CONSIDERING THE INNOCENCE OF CHILDHOOD

When my brother moved to Tilburg to study, I would have the house to myself during the afternoon between coming home from school and my father returning from work. A period of a few hours, often happily occupied by a pot of strong tea, Brecht-Weill operas on the player, and my pipe.
All of which both encouraged homework, and slowed doing it down.

I seldom bothered with the algebra and physics assignments; I knew the teacher of those subjects would have me do them on the blackboard the next day, hoping to catch me up. So I took pride in solving the problems on the fly as he watched and ground his teeth, knowing that I hadn't even looked at them before. I was very rarely wrong.

What he didn't know was that I had already read all of my textbooks at the beginning of the school year, looking for surprises and new things.

The English teacher was permanently pissed at my horrid American habits, but we had talked to him, explaining that other than the BBC pronunciation, there was absolutely bugger-all he could teach me, because I was a native speaker of the language, reading at college level, reasonably conversant with literature, and trying to fail me for Americanisms was hardly cricket. The Dutch and German teachers despaired of ever getting my attention, automatically gave me top grades, and just tried to ignore me.
French and Latin were both failing grades.
Boring subjects.

My biology teacher was taken aback by the fact that I already knew it all.
We had advanced biology and nature texts at home, and I had spent many happy hours with my father's scientific encyclopedia.

In short, I was an insufferable smarty pants.

I would have disliked myself.

This morning while enjoying my first pipe, I was reminded of all that. As well as the times my father took a bath. You see, when he had the bathroom re-done, he had a broad ledge put in next to the tub. So that he would have a place for the tea tray, ashtray, newspaper, and a book.

The upstairs living room ("the hay loft") with the record player was just beyond the bathroom. Occasionally he'd holler from there that I should change the damned record, because having to hear die Dreigroschenoper and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny over and over again was driving him up the wall. Very well then, I'll put on something "lighter".

Der Zigeunerbaron. It's nice and sprightly.

After attending to the change in music, I'd sit down, grab my book, and load up another pipe.



Young man with a pot of tea and a pipe. Surrounded by books in English and German operas. In Holland.



I still drink tea and smoke a pipe, but I have possibly more Dutch books than we ever had when I was growing up. My musical tastes have grown a bit, though I sometimes catch myself singing something nasty in German under my breath. I am not a musical man. I like a pleasing noise, with lots of bouncy plonk plonk plonk, and lyrics that tend toward bloody mindedness.

When I lived in Holland, I smoked Amphora tobacco occasionally, but vastly preferred sooty English mixtures. A few years ago when STG started selling it in the United States I tried it again. Not bad. Quite smokable.

But if I were stuck in Siberia, it would do.
It's actually okay.

TOBACCO INDEX


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