Truer than True, a Thing or Two
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Fred Brown - Sep 1, 2022
- 5 min read
Call me an Anglophile. That’s okay. I become all misty-eyed when I think of the British Isles. Now, don’t get Pundit wrong, I’ve visited France and Germany and enjoyed tripping about in these destinations as well, especially Paris. We will always have Paris, kid!
But when I consider the pipe community connections to Great Britain, as well as family ancestry, it just puts a lump in the throat.
And our pipe history, of course, has consequential connections to the Indigenous people of America. Tobacco was in use by Native Americans ages before Europeans discovered the luscious leaf.
Here are a couple of links you can check out to bone up on your pipe smoking history. Just sayin’.
https://www.fumerchic.com/en/content/17-the-origins-of-the-smoking-pipe
https://www.tobaccopipes.com/blog/tobacco-pipes-history-looking-back/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_smoking#History
The European influence, as well as the Native American tobacco history, has huge meaning for us today.
Native Americans were smoking tobacco leaf eons before our European brethren found out about the pleasures of pipe tobacco puffing.
And then there is our link to the Revolutionary War era when farmers planted tobacco and puffed away in inns and taverns.
Our relations, both personal and global, with Europe, however, serve us so well today.
Just think of our many hand-carved pipe purchases or else manufactured in Europe, giving us some of the finest smoking instruments on the planet.
What has me thinking about my pipe collection is that 99.9 percent were crafted by European artisans. Not to say that I ignored our fabulous American pipe makers. Indeed, some of my finer smokers are American-made.
Now, before you run screaming out the door, let Pundit explain a bit.
I am enamored of Sir Winston Churchill, the famous cigar smoker, and an occasional pipe puffer. I’ve mentioned my fascination with the man who “took the English language” to war in WWII in this space many times.
But other influential Europeans have also guided my pipe buying decisions, such as authors C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, the ground-breaking philosopher, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, of course, and the list could continue into the night, if you get the Pundit’s drift.
Not to be overlooked, of course, is the ultimate pipe-smoking maestro of the written word, Mark Twain, who consumed cigars and pipe tobacco in massive quantities and wrote some of the finest fiction and non-fiction in our literary history.
If you’ve never visited the Twain home in Hannibal, Mo., then that is a shrine you need to put on your bucket list. The Pundit wanted to move to Hannibal after a visit.
Let’s not forget the Southern iconic author William Faulkner who loved his Dunhill 965 tobacco and Prince Albert when he depleted his 965 stash.
And of course, the Pundit has visited Faulkner’s idyllic farm home near Oxford, Miss. Took the requisite tour and was astounded to see the Nobelist author’s tweed coat hanging on a hook in a hallway.
A docent told me they found a pipe and a can of Prince Albert in the coat and left it hidden in the pocket.
You know the Pundit asked to search the pocket, but the docent turned a cautious eye toward me and shook his head in a vigorous, unmistakable, and resounding, “no!”
So, where is all this leading? Glad you asked!
Europe for the Pundit, who has visited many an American military cemetery in France, is special. Here lie American soldiers who gave up all for freedom.
Plus there is nothing that quite matches a walk down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. And then stopping off at Sandy Bell’s famous folk pub.
The Pub, which is like a social club in Scotland (you pick your Pub early in life and mostly stay with it to the end), is just the place for a pipe, and ale or stronger, and a song. Traditional music from the United Kingdom, and Ireland, of course.
But a wee dram or a pint or two will do ye. And, for goodness sakes, don’t attempt to drink it up with the pros. You lose every time.
As living proof, I tried to learn the bodhran, an ancient Celtic drum that takes some bouncy rhythm thing in your bones to play well. All the while, clenching a new Peterson Pipe with some very strong leaf.
Add too much Guinness Extra Stout and you will be hobbled like a Colorado cowboy lassoing a wild calf on the plain.
Walking in the sunshine the other morn, with pipe firmly clamped, these thoughts began rummaging around in my pipe dreaming mind.
You get the picture. But it is also fond to recall younger days, traveling, walking, and now today having to find sunny morns for pipe and footfalls.
Pipes hold treasured memories and that is why the Pundit is in sort of a pensive mood.
I’m going through the precious collection and wondering what to do. A nagging notion has invaded the Pundit’s thoughts.
Perish the thought of selling some of the precious herd! But, what to do?
I thought I would never reach a stage in life to think of such a thing as parting with a single pipe. I still have my first pipe, as well as my last purchase.
The herd is well over 200 pipes today. In all these 45-plus years of smoking my beloved pipes, I have only traded one for a new pipe, which I regret to this day.
I rummage through my pipes like you would a family photo album. You recall places and times, smiling faces, birthday events, weddings, births, vacations, and on and on.
That’s the way it has become for me and my collection. Each pipe springs forth a memory long ago lost at a crossroads.
Pundit may be pushed into parting with a few of his pipe treasures just to thin out the herd for future purchases, perhaps, or having to downsize in other areas of life, i.e. books, newspapers, magazines, do-dads, etc.
Mayhaps pensive is too soft a word for my thoughts on this crossroads of time and pipes. I leave you with the Bard’s thoughts on challenges and future decisions:
Friar Laurence is advising Romeo, who wants to hurry to Juliet and the wise Franciscan tells the anxious Romeo he must go wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast–Act II, Scene III, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
And now a parting thought from one of the great pipe-smokers and children’s book authors, who knew a truer than true thing or two about a word or two, Theodor Seuss Geisel. Better known as Dr. Seuss, Geisel was born March 2, 1904, Springfield, Mass., and died Sept. 24, 1991, San Diego, Calif.:
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
Photo by Fred Brown
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.
