THE CONTEMPLATIVE TYPES

The problem with the pipe club, as everyone will acknowledge, is that the members are mostly middle-aged men with a certain gravitas, instead of bright sprightly young things at college, who are female. Or attractive post-graduates fighting male dominance in their field.
There are hardly any of those.
None, actually.

The image of a slim tweedy girl with an elegant briar disquisitioning brightly over sherry and a bowl of mellow Virginia leaf is a chimera.
If you expected to find her and her kin at the monthly meeting of the pipe club, sadly you will be disappointed.

There was something that looked like sherry, which I did not sample, so it may have been a distillate from Islay or Speyside. And most members are clean-shaven. So from a distance they might have fooled you.

Two kinds of salami.
And hummus.


One member was in Austin, Texas, and another was in Boston, in the attic.
The first only temporarily, the second near-permanently.

One of the members bought a tin of something ancient.
It smelled rather wonderful. Well-aged.
I hope he brings it by.


On Tuesday and Wednesday I shall be smoking by myself.
Recovering from the whirling and tumult.

TOBACCO INDEX


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