SOMETHING ABOUT TEETH

Half a year before the United States entered the war, my dad went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. As he put it later, he wanted to fight the war sitting down. Which, as a bomber pilot for three years, he did. Substantially. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I fully appreciated what that took. Flying over Germany while someone else was trying to put anti-aircraft fire up your behind would have left me clenching for the next twenty years.

Which does not explain why I had his pipes re-stemmed after he gave them to me.

That was a sharp corner tooth. And a few decades.

Being quite neurotic, I concentrated on having a gentle mouth-grip on my pipes, especially after I found out that replacing them when we lived in the Netherlands took six months and meant that a pipe factory would do a crappy job on such things, sanding down the shank and redrilling it just to fit one of their factory stems into the briar. Which horrid butcher job, to my surprise, they charged and arm and a leg for. Here in the United States we are luckier in that regard, as there are still slightly over half a dozen repair guys active, but Russ who worked in Hayward passed away two decades ago, and for a long time he was the best there was.

I have carved a few of my own stems. Not having the proper equipment, it was a laborious effort. So I will emphasize the necessity for a gentle grip. You are relocating your kittens.
Not chomping through the steel bars to get at the juicy diver.
Mmm, fresh red meat! Delicious.

SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND

Of the pipes he gave me in the last months of his life, I only smoke three semi-regularly. The others are carefully put away because they bring back memories, and they still possess the fragrance of his tobacco, despite my having borrowed them when he went off on a two week vacation to London with Marianne, and my smoking Balkan Sobranie in them while he was gone. He had a wonderful two weeks. I had a wonderful two weeks. Some of the funds for household expenses and food went, as you would expect, for good pipe tobacco.
Teenagers desperately need a supply of good pipe tobacco.


Many of my fondest memories of growing up involve tea and pipe tobacco. Tea time is the respite from the day, a welcome pause for either a meal or just a stimulating hot beverage that lends one more energy and time to gather one's thoughts again. And, with a bowl of tobacco, one is happily fortified for the next several hours.


I've recently sent a Sasieni Billard out for a brand new mouthpiece (the original has a goofy moisture baffle stuck in the tenon, which that company was quite proud of), and I'm keen to see what the repair man does. He's actually quite good. So it should be splendid.
The pipe looks like something someone would smoke in the Fifties.
Which is, in fact, the era in which it was made.

May have to shave it down a bit.
I have a soft grip.



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