Nostalgia
-
Kevin Godbee - Dec 5, 2012
- 5 min read
Russ Ouellette
Ours is a hobby fraught with nostalgic thoughts. When a gathering of pipe smokers occurs, I’m willing to bet that the single most common phrase uttered is “I remember when…”. This issue is only exacerbated when a group of older pipesters is interspersed among some twenty and thirty-somethings, and that’s when the stories begin in earnest.
Of course, there’s a lot of history in pipe smoking. Pipes made of meerschaum have been around since the 1700s and commercially available since the early 1800s. Briars started becoming more widely available in the mid 19th century. There are some brands that are still around today after more than a hundred years. The commercial history of pipe tobacco is similar, and collectors are always looking for examples of old tins and advertising material.
Nostalgia can be very specific. For example, there are a lot of pipe enthusiasts who will search for years trying to locate a birth-year Dunhill. Lots of people have fond memories of older Kaywoodies, Comoy’s, Barlings, Custom-Bilts, Charatans, and the list goes on and on.
Tobacco seems to evoke even more passion than pipes, in some ways. I guess that’s because people who might not have been able to afford an expensive pipe could probably still have handled the cost of even some of the pricier blends, at least occasionally. When the conversation goes in this direction, it’s not uncommon to see a faraway look in the eyes of someone talking about one of the Sobranies, John Cotton’s, Markovitches and so many more. Even more common blends like Tokay, London Dock, Revelation, Country Doctor, Lane’s Mountain Leaf and Irish Mead will be mentioned wistfully during some discussions.
But the most involved memories seem to come to the surface when the stories of old friends and smokeshops begin. I’ve sat around at pipe shows listening to stories about some of the characters who have graced the pastime and with every tale I hear, I find that five rush into my own mind. We’re really fortunate to have a hobby that has such a rich history with so many amazing people making it so intriguing and humorous.
An unfortunate aspect of the nature of the last forty years or so is that a lot of great establishments have gone by the wayside. Just about every area of the country has lost smokeshops with legendary reputations. In my own area of Albany, N.Y., there were stores that were mainstays for decades that just couldn’t keep up with untenable restrictions and usurious taxes. One example was Mel Feldman’s The Smoker, which was known for an amazing selection of estate pipes and tobaccos that were beloved not only in our region, but around the country. Mel’s singular personality made his shop a destination, but it was impossible to keep going in the present-day climate. At least we still have the memories and stories of that great store. Somehow, however, I doubt we’ve heard the last from Mel.
But that brings me to the other half of this story. In spite of all the obstructions, we have seen the birth of a new “golden age”. At each pipe show I attend, I’m seeing more and more new faces, and a lot of them are in their twenties and thirties. Many of them started as cigar smokers who have found that the cost of their favorites have become too high and have turned to pipes as a way to enjoy themselves and relax at a more reasonable price. They probably still find the time and wherewithal to have a stogie here and there, but pipes and tobaccos are a less expensive, and in some ways, more attractive alternative. Once they get caught up in the beauty and variety of pipes, and the broad selection and widely varied tastes of pipe tobacco, the love affair begins.
Beside that, there’s the lifestyle. The serenity that can be found in selecting the right pipe and the ideal tobacco for the moment is unmatched. This is something that can be shared with friends, as we see so often do at pipe club meetings or pipe shows all over the U.S., and the world, for that matter, or it can be a solitary pursuit at a lakeside, by the window in our homes on a snowy evening or while taking a leisurely stroll in the brisk autumn air.
Think about all of the great artisans crafting esthetically beautiful and amazingly functional pipes today. We’ve never seen such advances in engineering as we have recently. Pipes that have a more open draw, and ones with secondary chambers have revolutionized the hobby, delivering cooler, drier, more flavorful smokes than ever before. The craftsmanship found today is elegant, refined and incredibly attractive. We have beautifully grained pipes with stunning staining, deep, craggy sandblasts and remarkable feats of rustication, along with well-made factory pipes that deliver a great experience without breaking the bank.
