Happy New Pipe Year!
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Fred Brown - Jan 3, 2023
- 4 min read
Now, don’t take this the wrong way. The Pundit starts each new year with a new cob. It’s been a custom since the beginning of time. Call it a cob addiction, or a demanding obsession to start the season off on the right path.
See, the lowly corncob pipe is just a delightful way to become familiar with all those new blends you bought for Christmas, and you have yet to smoke in your precious fresh and new briar purchases.
And although cobs are a bit like the old comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, who didn’t “get no respect,” the cob is just the pipe for the job. It will take everything you throw at it, and then some. It never falls flat on its face, like the aforementioned Pundit.
Look at the cob as a cheap meerschaum. You can’t bang it up. You can’t scratch it. Even if you carve the bowl rim, you still haven’t hurt it.
You smoke until you can’t, smoke it again, and again, and then toss. Get new cob!
But the poetic part of this is that the cob just keeps getting better and better until it doesn’t, which could take years. . . . unless you lose it—like the aforementioned Pundit.
And if fate should strike, you just haul out another cob and keep on a-puffing.
You can thank the Pundit later for this first-of-the-year tip. And it’s a tip that keeps on giving, as they say in hype land.
And just to show that the Pundit walks the walk and puffs the puff, he owns roughly 50 cobs at last count. Some are rougher than others and some are just downright dirty and over the hill. But it’s hard to chuck an old friend, especially one that has been through the thickets with you.
You can’t go wrong with a Missouri Meerschaum from the wonderful people in Washington, Missouri, located some 50 miles west of St. Louis, on the southern banks of the Missouri River. Ah, yes, the Big Muddy, not to be confused with the Mississippi River, also referred to as the Big Muddy at times when Old Man River is up and roaring.
Can’t you just hear that old riverboat whistle blowing? And who is that on the dock near the oldest and largest manufacturer of corncob pipes?
Why, I do believe that is ol’ Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, smoking a Missouri Meer. Or, no, could be, looks like, it is Mark Twain! He’s holding a cob standing beside two of his finest creations.
You can find the Twain, Sawyer, and Finn pipes in Missouri Meerschaum Hannibal Collection on the company web page.
Or head over to the Corn Cob collections page and snag several (if available) of the Cornell & Diehl pipe collaborations. Like the, ahem, Pundit did early when available at SmokingPipes.com.
And having rambled this far, let’s just say, the cob company also has some tasty tobacco blends to go in those nice cobs.
Well, here we are on the cusp of a new year! The Pundit sincerely hopes all of you out there in Pipes and Tobacco World had special holidays, filled with family fun, new pipes and tobaccos, and other accouterments. Maybe a pint or two. Just sayin.’
If the Pundit has learned one lesson about the end of a year, it brings the promise of New Year’s bright future, without becoming too Pollyannish! It’s a fresh canvas for all of us. Just in time, mayhaps.
Sort of compared to Dickens the ghost of future pipes and tobaccos, or some such.
Now, exactly what is all this palaver coming down to? It’s a new year and that means looking over your precious herd, maybe weeding out here and there, and of course, adding more to the ever-growing flock of pipes.
And let’s not forget to add those new blends arriving from the finest tobacco-blending minds on the planet!
I often think of these tobacco alchemists using their mortars and pestles to grind and pulverize the finest of tobacco leaf.
Yes, the tobacco cellar will most certainly receive innumerable additions in this New Year in the Pundit cellar.
The Pundit views this time as a panorama of promise. New pipes constructed by the greatest of briar and meerschaum artists that simply boggle the mind. Artisan tobacco blenders around the world create concoctions that heretofore have not been tasted.
See, for the Pundit, the newest of this time blooms not only with hope, but also with pipes and tobacco possibilities. Blooms. Sunrises! All that sort of thing.
Now, let’s move on, shall we?
One notable for January: Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist, poet, and author Carl Sandburg.
Sandburg was born Jan. 6, 1878, in Galesburg, Ill., and died July 22, 1967, in Flat Rock, N.C., setting of the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, and National Park Service, in Henderson County, close to Asheville, N.C.
