(Extra)Ordinary People

In 1968, in a Bridgeport, Connecticut nursing home I met a man named “Duke” Muldoon who when I asked him who was the most unusual individual he had ever met, said “That’s easy, my cousin Anna-John Budd!” He told me the whole time he’d talk with Anna-John, their male and female side would argue, all the while both smoking out of male and female side of their face. “Each time one or other would flick an ash, they swiveled the ashtray on table to one side of it or other…Jim, I’m going to give you that ashtray which I got when Anna-John died in 1950!” It wasn’t until I was driving home, I noticed the uniquely symbolic form of the ashtray…