In the world of tobaccos, we have tremendous variety as well. Beside the vastly varied choices by the large manufacturers, we are seeing a growth of finely crafted small-batch blends, offering a selection that has never existed before. It doesn’t matter what style of tobacco one enjoys, there are a lot of choices out there that are within the reach of every pipe smoker, and the options keep growing. In my own line, we started with six blends and over the last seven years have expanded to around sixty, and as long as people clamor for more, we all will keep working on developing new and interesting blends, as most pipe smokers today have more than one blend in their day-to-day lineups.
Even in accessories, there’s a growth. Tampers, tools, pouches and lighters continue to expand in variety, and the workmanship is exceptional. I never remember seeing such beautiful items that serve a function as I have in this area. Tampers used to be just serviceable; now they’re works of art.
Nostalgia still has its place, but the modern pipe and tobacco market offers a cornucopia of phenomenal products that only enrich the hobby. There are many things that I miss from the past, but I can’t wait to see all the great ideas coming to fruition. What the heck, if you’re still craving the classics, the estate market is strong as well. No matter what, we’re in a great position to enjoy ourselves with this wonderful pastime.
|
Russ Ouellette is the blender/creator of the Hearth & Home series of tobaccos for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and www.pipesandcigars.com in Albany, NY. He has been a pipe smoker and blender for over 30 years, and enjoys feedback from the pipe smoking public. You can reach Russ at russo@pipesandcigars.com or by calling 1-800-494-9144 on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm and Friday from 1 pm to 5 pm. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
7 Responses
Smokingpipes.com Updates
24 Fresh Rossi Pipes |
132 Fresh Savinelli Pipes |
3 Fresh Il Duca Pipes |
24 Fresh Chacom Pipes |
18 Fresh Claudio Cavicchi Pipes |
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 481! This week’s show is a unique holiday themed show with Brian’s Zoom Pipe Club looking at pipes and tobacco in a Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ sort of way. The guys will talk about pipes and tobaccos of the past, present, and future. Joining the discussion with Brian will be Fred Hanna, Tad Gage, Barry Goldstein, Ronni B, Rich Esserman, Fred Janusek, Brad Pohlmann, Dave in LAX, Rob Cappuccio, Dino Argyropoulos, and several others. At the top of the show in Pipe Parts, Brian found some old tobacco ads, which you can find at this link – Almay.com. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 480! Tonight we have Rich Esserman back with us for an epic show. Rich is quite well known in the hobby. He has been smoking, collecting, and writing about pipes for over 40-years, and he is best known for collecting large-size Dunhill pipes. We will have Brian and Rich discussing the different types of pipe collectors. Find out which one you are … or are you just a “pipe accumulator”? This episode will go right into the conversation, and bypass the usual Pipe Parts segment. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 479! Our featured interview tonight is with pipe maker Brian G. Rowley of Growley Pipes. Brian is also a leather crafter and produces handmade merchandise in that area as well. He makes all types of pipe shapes, including some of the classics, but leans more towards the Danish freehand styles. He takes commissions on pipes as well. At the top of the show, We’ll have our “Ask the Pipemaker” segment with artisan pipe maker, Jeff Gracik. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
A faded Synoptic Weather Chart for the morning of Saturday, July 1, 1916 read “Light to moderate breezes between East and North, fair to dull. Some showers and mist.” A low-pressure system passing over the English Channel and onto the continent pushed a break in the rain on that first day of July. Bright yellow rays punched down into No Man’s Land and alighted on what poet Siegfried Sassoon described, as a “sunlit picture of hell.” That morning, as the winds changed direction, in the hour when the last mist still clung to the meadow, the whistles blew 8 divisions of British troops into the valley of the shadow of death. Overconfidence in the previous day’s bombardment led officers to conclude that enemy resistance would be minimal and that the allied troops would need their shovels and full 50-pound packs to reinforce captured German positions. General Sir Henry Rawlinson had given the command that the infantry should