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Tim is right that my father took up pipe smoking, and cigars--
which I HATED, in mid-life and he did enjoy the antisocial effect it had; when
he lit up a cigar, most human beings skedaddled out of his airspace. He didn't
have to say or do anything else. Perfect! The pipe was less of a pesticide than
the cigar, particularly when he was using the aromatic pipe tobacco that was my
favorite. It was called Amphora Blue and it had an aromatherapy type of effect,
almost like what people try to achieve with incense. The pipe had a whole ritual
around it, a talent in a way, whereby you had to "get the hang of it"-- of
lighting it and of keeping it lit. The lucky thing about it is, it doesn't
explode if you do it wrong, which is probably good... (sorry...
can't help it!)(and you can always relight it, which he had to do
often as he was learning) He also loved the beauty of some of his pipes: the
burl woods can be just gorgeous when they are polished, and each pipe smoker has
a favorite shape or two (there are endless shapes of pipe bowl and of the length
of and bends in the mouthpiece that fits into the bowl, for that matter).
He even had a Calabash which I referred to as his Sherlock Holmes pipe. The
shape and size of the bowl are intensely personal and it's one of those things
that a pipe smoker has to find for himself because no one can buy one as a gift
and expect it to be used very often, as my mother found out. In any case,
smoking the pipe was sort of a meditative aid for my father, the way staring at
the ocean is for me. It provides a good background for higher thought processes.
For me, the scent of aromatic pipe tobacco has powerful memories
attached. It's part of what I collectively refer to as "Daddy-smell", along with
certain types of aftershave... And somehow, the music of Bach provides the
perfect civilized counterpoint to the pipe smoke for me, because my father
always had classical music playing in the background when he was working, at
home, and Bach's music was one of his definitions of
"civilized".
Judith
PS: Tim, if you take up the pipe, remember; Don't inhale. It's
smoked for the taste only. The smoke is far too caustic to be brought into the
lungs.
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