Memories Up in Smoke
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Kevin Godbee - Jun 5, 2012
- 4 min read
Denise Bisogno
So without sounding too sappy or too grandiose—here is the simple fact, Your pipe smoking is making magical memories… .that’s right, I said it… it isn’t an annoyance, but rather an aroma we look for. It indicates you are close by and relaxing. As a grown-up who spent her childhood in the presence of "the pipe", I now long to smell that beautiful scent waft in the air. I see a guy on the street leaning in to light his pipe- and I linger, sometimes just come to a dead stop… just to catch a wiff of "my past". I stand there with a dumb grin and looking ridiculous I am sure. But I could care less because for that brief moment I am 8 and I am in my Grandfathers wood shop with him and he just finished making the most beautiful cabinet. He and I are sitting back admiring his work while he takes a break with a well deserved smoke.
Back then I never even gave that fleeting smoke billow a second thought. Years later, I long for it, I miss it. That soft billow of puff represented peace and stability for me. It gave me reassurance someone who loved me more than life itself was nearby. Now, just as that smoke drifted and disappeared ever so softly, sadly- so has my Grandfather. Life changed and I find myself longing to go back in time on most days.
So guys, know this; for me your smoke is not any sort of nuisance or annoyance, but rather a transparent memory drifting by me, transporting me to a time in life that was all perfect. Many people I speak to also agree with me as I blurt out in public- "Ahhh someone is smoking a pipe, and I LOVE IT!". Many people smile and will agree. I will always recall with a distinct warm fuzzy feeling, the smell of my Grandfather’s pipe-smoke. It causes me even now, to drift off to my happy childhood place- and enjoy the safety and serenity the sweet scent of hand packed tobacco being burned in that dark wooden pipe of his brings.
Someday, hopefully in a far off time, there will be people who recall your pipe smoke with a bittersweet ache in their heart and big goofy smiles, as they long for just a moment more with you. Rest assured your pipe’s smoke will cause some girl to stop dead in her tracks as it evokes a pleasant memory for her of you. Face it, you are creating the memory which will stand frozen in the mind, hearts and noses of those who love and treasure you. There is something about that aroma that gives us instant calm. It strangely is your calling card long after you are gone from this life.
The "old world "charm of a pipe’s aroma is the secret guilty pleasure we all silently welcome and value. It will become in many cases part of the description of your sweet presence and how you will be recalled to mind after you are gone, by those who love you. Part of your wonderful legacy will be your pipe’s wonderful aroma.
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From the Publisher: Most times, us pipe smokers deal with the merciless vilification of all things tobacco. We get lumped in with cigarettes, lung cancer, air pollution, and the corruption and harm of small children. The general public, which is uneducated on tobacco, and immensely brain-washed by the "antis" propaganda constantly preaches and screeches of the evils of tobacco—pipe smokers included.
Today, something really nice happened. The author of the brief article you just read is a former neighbor and childhood classmate of mine. We haven’t seen each other or spoken in decades. I still remember riding my bike down Wood Avenue, and crossing Washington Place (near Farrington Lake) and peddling up the hill on Miriam Drive where she lived.
We "Friended" each other on Facebook last year, and occasionally "Liked" or commented on a post here and there, but nothing more, which seems pretty common with former schoolmates that haven’t seen each other in many years.
Well, I guess she has been following along with me a little more closely than I realized. (She is on my personal Facebook, and I don’t put a lot of pipe related stuff there.)
Pipe smokers are a small group. For most, if not all of us, we have more friends that do not smoke a pipe than ones that do. It’s probably also true that even though our friends put up with our pipe smoking, they most likely don’t get it.
Thank you Denise for getting it!
I am touched by your commentary, and for thinking of me and my publication for expressing your kind thoughts and memories.
– Kevin Godbee
Written by Kevin Godbee
25 Responses
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
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. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. 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 […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
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! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
When my sons were growing up they’d sit each evening in the living room with me as I packed, lit & smoked my pipe and watched TV or talked about the days events. The memories they have negate any of the hype being used today concerning the evils of the weed and instead they recall the aroma, the ritual and the comfort of knowing Dad was home relaxing with his family each night. The article brings to mind the bittersweet understanding that we leave mostly snippets of dear memories when we leave this earth. Nice article & thanks for it.
Thank you Ms. Bisogno for quite an interesting take on your memories! Earlier today on the forum I was reminiscing about a time 25 years ago when I took up pipe smoking. Many things have changed since then, but I consider myself a fortunate man to have met someone very schooled in pipes that took me under his wing. Oh the memories!!!!
Very cool!! Thank you Denise!!!
This was excellent! Thankyou Denise for writing, and thankyou Kevin for putting this up. I also have memories like this from a little boy’s perspective, and now having three little daughters I’ve been hoping they will later in life have the same kinds of memory associations with my smoking, and remember me fondly for it (as well as other things too). Thankyou for confirming my hopes. 🙂
-Steve
That was such a good read. Kind of brightened my day a bit. Thanks!
such a nice story, thanks for sharing.
My Grandfather was a pipe smoker as well and I totally relate to your tale. I keep a pouch of his blend for those times when I just need that pat on the head he would give me when I was a child. I quit smoking cigs when I became a Grandfather and she will only ever know her PawPaw smoked a pipe.
Thanks for sharing your memories, Denise. The smell of tobacco brings back memories of lost loved ones for many of us.
In creating memories, making the delicious tobacco smells is the easy part. May we live in such a way that the memories evoked will always be pleasant ones.
I wish more people felt the way you do Denise, Thanks.
That was a great read. I do occasionally get the “that smells good, and reminds me of my Grandfather” comment from time to time. I think it’s about a good a compliment as you can get. Thanks so much for sharing!
The power of an odor to trigger memories and emotions is remarkably strong. In fact, signals from our olfactory region (in our nasal cavity) travel directly through the limbic system, which is the part of our brain responsible for memory and emotions. For this reason it appears, smells can prompt amazingly vivid memories and trigger extreme emotional responses from people.
I have fond memories of an elderly neighbor couple who lived next door to my parents. I was four or five years old and I would often spend summer afternoons hanging out in their back yard. Mrs. Henson would bring me ginger ale and Mr. Henson, who was completely blind at this point, would load his pipe and tell me stories or sing old Irish tunes while puffing away on his bowl of Sir Walter Raleigh Aromatic.
Very nice! Thanks for sharing.
a great little read! cheers!
Thanks for the encouraging article. I continue following the lovely ladies with a pipe in hand. Is it stalking? No. I’m leaving a positive impression. 🙂
Thanks for a positive article on a non-smokers view of our hobby. It’s very encouraging to hear that not everyone looks upon us as evil.
Very good essay, reminds us of why we took up a pipe to begin with, and maybe what our legacy will remember of each of us. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing those wistful remembrances, and providing the affirmation and encouragement we all need sometimes. It’s comforting to know we “ghost” our acquaintances as well as our pipes (that’s a pipe smoking inside joke Kevin will explain.)
Thanks for sharing. I get lots of people comment in a positive way about the smell of my pipe, but I’ll admit when I’m out in public I almost always smoke Captain Black, people love the smell of the Captain.
Yeah olfactory memory cues are some of the strongest of memory cues. My grandfather was also a pipe and cigar smoker and the smell of Half And Half, Captain Black, Sail and even zippo fluid instantly bring him to mind when present. A great article. Nice to be thought of as a memory maker rather than scoffed at for smoking.
My son is two years old, I hope that he and his children in the future feel the same way about my pipe.
Maybe we should hang out and smoke pipes on the way to polling places. It would be great if we could remind people of these kinds of memories before they click YES on another smoking ban that throws pipers under the bus.
thank you young lady, you have brought a bit of joy to an old man’s heart. i hope you will always be able to find the smell of a good tobacco burning in a pipe, and it always takes you to that special place.
Great article! My maternal Grandfather smoked a pipe and rolled his own cigarettes using Prince Albert. One of the big treats for us kids who were interested was that on Christmas Eve he would let us roll his cigarettes for him! I always thought that was the greatest thing that I had ever done until he showed me how to make a corn cob pipe!
Several men in my family smoked pipes occasionally but it is a great-uncle who I remember sitting and talking with while he smoked. He was a rough fellow, ex-railroader, but a genuinely nice guy and he always made me feel welcome. There is something about pipes that has an uncanny to connect us to our past. The aroma is important but I think it goes beyond a simple smell – somehow the simple, quiet times that go with pipe smoking make lasting good memories.