I normally gift myself with a Christmas Pipe every year and save it to light up for the first time when Christmas morning rolls around. But for this year’s Christmas Pipe, I decided to select one from my own collection that I had not smoked for a long time, figuring that I’d give one of my old forgotten pipes a little love for Christmas. For those of us who are more seasoned pipe smokers (okay, those of us who are old), this Christmas story is probably similar to one of your own, although yours may not be a Christmas pipe story. I’m talking about when you decide to pull out a pipe you have not smoked in months or years for no reason other than just to get reacquainted with it. I don’t get that urge very often because the only pipes that remain in my Lazy Susan racks are mostly the ones I enjoy smoking regularly. However, on occasion, for whatever reason, I may go a long period of time without smoking a particular chunk of briar even though I have no particular reason for not having removed it from reserve to active duty status. It just happens. I’ll get back to this thought in a moment.
After many years of having gone overboard with my PAD (Pipe Acquisition Disorder), I decided a decade or so ago to get a handle on my shameful disorder. So, I went through my collection and selected – after many hours of stressful pondering – what I felt like were my top 36 smoking pipes and put them in a couple of 18-hole Lazy Susan style racks (the photo to your left). I keep those racks in a glass enclosed case which is a part of my smoking cabinet where I keep all kinds of smoking related items. I then took the dozen or so pipes that I don’t smoke but are special to me for various reasons and put them away in a drawer in my shop. Over the years as I was pulling pipes out of my top-36 and replacing them with better smokers, I’d take the banished pipes and put them in a drawer, too. And now I’m up to three or four drawers full of banished pipes and have expanded my elite “smokers” to include a third Lazy Susan 18-hole pipe rack. Good Lord, how does one get rid of PAD? I think it’s incurable!
I admit that one of the pipes that I have always kept in the top 36 – okay, now the top 54 – is an old Duca Barla bent billiard that my wife gave to me as a Christmas gift back when we were dating over 20-years ago. Don’t tell her this but I tried smoking that pipe a dozen times over the years and each time I determined that Hell itself could not burn hotter. Whenever she sees that pipe, which thankfully isn’t often, she’ll ask how her pipe is doing. I always say, “smoking as good as it did the day you gave it to me, honey,” which I figure isn’t really a lie because it didn’t smoke “good” the first time I smoked it and it still doesn’t smoke “good.” That must mean the pipe still smokes “as good” as the day she gifted it to me, right?
Now, back to my original Christmas story; a couple of weeks ago as I was going through my pipe racks to select a pipe to smoke on Christmas morning, I stopped swirling the Lazy Susan’s when I got dizzy and right in front of me was my birth year (1952), Dunhill that I had gotten off of eBay several years ago. It is a patent era Tanshell that needed refurbishing. So, I sent it off to the very talented professional pipe maker and refurbisher Tim West. It came back in beautiful condition. The stem was shiny black, but has again dulled a little over the years of just sitting in my pipe rack. This is a photo of that pipe. Not a favorite shape of mine, but it was made the year that I was born, and besides, I’m no longer in my favorite shape either! Anyway, I’ve not smoked that pipe in the several years that I’ve owned it and am not sure why. So, I pulled it out of the rack and will smoke it for the first time later this morning as I sit in front of our Christmas Tree watching the wife and a couple of my children and their families as they open their gifts. I am hopeful that 71-year old Dunhill performs at that age better than I do!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all,
Steve
