THE WORLD HAS PASSED ME BY

http://www.seriouslyfacts.me/the-cigarette-lighter-was-invented-before-the-match/

Yes, the world has passed me by.  It really has.  As the saying went back in the '50's, "we were toolin' down the road" when all of a sudden on the radio I heard something that I had not heard in a long, long time.  The radio was on but I was only half listening, so I don't know the context of what I am going to tell you.  I think it was an ad for some up and coming stage play in Los Angeles.  The words were that "I saw her light a match with her thumb as I approached the appointed meeting place..."  In rapid succession here's what happened to me:
a. I used to be able to do that.  Now I don't dare try.
b. I used to be able to light a wooden match by rubbing it on the seat of my Levis.
c. I used to be able to light one match by "ticking" it head to head with another match.
d. I used to be able to light a wooden match by throwing it violently to the sidewalk "just so."
Finally, I also used to be able to light a wooden match by rubbing it on the abrasive strip glued to the side of the match box.  This was the polite and preferred away of lighting wooden matches practiced by most people.
I wonder how many young and enterprising young people of today could say as much about their match lighting prowess?I know one thing.  The way they wear their pants in this day and age, there is no way that they could get enough friction between the pants and the match-head to cause enough heat to be generated to light the match.  
The other disability that they have is that their thumbs are so busy texting that there is never enough time to practice lighting wooden matches with the thumbnail.
Aha!  Of course, they don't come anywhere close to knowing that this is what thumbnails are for.  They only know that they are small pictures on a cathode ray tube.  We are all quite aware that these things are not flammable.  At least, not yet.
One closing story about lighting matches with your thumb and EFR Dion.
Two things:  He smoked a lot.  Camels, of course.  EFR Dion would have smoked the hair off a real live one, if one had been available.  He drove a lot.  He was on the road as much as three days a week for one part of is life.  He did not have wooden matches in the car.  He had book matches.
One day, he came home and he was all excited.  He was really flying high.  He hung his hat, took off his tie, rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands, reached for his favorite glass, poured himself his usual Courvoisier, sat down and smugly, and grinningly said that he had finally succeeded in lighting a book match with one hand, while driving.  He was so happy.  If had swum across the English Channel he perhaps would not have been so happy.  He explained how long he had been mentally practicing the moves.  He painstakingly explained how many failures he had experienced through the weeks of practice. "Now," says he, "I can do it.  Just like this!" With a flourish he whipped out a book of matches and did it three or four times to impress us and to prove that it was not a fluke.
He was so proud.  Now he could drive with one hand on the wheel and still light his cigarette with the free hand.  
He must have bragged about it to my grandfather, his big, one-handed idol.  My grandfather smoked a pipe and he always used wooden matches.  He didn't drive, so I'm sure that when EFR Dion told him the story, he just laughed and shook his head.
That's my story about matches and how to light them.