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OPINION: Cigars, memories and bending phones [The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester](New Hampshire Union Leader Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 29--THERE HAS BEEN much excitement of late over the latest and greatest iPhone, which is an Apple Six Pack or some such device. Some critics were finding fault with it last week, saying that one version of the phone actually bends if you put it into your pocket. Why this should surprise is beyond me. Isn't software supposed to bend? I will be the last on my block to get the new model, which isn't as backward as it might sound. Ours is the only house on our side of the block. The lady of the house got the new device, of course. I settled for an operating system upgrade. Still, it made me nostalgic for the days when upgrading your phone meant you either got a new one in a color other than black or, big excitement, your parents finally got you off the party line. I wonder what kids today think a "party line'' might mean. Other items in the news last week had me thinking of days gone by. One was a story that upset some folks who knew the name John X. Danos. Mr. Danos was president and treasurer of the Indian Head Shoe Company when it bought the R.G. Sullivan 7-20-4 Cigar Factory building on Canal Street. I never met Mr. Danos but I was acquainted with his late son, Bob, and his daughter, Ann. She once worked at this very newspaper. I understand Ann now makes her home in Nashua. John X. Danos employed a lot of Manchester folks in his shoe business, including many Greek immigrants. In the words of one who knew him, he was an "amazing, brilliant, hard-working man and he did a lot for the city and many people in the area.'' My friend, George Naum, remembers Mr. Danos fondly. Seeing our staff photographer arriving at the airport at the same time as he was, Mr. Danos insisted on driving George back to the newspaper rather than taking a cab. George also remembers when the R.G. Sullivan company was still making cigars at the building bearing the Sullivan name. (It was in the news last week because the GYK Antler advertising agency has bought it and the "Y'' in that firm is Travis York, whose grandfather was also once involved in the Indian Head ownership.) George remembers the day the editor ordered another photographer to rush down to the 7-20-4 building to get a shot of an incoming bundle of tobacco leaves that had come in from Cuba, carrying the hammer-and-sickle insignia of newly-minted dictator Fidel Castro. The tobacco firm relocated out of state soon thereafter and, as with many cigar-makers dependent on Cuban tobacco, eventually got smoked. The 7-20-4 cigar still exists, under different ownership, but I bet no one now smoking the brand has a clue as to the origin of the 7-20-4 name. R.G. Sullivan had begun his cigar-making on Amherst Street but when he outgrew the space, he relocated to another address: 724 Elm Street. . Write to Joe McQuaid at [email protected] or on Twitter @deucecrew. ------ ___ (c)2014 The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.) Visit The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.) at www.unionleader.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |