozen liquor cartons.  They are a convenient size, sturdy enough to hold the weight of a dozen fifths, and cushioned to protect glass bottles of pricey fluids.  He brought them in, left them in the teachers' lounge, and after a week, nobody took even one.  There was a state law prohibiting tobacco on school grounds, but you could suffocate on the funk in the boiler room, yet the teachers were afraid of being fired for immorality because they had an empty liquor carton.

But back when she was doing sewing, my mom had a (cardboard) box from the White Owls my grandfather smoked.

Are White Owls a really cheap brand?  I've seen an awful lot of their boxes over the years.

I've never been tempted to smoke, but if I did, I'd opt for cheroots.  A friend on mine in the '60s was always chewing on a Swisher Sweet.  Can't recall that I ever saw him with a lit one. I didn't know until a few years ago that stogies were cheroots, rather than any ole disreputable see-gar.  "Stogie" is short for "Conestoga" and Lancaster PA, on the banks of the Conestoga River, not only invented the Conestoga wagon, nut the teamsters driving them bought the cheap cheroots produced in Lancaster.  These days, Avanti Cigar, the largest producer of cheroots, has moved out of Lancaster.  Kids buy them, but they don't call them stogies or cheroots, they call them blunts, and they replace the tobacco innards with another combustible.  For that matter, how old does one have to be to know what "funky" used to mean?

Heimhenge said

I did not know the etymology of "stogie" even though I've been using it as a generic term for "cigar" all these years. Thanks for that research. I actually tried the Swisher Sweets for awhile, but they were, well, too "sweet" for my tastes. Much prefer the unflavored tobaccos.

I saw a video "plant tour" of Avanti Cigar a few years ago.  The production of cheroots is highly automated, which is a big reason they're so much less expensive.  The wrapper leaves are split in the middle along the stem, and the machine rolls the left half one direction, and the right half the other direction,  The contents of the cigar are a different variety of tobacco than the wrapper, and it's shredded like a cigarette.  I don't know if that's true of other cigars or not.  They put the rolled tobacco in wooden trays that've been used since the roaring 20s, because they don't want to pick up any new ofors.  Then they chop the cylinders to get two cheroots, and the pieces on the very ends are shredded and put into the innards bin.  Most of the cheroots are put into shorter open-end trays, and they are repeatedly painted, using a regular bristle paint brush, with bourbon, anisette or some other cordial.  Their newest cigaer is coffee flavored.

Their website says "PAYING HOMAGE TO ONE OF THE ONLY STATES WE PURCHASE TOBACCO FROM, THE KENTUCKY CHEROOT IS A STRAIGHT ROLLED CIGAR."  Don't you suppose they really mean "one of the few"?

They say (and I believe they're right) that Clinton Eastwood had a cheroot in his "spaghetti westerns", and since Avanti bought the Petri brand and the enture Italian cigar brand in the 1960s, probably one of Avanti's.  They also make the Di Nobili brand, Frank Sinatra's favorite; he supposedly said he couldn't stand fresh air.

Their Europa brand comes in a cedar box.  Everything else, it looks like it comes in pasteboard multi-packs.  In "Independence Day", I think it was, a fighter pilot celebrates by drawing a cigar out of a tube.  A test tube?  A metal tube?  I don't know, but I bet a lot of guys bought cigars packed that way in order to impress others.  That "mini-humidor" wasn't just protective packaging, but great marketing as well!

Heimhenge said 

You can also purchase the tubes separately to carry any brand, and some of them do come with either a cork or cedar insert that can be moistened before sealing. It's marketed as a "traveling humidor" but I never bought one. I have a similar contraption that's a flat rigid box and can hold half a dozen cigars, and it's got a compartment along one end with a sponge-like material that can be moistened, and a tight seal around all the edges.

Don't the square corners make it uncomfortable when you roll your smokes in the sleeve of your t-shirt?

That habit disappeared about the same time that guys stopped asking if it was OK to light up.  Now *there* is an interesting topic for a doctoral thesis!

And to complete this primer on cigars ... the degree of shredding for the filler inside the wrapper varies by manufacturer. The reason I've settled on Rocky Patel for my brand is that they draw so effortlessly and thus burn cooler. When Rocky was doing his promo at the local tobacconist, he explained that every cigar, post production, is attached to a device that measures the draw quantitatively. Any cigar that draws too hard (read "rolled too tightly") is broken down and returned to assembly for re-rolling with less compaction. All the really good cigars are still hand-rolled.

And the very most expensive ones used to be rolled on the thighs of a virgin, but these days, virgins appear to be as rare as Luckies rolled up in a sleeve.

I was recently informed that "extinct" doesn't mean that the last member of the species has died, like the passenger pigeon in Cincinnati, but rather that the species has dropped below the minimum population necessary for the species to survive.  I don't know if this is "revisionist lexicography" tp make it seem like radical tree-huggers aren't overstating theur case, or it's always had that meaning.  I just know that in the 1950s, I was reading that the American Bison had become extinct, and by 1975, Woody's supemarket in West Carrollton (Dayton) was advertising bison steaks in their weekly flyers for about the same price as

Bearraccs said
Back to the cigar boxes for shoes topic - I'm reminded of Darling Clementine: "and her shoes were number nine/herring boxes without topses/shoes they were for Clementine." I'd rather go barefoot, personally.

Thre is another version that goes

Light she was and like a fairy,
And her shoes were number nine
Herring boxes without topses
Sandals were for Clementine.

I remember wondering if a number nine herring box was specifying the size of the herring, or the quantity packed in the box. 

Googling just now, I find that a herring box is very approximately 3ft by 2ft by 1ft, made of wood.  Damn, that'd make you keep your knees apart!  Number nine sgies aren't petite, but I think most shoe shoe for women carry up to size 10 or 11, man's to 12 or 13.