Although it is fairly well-known the famous writer smoked a pipe, the Pundit has been unable to find out much about his tobacco preferences.
Let me know if you find any information. The Pundit is a collector of old poets, doncha know!
A quote or two from the great poet:
Nothing happens unless first we dream—Carl Sandburg
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance—Carl Sandburg
Here’s to all pipe smokers and a new year. Briar and leaf, the best of the best.
Happy New Pipe Year!
Written by Fred Brown
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Ok, so it’s that time of year, as we all know. Family feasts, houses, yards, and big trees festooned with lights and dangling ornaments, just high enough to keep the cats from reaching a paw into the greenery. It’s also the time of year when your pipe-smoking-significant other makes vast hints about a new pipe. That’s to be expected since he or she was a good boy or girl during the year. Yes, ladies smoke pipes, too. Oh, you want an example? Okay, try Actress Greta Garbo, Millicent Fenwick, Mary Frith, and my late grandmother (who died when she was 93) dipped snuff and smoked a cob occasionally. So now that we have settled that the gentler side of life will puff a pipe too, let’s move on to the upcoming biggest holiday of all. Of course, that huge event is brought to us by the hefty fellow in a red suit, puffing his pipe all the way in a sled filled with presents, being led by a reindeer with a red nose. Or some such. That’s Santa Claus, of course. Becoming a bit more serious, Christmas is such a wonderful time for families and friends. It’s also quite special for pipe puffers. For many of us, this brings up a nostalgic look back to our pipe-smoking or cigar-smoking friends who have died during the current year. A great journalist pal whom I often joined in a local brick-and-mortar pipe and cigar shop. I puffed my pipe, and occasional cigar, as he enjoyed a cigar. He died in October and will be missed. On the happier side of things, Christmas is also a time when mind workers of the world renew their collections with fresh additions. Pundit included. A French passion has overtaken Pundit, from reading more Albert Camus, a heavy cigarette smoker, as were many French intellectuals of a certain time. Instead of cigarettes many of us prefer the more relaxed enjoyment of pipes for that “calm and objective judgment” in the comings and goings of the world. This brings me to French pipes. While visiting France once in the long ago, I happened by a “Tabac” shop in Paris, Tabac Des Vosges. I purchased a beauty of a Chacom bent. I also later bought a Ropp made from ancient briar. To learn more about the dawn of briar pipes and beginnings, take a peek at a well-done piece by Davin Hylton in Pipe Line on April 12, 2023, on Saint-Claude, France, the birthplace of briar. Also in the long back when, on a cold Christmas afternoon, Pundit wandered into an Atlanta bricks and mortar pipe shop to look around. There, resting in an enclosed glass counter was an exquisite Comoy. An older gent, smoking a beautiful bent, asked me if I wanted to look at that pipe. It had a $100 price tag. A college student working for a grocery store chain to help with college tuition at the time, Pundit didn’t have one hundred cents, let alone a C note! I declined and found a $5 basket pipe. A Christmas tradition had just begun. Since that early time, Pundit has made it a holiday ritual to either reward himself, or a special friend, with pipe or tobacco. A Claudio Cavicchi would be nice. Just sayin.’ And now for a couple of December-born Pipe Smokers of the Past: Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on Dec. 30, 1865, and died on Jan. 18, 1936. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble—Rudyard Kipling. Martin Van Buren, born Dec. 5, 1782, and died July 24, 1862, U.S. President, 1837-1841 As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it—Martin Van Buren. And one more note to recall a deceased World War II veteran who loved William Somerset Maugham, the author. Maugham, a pipe smoker, was born in Paris, France, on Jan. 25, 1874, and died on Dec. 16, 1965. One cool afternoon as the veteran and I talked while sitting in his backyard patio, he looked off into the distance as if studying something. Nothing in particular. Just looking. He turned to me and said if I wanted to learn about life, “read Somerset Maugham.” I did. It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know’ –W. Somerset Maugham And now a Parting Shot: Any day with an old friend with pipes and tobacco is a good day.
