Pretty By Firelight

      Back in the old movies, when almost all of the characters smoked cigarettes, it was considered very romantic/sexy/chivalrous for a man to light a woman's cigarette for her. Sometimes the man had the cigarette in his mouth, or two cigarettes, one for him and one for her, and he would light them both and then take one out of his mouth and hand it to the woman.

        More usually, the woman would take her own cigarette, and as the man struck the match, the woman put the cigarette to her lips, the match would come in close – she would inhale  – a very intimate moment! Even in this age of fewer and fewer smokers, that kind of scene can make one tingle when watching.

        Well my Dad, as both a smoker and a wooer of women when he was in his teens, had a line that he used over and over again. As he struck the match to light a woman's cigarette, and as he brought the flame closer and closer, Dad would say, “gee, you're pretty by firelight!” 

        This, of course, is a line that one might say to a young woman perhaps when enjoying an evening in front of a cozy fireplace or a night out by a bonfire – not something you would say by the light of a match!

        This was Dad's most classic joke.

        Mom was not a smoker at the time, but she said that she thought "Gee you're pretty by firelight" was the first gag she ever heard Dad do – lighting someone else's cigarette just for the laugh – maybe even lighting another guy's cigarette – just for the laugh!  

        And we kids heard this joke often when we were growing up – Dad managed to find places to use it.

        Strangers thought Dad was funny, and he was, but we in the family knew that his material was mostly drawn from his trusty and well-worn and figurative bag o'jokes.

        Many years later, I appropriated Dad's line in my own meager attempts at laughs. In college back in the early '70's there were quite a few kids who smoked. And if I saw someone give a classmate a light, I would quickly interject, “gee, you're pretty by firelight!” They usually gave me a semi-tolerant glare – letting me know I was kind of obnoxious - but I got a kick out of it.

        And then as a Mom, I found a new angle for the line. When my daughters were young and celebrating classmates' birthdays almost continuously, I made a point of going with them and watching the birthday child's Mom, waiting for her to go to the kitchen, and then I'd follow. There, at the counter or the table, as the Mom leaned over to light the candles on the cake – I would lean in also and softly say, “gee, you're pretty by firelight!”

       Sometimes I would get the familiar semi-tolerant glare, but other times I could see the tension just melt away and a kind glance was shot my way. Those were the moments when I knew Dad and I had done good!

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