Codger Encounter

[eightywon]

Having dinner in a small town grill I spotted a gentleman sitting in his truck smoking a pipe. I decided to go out and introduce myself. I asked him what he was smoking and he said Captain Black. He immediately seemed interested in talking with me and told me he used to smoke Mixture 79 until it got too expensive. He had been smoking a pipe for 35 years. He was puffing on a Dr. Grabow with quite a bit of cake and said he smoked the same pipe all day everyday until it was unsmokable and only then would he get another one. The only tobacco I had on me at the moment was some Prince Albert which he didn't care for, and some GH Dark Flake Unscented, which he never heard of but happily accepted as a sample. That's all.

 

[mso489]

That was an encounter with the soul of pipe smoking in the United States. He's the last of a breed. My dad was

the same way, one pipe at a time, quite a bit of cake, always smoked Granger, from just after breakfast until

he went to bed at night. Most of those old codger blends are better than their reputations, and they've kept going

for a century or more in many cases. As I like to remember, my dad died in 2006 at age 89 licensed to drive without

glasses. I took him to his last driver's license eye exam. A widower, he was admiring one of the women at the front

of the room, who was just a few years younger than him, commenting on her for being quick on her feet (for her age) which

was true.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Dark Flake unscented? I would have told you tha same thing to get some free DFu. Ha ha, JK. Great experience. I have a codger friend too who only smokes PA. He thinks I'm weird for buying pipes and different tobaccos also.

 

[warren]

Look around! This place is over-loaded with codgers. You might not be meeting them face to face but, they are here.

 

[eightywon]

Yeah it would've been cool to sit down with the guy and smoke a bowl and listen to some stories. Unfortunately the encounter was pretty short-lived. Won't even ever know what he thought of the DFU. After 35 years of Mixture 79 and CB I'm not sure he's going to be into it. Hoping the vitamin N doesn't knock him over.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I don't think any of you guys fall into what I think of as the "codger" category. I think of a codger as an old guy with his one pipe, one blend found behind the counter of the local drug store. We're just old guys with a little more pinache.

 

[phil67]

Sounds like my great uncle from back in the mid 1950's. Sane pipe... same tobacco all day although I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I do however remember it smelled fantastic to me when I was a youngster and I always liked to be near him when he was smoking, which was always!

 

[mso489]

'Met an old guy, in his nineties, at a rehab center where my wife was getting through a hip replacement revision.

This guy had trusted a friend to ream his pipes and the friend had ruined them all. Be warned. So I bought him

a cob. First he complained the bowl was too small, but next time I saw him, he beamed, saying it was a great

pipe. Some months later, I bought him a briar pipe. The Tinder Box guy asked me if I'd lost my pipe. I laughed,

and explained. The old guy had started his career selling Dodge cars at a dealership and later sold big eighteen

wheeler tractors. He had some great yarns. A little confused now and then. Caught speeding in his electric

wheelchair, but heck, he'd sold Dodges and big trucks for a living. I'm afraid he's gone now, but I enjoyed

enabling his pipe habit. He was a Prince Albert guy. I gave him one or two other blends, but PA was what he liked.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

We should really be creating facilities for us old smokers to go when the family has to put us away. We could make each room with a pipe rack and locker for our tobaccos, and pipe rests on our wheel chairs. Someplace where we can all spend our last days smoking away our hoards of tobaccos. A few nurses wearing skimpy nurses outfit would help. Maybe we can get the pipe industry to pitch in and get the place started. It'd probably have to be in Deep South though.

 

[peteguy]

That is a great story. Love meeting pipe smokers out and about.
Last year I worked with a gentleman on a project for two months. Near the end of our stint he saw a pipe on the console of my truck. I don't smoke at work but had come in on a rare day off. He said he had a pipe but didn't smoke much. I asked him to bring it in and let me have a look at it. The next day he showed me a Peterson system pipe that was damn near un-smoked. He left that day with a new cob and 3 more blends to try.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Ha ha!! Perfect!

 

[papipeguy]

I don't know at what age one becomes a codger but I've been smoking pipes for over 44 years. I'm pretty sure I'm a couple of rungs up the ladder.

 

[layinpipe]

Mmmmmmmmm, Dark Flake Unscented. Love the stuff. Nice story, thanks for sharing!

 

[prndl]

real codgers don't "clench".
they "gum".

 

[plateauguy]

Sounds like my grampa Wallace. 1 pipe, 1 blend (George Washington). Lord, I miss that man! Glad you had such a great encounter.

 

[foggymountain]

"Mildly eccentric and usually old." That is the definition I just got. It seems to me that it fits almost half of us.

 

[mso489]

I'm usually old, but some days are better than others, foggy. I won't certify to "mildly."

 

[mortonbriar]

i like codger stories, thanks.

We have this photo of my wife as a baby being held by her Opa, and he has his pipe tucked into his watchband. I am fairly definite it was his one pipe used all day every day, whenever I see that photo i think it would have been great to have met him and shared a bowl of whatever OTC tobacco he was loyal to.

 

[woodsroad]

Cosmic and Sparks, I love the idea of a pipe smoker's home. We'll need some of these, of course:

 

[peckinpahhombre]

:rofl: