The heart of every pipe smoker beats precipitously faster at the thought of that one go-to pipe in his or her collection. Call it, “A Pipe for All Seasons.” Now, the heavens aren’t going to open with a magnum opus chorus with colorful birds zipping around with pretty bunting strips. No. But, if you smoke …

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Fred Brown It took me to what one might call my Codger years to really learn, I mean really learn, how to properly smoke a pipe. In my youth, I was busy chasing my tail like a confused canine. I was the proverbial smokestack. Fast and furious. You talk about tongue burn! I had burnout! …

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Fred Brown There are times, it seems to me when old lessons are the very best teachers. Like hard knocks. They just keep on tapping. For example, listen to a few hoary catchphrases I created, found, or edited just a bit: “If a thing can whip you, it will; “Start out like you can old …

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Fred Brown As you know, last year we lost McClelland’s tobacco manufacturer, which was a terrific blow to our community. And now, the announcement arrived with the Spring Issue of Pipes and Tobacco Magazine that it is closing its operation. William C. Nelson, the editor, left the door open, he said, if someone had the …

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Fred Brown I’d no more love just one kind of woman than drink only one kind of wine—from the lyrics in “Berkeley Woman,” written by Bryan Bowers and made popular by the late John Denver. For the last few months, I have been working on an experiment that strikes at the heart of pipe smoking: …

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Fred Brown I admit to being a pipe people watcher. And after a trip in the late 1980s to Edinburgh, Scotland, I got serious and began intensive study of pipe smokers and their ritual-like habits. The thing that perked my interest in Edinburgh was a couple of gentlemen relaxing in an Edinburgh pub. Oh, they …

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Fred Brown Ah, a new year ahead. Don’t you just love all that “newness!” There is a ripeness about new starts, or re-starts. There is renewed hope, renewed excitement about the future and the mysterious “the road ahead.” There is something special about a pristine, pencil-thin horizon that is exciting, like the start of a …

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Fred Brown This is a pipe, with apologies to René Magritte,  The Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe), in a little word play on the title of the 1929 surrealist masterpiece. This time of year, it is always good to look back and to find things for which we are thankful, real things …

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Fred Brown It is more difficult these days to recall just how Doc looked. He was a big man with glasses, usually resting upon his nose, no tie, rumpled pants and most of the day sockless in his shoes. Doc was a practitioner of family medicine. Everyone just called him Doc. He delivered babies, puppies, …

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I am wealthy in my friends—William Shakespeare If you have one pipe, you’re a pipe smoker. If you have two pies, you’re a collector—Bill Unger Fred Brown This is the tale of two pipes. One is a venerable Custom-Bilt given to me years ago by a dear friend who is now gone. The other is …

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