CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR (2025-3)

I don’t recall where I first heard the maxim: Close, but no cigar. My instincts told me it meant that something was almost correct, but not quite. In the old days I would have had to make my way down Old Clairton Road to the century old library and find a current encyclopedia to try to explain the meaning and origin. Now I sit comfortably in my easy chair and Google it. 

The aphorism, Close but no cigar, probably refers to carnival contests where the prize for hitting a target was a cigar. It originates in the early 1900’s. 

I came across this photo of Albert Einstein the other day. He’s casually clothed in summer shorts and a soft Merino wool short sleeved sweater.  He’s sitting on a large rock on a beach. His brilliant hair is flailing in the ocean breeze, his arms are comfortably at his side, and his shapely legs are crossed. Because he walked or rode his bike nearly every day, his legs were in great shape. He's wearing a pair of open toed sandals. They look like ladies sandals. They struck me as so curious that I had to zoom in to examine them. 

Yup, those are not your typical man-sandals.

My curiosity compelled me to continue to avoid putting away the box of Christmas leftovers in my bedroom and instead went down the Google rabbit hole of discovery.

Here’s the story behind the photographs, as told by the grandson of the other man sitting with Einstein on the beach that day:

In the summer of 1939, Albert Einstein spent his summer on Nassau Point, in Peconic, NY on eastern Long Island. My grandfather, David Rothman, was owner of Rothman’s Department Store in nearby Southold.

One June day, Einstein came into the store. Of course, my grandfather recognized him at once. He decided, though, to treat him just like any other customer.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” he asked

“Sundials,” Einstein said in his thick German accent.

Now, Rothman’s has always had a large variety of items—just about everything from housewares, to fishing tackle and bait, to hardware, to toys, to appliances. But no sundials. Not for sale, anyway. But…

“I do have one in my back yard,” my grandfather said.

He led Einstein—who seems a bit bewildered—to the back yard, to show him the sundial. “If you need one you can have this.”

Einstein took one look and began to laugh. He pointed to his feet. “No. Sundials.”

Sandals. Those, he had.

E=mcFAAABUloussss! Who knew Einstein had such wonderful gams?!

(The man pictured with Einstein above is David Rothman, and he was the one responsible for selling Einstein the fancy footwear back in 1939. From Chuck Rothman's "Albert Einstein's Long Island Summer")

I think maybe our current national leader got stuck in a similar misunderstanding of words and decided to wave his wand of cancellation over a set of people, as he is wont to do. He proudly announced this week that he had shut down medical studies because they were using taxpayer money to make transgender mice. (He paused for applause.) But what he actually shut down was a study of transgenetic mice. Transgenetic mice are used in labs to study human disease, develop treatments and understand gene function.

... wish you were her.

Then there’s the story of the old guy whose wife saved up all her spare change and eventually had enough to give her husband a little vacation at the beach. She didn’t love the beach. But he did. So she gave him a trip alone to his favorite little beach town. He sent her a postcard while he was gone:

“Having a wonderful time. Wish you were her.”

Finally, when we were kids there was a song popular on the radio, by K.C. and the Sunshine Band. I remember commenting to my sister Libby that I was shocked they would allow such language on public radio (remember, these were the olden days.) 

“What’s so bad about it?” Libby asked.

I answered,

“They’re singing: 

Shake, shake, shake

Shake, shake, shake

Shake your boobies

Shake your boobies!”

Lib replied, rolling her eyes:

“No, they’re not.

It’s shake your booties.”

We imagined GoGo dancers in their patent leather knee high boots.

In actuality, we were both wrong.

It’s “Shake your booty.”

Close, but no cigar.