Matchmaker

Make me a match. Just one of the 500 billion matches that are used in this country each year.

I’m a match user. I like the big wooden strike-anywhere kitchen safety matches.

There’s something about a stick exploding into flame, holding the fire, smelling the smoke, hearing the hiss when the tip hits water that borders on pyromania.

I say borders because all of the mental health professionals that I’ve spoken with over the years have told me that one has to meet all of the following conditions to be clinically classified as a pyromaniac:

1. Sets fires on purpose more than once.

2. Is very excited before setting the fire.

3. Seems fascinated by fire and situations around fire.

4. Experiences pleasure when setting or watching fire.

Since I don’t answer yes to all of the above, I can play with all the matches I want with impunity.

Matches have been known by many names: Congreves, Flexibles, Friction Lights, Strikables, Locofocos and, my favorite––Lucifers.

Technically speaking, a match has three parts: a combustible head, tinder that feeds the flame and a handle.

There are more than 20 chemicals packed into that little red-and-white glob to make a safe nontoxic head that burns evenly without exploding. The tinder is aspen wood because it burns at the right rate. The handle and the tinder are the same aspen, but in match lingo, the handle is called a splint.

Sounds simple enough, right? Yet for years matches themselves were quite dangerous for the user, and the manufacturing process was deadly to employees.

Research by the Irish produced fire by coating paper with phosphorous and dragging a big block of wood layered with sulfur across the paper.

The wood flared up with a whoosh, a burst of smoke and a rotten egg odor. This was in the late 1600s, and the Irish researcher concluded that whiskey was a safer pursuit.

But in the early 1800s the English discovered that, after dipping 3-foot long sticks in a chemical paste, striking the stick anywhere could start a fire.

This was the first friction match. And friction was the first drawback because the matches would ignite by rubbing against each other in your pocket. Not to mention the size of the matchbox.

Secondly, they had a terrible burning odor that lingered in your clothing after the matches and/or your clothes were extinguished.

Shortly thereafter, the Germans demonstrated their VW mentality and marketed smaller matches, but those were still a hazard to one’s hygiene and health.

Voilà, the French, using their flair for perfumery, joined the conflagration and created an odorless match.

However, the fumes were poisonous and caused a disease called "phossy jaw" (named after the phosphorous) that infected bones and decayed the mouth and jaw. The matches still could self-ignite, but they didn’t smell bad as they killed you.

Twenty-five years later, Sweden entered the fray and developed the first safety match. The Swedes put phosphorous on the sandpaper strip outside the box to light the match and the burning chemicals on the match head.

This made the matches safer to carry and store. These were not dainty matches; they were big and there was still the persistent little problem of toxicity.

In the USA about 1890, a cigar- puffing Philadelphia lawyer had enough of his suit pocket bulging with huge matches and pursued the idea of smaller and lighter matches made of paper.

He’s credited with inventing the matchbook. Great idea, except the striking pad was on the inside and it was easy to fire up all the matches.

It wasn’t until 1910 that the Diamond Match Company patented the first nonpoisonous match. This was such an important health development that President Taft asked the company to surrender the patent and allow open manufacturing.

One year later, the Diamond Match Company released all rights to manufacturing nontoxic safety matches and match sales spread like wildfire.

Now, about the Lucifers. These are the matches of the Wild Wild West. Remember the cowboy lighting the match on his jeans or some unfortunate sheepherder’s beard?

Those were Lucifers, and they would light with any friction, spewing flame as the head exploded in a blaze.

I can remember playing cowboys and striking a big Lucifer on my pants zipper. The head stripped away and pieces stuck all along the zipper and burst into flames.

To this day, I only use safety matches.

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