advance toward the enemy at a walking pace, in evenly spaced lines, some evidence suggests that this command was ignored. German soldiers would later report that the offensive looked more like a mass suicide than an assault, writing that they didn’t even have to aim, “We just fired into them, and they kept falling.” That first day marked the bloodiest battle in British history with 57,470 casualties and 19,240 deaths. Military historian John Keegan would later write, “[For the British] the battle was the greatest tragedy. . .of their national military history,” and, “marked the end of an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been recovered.” In 1914, Major-General Ernest D. Swinton was a journalist covering the front lines of the “War to End all Wars.” Exposed to a wide-ranging view of the newly deployed tactic of trench warfare; he happened upon an idea. He began to sketch out a design for an armored vehicle, mounted on tracks like the one he had seen on a Holt Tractor from the United States. Early adoption of the idea was slow with Lord Kitchener canceling one of his first meetings on the pretense that he was, “Too busy.” The introduction of slow-moving armor was a hard sell to the Gentleman Officers who placed supreme faith in the swift, mounted charge of British Cavalry. The project languished unfunded for over a month before Sir Winston Churchill in control of the Admiralty, made the unusual move of allocating money out of a Naval fund, for what he would call his, “Landships.” Swinton would later write, “Thus, at a time when the machine gun destroyer scheme had for six weeks been lying moribund at the War Office, abandoned as an impossibility, here was born on the other side of Whitehall a special organization, well supplied with the sinews of war for its support….In May [Churchill] severed his connexion with the Admiralty, though retaining an active interest in the landship project.” Tanks would eventually be deployed during the Battle of the Somme; but not until mid-September after the rains had intensified. If one were to calculate the delays in the project, the problems of cancelled meetings and intransigent officers; the tally would amount to at least 3 months. Had the idea not faced such an uphill battle; the armored “Landships” might have been available that fateful morning when the whistles blew. A German report of the psychological impact of the tank once deployed against their troops reads as follows: “The monster approached slowly, hobbling, moving from side to side, rocking and pitching, but it came nearer. Nothing obstructed it: a supernatural force seemed to drive it onwards. Someone in the trenches cried, “The Devil comes!” And that word ran down the line like lightning. Suddenly tongues of fire licked out of the armoured shine of the iron caterpillar…the English waves of infantry surged up behind the Devil’s chariot.” It’s hard not to wonder what a difference that factor could have made on the first day of July back in 1916 This Thursday, on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year, we celebrate Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, to commemorate the end of hostilities in the Great War. In the 1950s the Congress of the United States changed the name to Veterans Day to continue the extension of gratitude to Veterans of later wars; but they saved the connection to the Armistice of the Great War as a lingering message of remembrance. The lessons learned in that war were short lived; and it was little time before the sons of those fallen on Flanders Field would find themselves a long way from Tipperary, once again. The lesson of the importance of armor was quickly established by the younger men who survived going over the top and battlefield tactics and minds were changed. Except for Field Marshal Douglas Haig, who commanded the Allied Forces on the Western Front. The embittered old Commander would take his faith in mounted Cavalry to the grave. In 1926 Hage wrote that he, “Believe[d] that the value of the horse and the opportunity for the horse in the future are likely to be as great as ever. Aeroplanes and tanks are only accessories to the men and the horse, and I feel sure that as time goes on you will find just as much use for the horse—the well-bred horse—as you have ever done in the past.” One hundred years later, Staff Sergeant USMC [Ret] Jeremy Stafford walked into the famous gun room at Taran Tactical in Simi Valley, slapped his pipe roll down on the table and smiled. Stafford is well tanned after a summer working the streets of Los Angeles in an LAPD cruiser. Stout and trim, the 49-year-old veteran of the Iraq War is built like a college fastback, with shoulders as wide as a door frame. A sleek 1990s style USMC tattoo on his bicep occasionally peeks out from under the sleeve of his shirt. Unraveling a leather chord from his pouch he removed a stout, rusticated billiard […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 478! Our featured interview tonight is with novice pipe smoker Warren Byle. Warren is an IT guy that is working on a tobacco project of his own. This episode is another installment in our series of novice pipe smokers (those with 3-5 years of pipe smoking experience) that we pose seven questions to. At the top of the show, (hold onto your seats), Brian will have a surprising review of Captain Black Original. