Many of the men in my family smoked pipes, including my dad. But Dad's interest in pipes was fairly minimal and he wasn't much of a smoker -- although he did pick up a cigarette habit during the war that lasted until I was a little boy.
My Uncle Bob, though -- that man was a pipe smoker. Bob had been blind since age 10 (scarlet fever in the 1920s was a big deal) but never let that stop him. He went everywhere in the city (Cleveland) and across the country by public transport -- bus, train and plane -- accompanied by a series of sturdy German Shepherd guide dogs (in my life there was Paula, then Thom, then Xebec). He earned an undergrad degree in civil engineering and no fewer than three Master's degrees, including one in urban planning. He served on local, state and national commissions that gave the first considerations to making cities more accessible to folks with disabilities -- and adopting many ideas that just made them work better. He consulted with all manner of transportation issues all over the world
. His mind was amazing. If you told him what street you were starting on on, and what cross street, then drove him around, he could sound off on each building you passed, describing the architecture, the history, the various tenants and so on. He had a detailed map of Cleveland and several other cities in his head. People used to laugh when I told them that if you wanted driving directions for Cleveland, wanted to know all the best shortcuts, ask my blind Uncle Bob. The man had a WICKED sense of humor.
Bob was never without a pipe. He smoked mostly Half-and-Half(by the can-ful), but he'd try anything anyone brought him. His pockets (he always wore a waistcoat, especially this bright red wool one) were full of cleaners, and pipe nails, and matches and all that.
At home in "his chair" he mostly smoked this enormous pipe fashioned from a birch log. It was a unique thing the size of a can of Fosters beer and heaven only know how much tobacco it held. I'd had a puff or two on Dad's pipes and other uncles over the years, but when I was home from college my first Christmas away, Bob gave me the gift of a pipe. No special thing, just a straight billiard with no name on it (we'd call it a basket pipe today) but that and an envelope (seriously, a manila envelope) filled with Half-and-Half got me started. That was 1978.
A few years later, my own German Shepherd, Elsa, chewed the pipe to splinters when she was a puppy, so I don't have it anymore. (Although I do have a Stanwell that was my dad's.)
This is a great thread. I enjoy reading these reminiscences and revisiting my own.
