In 1982 I was finishing my last year in college and my mom and dad came for a visit in October. I was living in an old shotgun apartment that was built in the 1890’s for the miners who mined the “Richest Hill on Earth”, Butte, Montana. Mom and dad stayed in a hotel for the night then dropped by in the morning to have breakfast. After breakfast we were to drive to the Jefferson River where dad and I would fish, mom would knit, and then that afternoon we’d go to the Lewis and Clark caverns to tour the cave.
Dad saw a pipe sitting on my kitchen table in an ashtray atop a mix of dark ash and unspent tobacco. Alongside the ashtray was a pack of cigarettes. Dad asked, “So are you taking up pipe smoking?” I said that I’d been smoking a pipe for a couple of years but that it was hard on my tongue and mouth and so I only smoked a bowl a couple times a week. He pulled out his pipe and emptied a fine grey ash into the ashtray alongside my ash pile.
He asked me what I was smoking. I brought him a baggie of a blend I bought at the tobacco store called “Jubilee”, an aromatic blend of dark and light tobaccos - bought out of a jar in the bulk tobacco bins. Since I can remember dad always smoked Sir Walter Raleigh out of one of his Kaywoodie pipes. I acted the expert and said that Jubilee didn’t burn like SWR, I pointed to the two ash piles in the ashtray. Dad asked if it was ok if he loaded his bowl with my brand? “Of course, go ahead,'' I said.
Mom and I worked on breakfast while dad read the paper smoking his pipe. I noticed he lit, tamped and relit. I noticed he didn’t relight his pipe the whole time we were cooking. He just sat there slowly puffing and reading and sharing the things he read out of the paper, chuckling or looking astonished by the news.
My experience with the pipe up to this point was to stuff it, light it up, take a few puffs, relight, take a few puffs, relight! I noticed my method in comparison to dads was like comparing a freight train to a stick of incense.
After breakfast, dad grabbed his pipe, tamped it, relit and smoked the remaining tobacco in the bowl while mom and I cleaned up and got ready to go. When dad finished his pipe, he emptied the ashes alongside my pile and it was as grey as the ash he emptied earlier. He noticed I noticed and then said, “grab your pipe and tobacco, and leave those cigarettes where they lay.” We jumped into my VW, he acting as copilot.
The three days they visited dad taught me how to load, light, tamp. He taught me that slow is good and fast is bad. He taught me to savor the flavor and change my habit of burning it up in 15 minutes versus drawing it out for over an hour. My ash piles became more ash than spent tobacco.
The day my parents left for home, after dinner, I smoked a bowl reminiscing about our visit and that was my first ultimate bowl. It was in a pipe and tobacco dad left me, a “broke in” bulldog Kaywoodie filled with Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco. Also, when he left, he gave me another piece of advice, “treat your woman like how you smoke your pipe, nice and easy does it every time!” This month my wife and I celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary!
