Passing the Match
-
Kevin Godbee - Apr 22, 2013
- 10 min read
E. Roberts
"Could you pass me a match, too, Dave?"
The thermometer reads seventy degrees in January down here in Florida, and I’m quickly running out of my own matches in the breeze of an afternoon on my uncle’s patio. We’re enjoying some of his tobacco from the never-ending tub of Half & Half, which I’m finding quite agreeable for the weather. I offer him some of the Peterson Nutty Cut that I’ve brought down with me for the trip, but he passes on it with a wave, saying, "Not just now; that stuff smells too good. I’ll try some after dinner." And he’s right: the burley and bright Virginia blend we’re smoking is the perfect tobacco for the season, and it amuses me to realize how much of a tobacco snob I’ve become. The light and effortless drugstore blend proves to be an ideal companion to our afternoon chat, allowing for several refills without overdoing it on the nicotine, and burning easily in the mild atmosphere. This trip is a thankful reprieve from the grind of a long Manhattan winter for me; more than that, though, it’s a chance to reconnect with the family history, to listen to our stories, and to find something of my identity and legacy within that.
My Uncle Dave is one of the main inspirations that led me to join the fellowship of the briar. He’s been a pipe smoker since the beginning of time, at least in my accounting of it, and he stands as the archetype of such in my mental images. He is a burley man, and a burly man—not much over five-foot seven, but built like a sturdy wall, with a barrel chest and tattoos of clipper ships and hula girls—a man’s man, by all accounts. Humble, and preferring to smile and not take things too seriously, for he discovered long ago that this is what attracts a good woman, which he found and held onto in my mother’s sister, Katie. He smokes Half & Half mostly, but makes an occasional foray into Carter Hall, Prince Albert, even the odd pouch of Captain Black. He laughs when I ask him which cherry blend he prefers, since it’s indelibly imprinted in my mind as a hallmark of the winter holiday season and the visits to his house. The answer is Middleton’s, and he still keeps some in the cabinet. My aunt calls us in to dinner, though, and my thoughts turn to memories of food.
Winter holiday trips to my uncle’s were something to look forward to: a break from the boredom of home and school, and a chance to gorge myself on the best food of the year for days on end. I’d spend afternoons in front of the TV playing Atari with my cousins, the strong smells of tobacco mingling with the delicious kitchen aromas—particularly the pies, cookies and other sweet, bready baked goods that were a specialty of our clan. Being offered a wooden spoon covered in the batter that would become a cake or pastry filling was a special treat, and was often a reward for good behavior—or at least not actively engaging in any bad behavior for several minutes before the goodies were mixed. I’m sure I had an angel looking over my shoulder, considering the absurd number of raw eggs and dairy products I consumed, but what a blissful experience: to know the texture and taste of each of the flavors from the recipe in their pure form, and then to witness the transformation when they were combined and baked, was a revelation. Likewise with canned goods, of which there were many—we’re of Welsh ancestry, after all, and anything that could be made to fit in a jar often was. The chemistry of binder and protein, sugar and time, when balanced precisely by the experienced hands of my mother, aunt, and grandmother, was nothing short of wizardry to me. Many years later I would remember those holiday baking sessions while taking cooking classes, and was humbled that my precise measurements of ingredients could not equal their casual perfection in the kitchen. I eventually managed at least a small degree of acumen with a stove, and now make it a point to do some sort of cooking or baking at every family get-together.
Through these early experiences, the notion of taste as the refuge of the senses was imprinted deeply on my psyche. It was a delicious chemistry set, in a way, to my analytical young mind. This practical education in the changes effected through bacterial action, fermentation, and transformation by heat and age, has now found its expression in me through my own enjoyment of fine tobaccos—cellaring, tasting, blending, and even writing about them.
After dinner we return to the patio for some more conversation and tobacco, this time of the "good stuff". Dave is delighted to learn I’ve taken up the pipe, and pleased as punch to relate his own history with our noble hobby. Even approaching seventy, he can recall that his first pipe, at age sixteen, was a Missouri Meerschaum corncob, and that he paid a hefty thirty-nine cents for it in 1960—probably a day’s wage for him then. He’d graduated from chewing tobacco to the pipe for the flavor and sophistication of it, and realized that the ladies thought it handsome and refined, which we both agree still holds true. A year later and he was in the Navy, growing his collection with meerschaums from Turkey and wood from ports of call in the Mediterranean. He learned first-hand the differences in briar from Greece or Spain or France or Morocco, and he favored the Italians, a preference I’ve arrived at in my own collecting, coincidentally. I ask him what his favorite pipe was, and he immediately recalls the Kaywoodie that he inherited from his grandfather—a pipe that would have been comparable or even superior to a Dunhill from that era.
"I’ll always remember, it was the day that Kennedy was shot. I was up on the weather deck, smoking that pipe, when we got the call to go to general quarters. Everyone was scared—here we were in the middle of the Mediterranean, a long way from home, and we didn’t know if this was going to turn into a nuclear war or what. So everybody’s running to their battle stations, and I was going below decks through a hatch that was a little tight for me. Well, my pipe was in my shirt pocket, and I got caught on the lip of the hatch—it ripped my pocket open, and I watched the pipe fall down below and break into pieces. I couldn’t even stop to pick it up, though, as I had to haul ass to my station. And then the news went around the ship that the President was killed, and we were even more nervous then—suddenly there was no Commander in Chief; we all liked him, he was a Navy man. But I sure wish I still had that pipe."
