There is a cup on my desk that holds pens, pencils, odds and ends and a few old pipes I used to smoke when I was much younger. I didn’t really want to smoke a pipe, but it was what men did that I looked up to, so I tried to emulate them.
Smoking a pipe is an acquired taste. Unlike smoking cigarettes, smoking a pipe is an ordeal: you need to find a pipe that’s just the right weight, shape and composition (a distinctive grained briar). Then it has to be stuffed every time you want to smoke – lighting a pipe with old tobacco in it, is one of the worst, bitterest, biting, taste you can experience. That means you have to carry tobacco with you and keep it fresh, and that means, a pouch.
My dad smoked a pipe when I was growing up. He smoked several blends: Half and Half and Cherry Blend. I remember large tins of tobacco sitting on the coffee table, the kind that were supposed to look as though they belonged on a coffee table, complete with a self-opening top.
I can still smell the cherry Blend if I close my eyes and think back.
There was something cool …no, natural, about a man standing in a stream, fly rod under his arm, lighting a fresh bowl of tobacco, then working the fly rod as he gripped the pipe in his teeth, occasionally letting a puff of smoke escape from his mouth. Or walking through a grouse covert, following a bird dog, both hands on his shotgun with a pipe in his mouth, smoke circling his brimmed hat.
Of course, today, we know better. Smoking sent a lot of people to an early grave, but then, so did bacon …don’t worry Seamus, I only gave up smoking.
TD