Alive in That Electric Vibe
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Kevin Godbee - Sep 18, 2017
- 4 min read
Fred Brown
I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs – Albert Einstein, 1950
I’m late with this column this month for a variety of reasons: I wrecked my car, but managed not to injure or kill anyone. I wasn’t smoking my pipe at the time, which is probably as good a reason as any to find cause. Plus, my brain begins to miss gears like an old car without a steady dose of pipe smoke.
Second, I have been fretful, ornery, and downright hard to get along with over the events of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
I have some acquaintances in Texas and Louisiana, but I have several friends and some relatives in Florida. The power of Irma was not only awe-inspiring, but she was also like a dark, hovering wraith of brutality.
These two events left me wondering about not just our friends and relatives, but also those who are in the pipe-making business.
We have pipe makers and tobacco people and pipe smokers not only residing in the states mentioned but also living in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, other states hard hit by Irma.
After checking on kinfolks and friends, I became concerned about those who bring us the best the world has to offer in pipes and tobaccos!
Many major retail outlets dwell in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, not to mention other states which felt the wrath of Irma: Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina.
Some of the finest tobaccos in the world are grown in Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina.
The harvest may be over, of course, but let’s hope that the farmers and fields that grow all that fine leaf hasn’t been damaged too badly through torrents of rain and wind, howling like banshees of another time and place.
So, when we get to toting up the costs of storms like Harvey and Irma, let’s not forget our friends in the pipes and tobacco business.
Some of the television images of Irma’s devastation in Florida left me shaken. The power of that hurricane has already been explored, but the full extent of the economic fall-out in terms of human cost is just now being counted.
And not to be forgotten is the tremendous flooding that took place in Texas. Some great pipe smokers and retailers, not to mention legendary tobacco, reside in Texas and Louisiana.
These natural disasters remind me of why you can never take a day for granted. Our lives can change on a dime.
If I were to lose some of my prized pipes in a storm such as Irma, I would be thankful, of course to be alive, but devastated by the loss of those impossible-to-replace possessions.
While other personal belongings are also prized, and perhaps replaceable, several of my pipes are one of a kind, collector material and can’t be duplicated.
I’m sure many of us have those kinds of pipes in our collections that if washed out to sea or the nearest swollen tributary would be heartbreaking.
I’m not trying to equate my pipes with family photos or mementoes that cut deeply into the emotions and personal history. And certainly not to life itself.
No, I’m not saying that at all. Irreplaceable are lives lost, photos and dear keepsakes from our past.
But for pipe smokers, many memories are associated with our pipes, just as photos bring happiness and fill our hearts with pleasant thoughts, that calmness Einstein mentioned.
I just hope all of the people affected so devastatingly by these two great storms will be able to return to some sort of normalcy as quickly as possible.
Finding normal again will be difficult, though. Death changes the landscape.
For pipe smokers who lose all their pipes in tragedies such as storms, hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, normal may be a long time coming, if ever again.
Pipe smoking is a brotherhood (and sisterhood). We relish being with and around other pipe smokers, enjoying conversation and the leaf in our own special way.
We are, perhaps, as Whitman wrote, drifting, detritus along the shores, but always walking in the sunshine of hope.
When that is no longer available, as it may be now in parts of Texas and Florida, I hope we can all offer up a special prayer for our brothers and sisters of the briar.
It’s never easy when you lose someone or some treasure. You have the memories, sure. But being able to clutch that someone or treasure again and again is that human bond we all need.
Hold a special thought for those who have come through these past hard days and nights.
In the grip of danger or trying to survive in that "cone of uncertainty" meteorologists referred to repeatedly with Hurricane Irma, we embrace the light of what we once knew.
That indomitable America spirit will prevail. That "can do" will rebuild and restore. We are resilient, strong, good, and honorable.
We are all, as Whitman professed, part of the sands and the "drift." We may be baffled by what has taken place these past days and weeks.
But, we will "merge as part of the sands and drift."
This is where precious lives: precious life, precious memories, precious pipes alive in that electric vibe.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. 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It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! 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Thanks for that sobering reminder of how Nature can, in a moment, remove what was so generously bestowed (and all too often taken for granted).