The year was 2002, if memory serves, and I was on the cusp of a journey to a wonderful land. It is a land sparsely populated with wise, thoughtful people, a group whose number I gladly joined and among whom I've dwelt ever since. It is the Land of Pipe Smokers.
My father and I had taken my grandmother on a field trip to her home. She was living in an "assisted living center" at the time, and we thought a trip to the old home place would be just what the doctor prescribed. The validity of our observations I will not discuss, except to reference the old saying: "You can never go
home."As she was in another room with my dad, going through closets and drawers, searching for happier days, I was rummaging through a dresser drawer full of things long forgotten. In that drawer, I found a pipe that had belonged to my grandfather. He had been a pipe smoker in his earlier days; I remember cans of Sir Walter Raleigh sitting around their house. I pocketed the pipe with little else planned except to take possession of a missing part of my past.
The pipe sat around for a number of weeks. I noticed a faint voice occasionally calling to me from the direction of my grandpa's old pipe. I didn't understand the language of pipes then, but intuition told me it wanted to be smoked. Not knowing what else to do, I went to Walgreen's and purchased a pouch of Captain Black.
My initial pipe experience was like many initial experiences that later prove to be enjoyable: it was fraught with mistakes and unpleasantness, rooted in ignorance. Undaunted, I set out to educate myself on the wisdom of pipes and pipe smoking.
(Pictured: Peterson Aran 80S, Shape: Bent Rhodesian; one of my collection)
To be continued...
