I am 38 years old and have smoked pipes these past 16 years. I've long envied those who inherited the pastime from a father or grandfather or uncle. With all due respect to those of you for whom a pipe is just a pipe, I myself am nostalgic enough to associate the pipe with times and places and people whom I wish that I had known well enough to miss. Standing in a line with some who'd enjoyed the pipe before me would have meant a little something.
But I didn't come by pipes in that way. I came by pipes from a photograph on the back of my mother's 1970s paperback of The Fellowship of the Ring -- there sat Mr. Tolkien with a billiard in his teeth, and my 13 year old self thought that was pretty cool. "I won't smoke," I told my anti-tobacco parents, "but if I do, it'll be a pipe." And here we are.
My great-grandfather -- my mother's father's father -- was an Italian immigrant who'd married a Flemish girl, and he was famous among his great-grandchildren for magic tricks and cracker jacks. We called him GiGi Papa, and he taught me to play the harmonica. (After he passed away in 2001 -- I was 15 at the time, singing hymns by his bedside with the rest of the family -- we rummaged around his house and my Papa, his son, found his old Hohner Marine Band. I still have it.)
Fast-forwarding 23 years, my Papa went to be with his dad last year, and my Nana just now moved 1,400 miles to an assisted living place a couple hours from me. The other week I took a couple of the kids to visit her. She regaled us with all sorts of family history, but particularly interesting to me was the revelation that her father-in-law -- my GiGi Papa -- had smoked a pipe! I couldn't believed it -- the heritage I'd wished I had, I did have after all. (To a degree. I have no memories of him smoking a pipe, but I'll take what I can get.)
I called my mom on the way home, hoping for any leads as to the whereabouts of GiGi Papa's pipe or pipes. I came up empty, but she promised to ask around the relations for me. Here's hoping.
But I didn't come by pipes in that way. I came by pipes from a photograph on the back of my mother's 1970s paperback of The Fellowship of the Ring -- there sat Mr. Tolkien with a billiard in his teeth, and my 13 year old self thought that was pretty cool. "I won't smoke," I told my anti-tobacco parents, "but if I do, it'll be a pipe." And here we are.
My great-grandfather -- my mother's father's father -- was an Italian immigrant who'd married a Flemish girl, and he was famous among his great-grandchildren for magic tricks and cracker jacks. We called him GiGi Papa, and he taught me to play the harmonica. (After he passed away in 2001 -- I was 15 at the time, singing hymns by his bedside with the rest of the family -- we rummaged around his house and my Papa, his son, found his old Hohner Marine Band. I still have it.)
Fast-forwarding 23 years, my Papa went to be with his dad last year, and my Nana just now moved 1,400 miles to an assisted living place a couple hours from me. The other week I took a couple of the kids to visit her. She regaled us with all sorts of family history, but particularly interesting to me was the revelation that her father-in-law -- my GiGi Papa -- had smoked a pipe! I couldn't believed it -- the heritage I'd wished I had, I did have after all. (To a degree. I have no memories of him smoking a pipe, but I'll take what I can get.)
I called my mom on the way home, hoping for any leads as to the whereabouts of GiGi Papa's pipe or pipes. I came up empty, but she promised to ask around the relations for me. Here's hoping.
