Catalog Salesman
A child, I played with toys in the tall urnof an ashtray that my father kept besidehis easy chair,ornate with amber glass and fret-worked stand,more grim and present than the Paschal candlein Easter sanctuaries. There my carscould speed past Turkish-blended Camels or Pall Malls’royal coats of arms and skid through ash.My youngest chore was emptying the traythat overbrimmed with V-shaped butts and flecksof loose tobacco dense as woodshop shavings.