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 477! Tonight we have Rich Esserman back with us for an epic show. Rich is quite well known in the hobby. He has been smoking, collecting, and writing about pipes for over 40-years, and he is best known for collecting large-size Dunhill pipes. Last time we changed things up, and had Rich interview Brian. We are changing it up again tonight with these two experts having a conversation on various topics in pipes and tobacco. This episode will go right into the conversation, and bypass the usual Pipe Parts segment. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
I’ve been a pipe smoker since Christmas, 1966, damn nearly 46 years, now. These days, more than half the reason I smoke my pipe is all the memories it evokes: people, places, occasions, and tobaccos. Nearly every one of my pipes has some memory attached, and they all come back when I light up. I like to think I’m not overly nostalgic, but when I remember I’ve already lived over half my life, those memories can be comforting.
That’s not to say, of course, I don’t still look forward to new people, places, pipes and tobaccos.
Good article! It gives honor to the memories of the past while reminding the reader of the benefits to be had at the present. My nostalgic memories are of the delicious smells from long lost smoke-shops of my childhood.
Wonderful article, Russ. This is indeed the golden age of pipe smoking — all the more remarkable given the current climate of nanny-ism and government restriction. Despite the barriers placed before us, this hobby has grown thanks to the creativity and dedication of folks like you, and the new avenues of commerce opened to us by media like PipesMagazine
Back in the late seventies there were three tobacconists in Berkeley, over a dozen in San Francisco. And several blends (Dobie’s Four Square, as just an example) that were available everywhere. Now there are no tobacconists in Berkeley, only a few stores that sell pipe tobacco in SF. But on the other hand, there are things available now that back in 1978 I could not have dreamed of. These are the best of times. Well, except for smoking in public, that is. Earthmoms hate me.
Your articles are as fine as your tobaccos, Russ, and that is high praise indeed. I first started pipe smoking in 1969 and have never gotten more pleasure out of it than I have now. We are so fortunate to have the internet and all the fine merchandisers on it. I also think it’s a golden age for blenders; you, Greg Pease, Mike and Mary McNeil, John Patton, and the late Craig Tarler and Bob Runowski, R.I.P.
It’s sad to see so many smoke shops fold up. I never had any close by as I lived in a small town in MO but I know a lot of other places have been hit hard. Right now to find one I have to go to Kansas City (100 miles), St. Louis (170 miles), or to my favorite, Just For Him in Springfield (160 miles). The internet has been a real blessing to me. Not just for products but for information. Thanks again for your wonderful article, Russ, and for your fantastic blends.
Smokey Strodtman
I also began pipe smoking in 1960’s. Largely because My Dad and my Uncle smoked, and I loved the aroma, and the great pleasure they derived from relaxing moments with a pipe. To this day, memories linger in the aromas. I guess for me, it’s a way to stay in touch with them. I quit cigarette smoking back in the 90’s, so along with that went the pipe. For a couple years I dabbled with cigars. And, although they are fine, like Russ mentioned in the article, I just came back to pipes – where I am truly at home. I love to relax at the lake, in the desert, by the campfire or on the patio, and savor the taste, blow some smoke rings, and enjoy the memories. Long may your pipe smoke.
Russ
Nice article. As I travel I enjoy finding the pipe shop or shops in the towns I visit; like The Country Squire (Jackson , Ms), Tobacco Corner (Memphis) or Ye Olde Tobacco Shop (Savannah). I especially like to listen to the old guys (older than my 54 years) talk and reminisce.
Thanks
Dan