The service was a job and a travel ticket for a small-town guy, and he took advantage of it with gusto; it was a life that suited his adventurous spirit. It didn’t suit his first wife quite as well, however, with him being away months at a time, and his marriage didn’t last as long as his stint in the Navy. Back home, he worked for a while in the Lackawanna steel mill, during which time he met and married my aunt. He soon needed a bigger paycheck to support his growing family, though. The 1970s marked the decline of American industry, and the mill was systematically dismantled by its parent company, Bethlehem Steel. The service offered a steady income, and Vietnam was underway, so Dave signed up with the Army Reserve as a combat medic. I can recall from my youth some stories he told, usually when the adults had gotten a bit drunk at holiday festivities. One in particular sticks in my mind, of him seeing a soldier sucked into a helicopter’s rotors… and there not being enough of him left to save. We don’t talk about this now, though, as I can still hear in his voice the scars that are left from that time.
It wasn’t until my twenty-first birthday that I discovered the pleasures of pipe smoking. My girlfriend often commented that she thought of me as being older than my skin, of being from a different time. I’d picked up the cigarette habit in my teens, and was a confirmed smoker, but she was sure I’d look better smoking a pipe—and so gifted me my first and most treasured briar, a Sasieni Ruff Root. She really couldn’t have chosen a better pipe, its baby-blue satin bag revealing what, to me, was (and still is) the epitome of the billiard shape. It fit me perfectly, and felt natural and befitting for a young writer, which was my ambition back then. We went that afternoon to the tobacconist to find something to fill the pipe with, spending a lot of time with a patient old man who seemed amused to help us in our selection. Lifting glass jar after glass jar, reveling in the exotic spices they contained, we finally settled on a sweet aromatic and a lighter, non-aromatic—in retrospect, it was likely a burley blend, for I recall it immediately triggered the scent-memory of baked goods and my uncle’s living room rocker, a chair in which I’d fallen asleep many nights while the adults played cards and drank.
Back then I was out on my own, far away from home and family. I’d tried college for a few years, until I realized that the halls of academia weren’t the ideal place for me to learn. I was possessed of the familial wanderlust, the need to see things, to live everywhere and do everything. The pipe stayed with me after the girlfriend was long gone, and I smoked the hell out of it. I smoked until my tongue was raw leather, convinced that I wasn’t doing it right until I’d extracted a sufficient volume of smoke on each puff to fill an entire room. I enjoyed the flavor and the ritual of the experience, but was always nagged by the thought that if that’s what a real man had to go through to enjoy a pipe, then I was half the man my uncle was. I stuck with it, though, until I learned to slow down and savor my time; the pipe, in turn, has repaid me with innumerable hours of clarity and contemplation. As in Dave’s youth, my peregrinations took me all over the country and halfway around the globe; unlike my uncle, though, my war was not external. I lived in a far different world than he did. A child of détente, I knew no great strife and had the luxury of long years of introspection without responsibility. Thankfully, the closest I ever came to combat was the evening news.
As the twilight draws darker around us and my visit comes to an end, I throw my uncle a curveball, something I imagine young guys have been entreating of their elders since there were fires to gather around: I ask him what he thinks the meaning of life is. He deliberates for a moment and laughs. "If you’re gonna live in this world, try to live the best you can; be good to your friends and neighbors. Nine times out of ten they won’t stab you in the back." It is comforting to look back on one’s journey, and while mine certainly hasn’t been a straight line, I can better see the contour of the course my own path has taken. Perhaps it is the gift and province of pipe smokers to focus our effort of thought on the understanding of time. These trinkets we fill with incense are imbued with our musings, and become talismans of our memories, treasured relics to be preserved as a part of our person. For my part, I know that I’ll always have a tub of Half & Half on hand now, to remember the match that has been passed to me.
Listen to the interview with E. "Bill" Roberts on The Pipes Magazine Radio Show
Written by Kevin Godbee
13 Responses
Recent Posts
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.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. I’ve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case I’m merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing I’d endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, it’s (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so it’s a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of Herbstdüfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 631. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with pipe maker Dan Keller from Good Made Better. Dan is from South Dakota. Growing up working in the family hardware store where he was always finding solutions to fixing things, he ended up always wanting to make things. He now makes elegant handmade pens, pen holders, portable desks, blotters, blotting paper, book carry cases, and of course artisan pipes. At the top of the show we are continuing the virtual tour of Brian’s pipes with his “f#@k you pipes”.
Great article Bill, I love the call from the past as well and that has led me to my own pipe smoking journey. I will be meeting my Grandfather this coming weekend and smoking my first pipe with him, he is the main reason I started the pipe hobby. I look forward to that meeting just a little bit more after reading this article.
You’re a talented storyteller — I especially enjoyed how you wrote the closing on this article. Thanks for sharing those memories, Bill.
What a great article. Really enjoyed that one. I read somewhere of a navy pipeman who was a gunner. He was saying how he’d spend countless hours keeping his gun clean, and how this translated to his pipe hygiene as well. A clean gun/pipe is a happy gun/pipe he wrote.
wonderful read. Wish it was 1000 pages of this to go thorough.
Bill
Not only are you a fine writer, you are also a very thoughtful and perceptive man.
Thanks for the essay
Allan
Thanks for a great article. It reminded me of the times when I was a child visiting with my grandfather in Florida and being mesmerized by his pipe and the smells associated with it.
Great read, makes me glad I picked up the tradition from my uncle too. It’s funny how this gets passed down through the generations.
Fantastic article Bill.
Rom – another beautiful read! Never knew my grandparents, but they didn’t puff neither. But my wife’s uncle did. How is it we remember the pipesmokers from our youth but not so much the cigarette smokers?
hp
les
Bravo
What a fine essay, thanks!
A really beautiful peace, my favorite of your work so far; a window to your soul 🙂
I’m glad that this struck a chord with so many people…it’s this ability of pipe smoking to be handed down as a legacy, within our family or friends, that is really one of its more remarkable aspects, to me. I hope that some will be inspired to pass the match themselves.