Category Archives: Pipe Smokers of the Past

Fred Brown [Editor’s note: After conducting several hours of research, the above photo was the only one that could be found of Walt Disney smoking a pipe. Although he was a chain-cigarette-smoker, and occasional imbiber of the pipe, he avoided smoking when he was in public view, especially where he might be seen by children. […]

Fred Brown Even before the Big Bang theory of the universe came into vogue, Edwin Hubble talked of "nebulae" swirling at great distances from Earth, with stars so far away, they appeared as thin mist in his telescope. The red glint in faint light wavelengths gave him the notion of a powerful force moving at […]

By Fred Brown The irony is palpable. Attempting to understand British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created one of literature’s most enduring characters—the great detective Sherlock Holmes—one must become something of a sleuth himself. It is a well-known fact, of course, that Sherlock Holmes smoked. Oh, did he ever smoke. In Doyle’s stories, cigarettes […]

By Fred Brown Santa on the rooftop and down the chimney, a Christmas romance, with many apologies to Clement Clarke Moore. ‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for Santa, who was smoking his pipe. Yes, Virginia, that same old jolly elf himself is about to […]

By Fred Brown Most biographers agree that William Faulkner and his father never got along, but one particularly nasty argument demonstrates the deep-rooted animosity between the two men – and it was over a pipe. One night after supper, the family headed to the front porch to relax and tell stories, as was customary in […]

By Fred Brown John Roland Reuel Tolkien wrote one of the most famous openings in literature when he penned this line: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. . . " And those few words launched one of the most amazing careers in literary history. J.R.R. Tolkien, called "Tollers" or "JRRT" by […]

By Fred Brown Pints and pipes. That’s what most conversations centered on at The Eagle and Child Pub back in Oxford, England, in the 1940s and ’50s. There, inside the number 49 Saint Giles landmark on most any weekday, patrons would have found the likes of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien turning up their tankards […]

By Fred Brown Bertrand William Arthur Russell, grandson of a British Prime Minister, and one of Great Britain’s leading writers and philosophers, claimed to have remembered not only the day but also the very instant that he became a pipe smoker. Talk about your Eureka moment! "I remember the precise moment," he said in an […]

By Fred Brown VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.– There it was – a priceless relic of the Civil War, displayed in a simple Plexiglas box in a small Virginia museum, its graceful lines accented by a dramatic beam of light, its bowl as scuffed and dark as Black Cavendish. The pipe itself was beautiful, yes-but it was […]