Where we left off was on 6th Ave. in NYC, after a pipe shop clerk threw me an inexpensive, probably basket, pipe and a pouch of aromatic tobacco, the detected aroma of which still turns my stomach 60 years later. Such is the power of smells to penetrate deeply. What remained at that point was for me to find an opportunity to smoke and test the two. That, I would do in my dorm room upstate.
If you are young and did not experience those days, and the reference somewhat surprises, be aware that you could not only smoke in a dorm room, you could smoke in a hospital room. You could smoke in elevators and buses. You could probably smoke while operating over an open wound, with the cigarette’s ashes falling into the gap. Who knows, might have been the best thing for the patient.
Remember, I was barely 18 years old and looked even younger than that, so rather than walking around campus looking preposterous and affected, I planned on sticking to my room when puffing. It’s possible that a self image arose of me sitting at the desk, lit pipe in mouth and school books open. As it was pipe smoking never did intrude on my study habits. Nothing intruded on my study habits; I had no study habits. No doubt the reason for my expulsion at the end of the semester…no calamitous event, I assure you. The real problem was the pipe and mostly the tobacco taste. If that acrid taste was to be the outcome of pipe smoking, it was a practice that was going to have to continue without me aboard. I gave that pipe and tobacco combination two or three tries and no one of them was more satisfying than any of the others. Now, I’m not a quitter, unless the going gets tough, so I thought to give this plan of mine one more chance, and why and how I came to that conclusion evades my recall these 6 decades later. I had never smoked anything so it was not a habit or a way of emulating any cool people I envied. It was just one of those improbable decisions, seemingly out of thin air, that people make about their lives…like deciding to become a proctologist I suppose.
“M Street,” shorthand for the school’s nearby shopping stretch, contained an all-purpose store that sold some pipes, a selection of pipe tobacco tins, blue jeans and other sundries that people not named Marty Pulvers bought. With no bulk tobaccos in small clear plastic bags to confuse me I was going to be forced to made a choice of just one from a multiple of tins. It was here that I displayed the keen aptitude that undoubtedly encouraged the school to accept me as one of theirs (for a limited time…they eventually woke up, didn’t they?). It was, I understood, a do or die situation; one more tongue searing and it would be good-bye pipe smoking. As my eyes and brain functioned in a tandem worthy of an astrophysicist searching for ETs, it was clear that all of those tins were the product of clever, artistic, deceptive and seductive practices. All except one tin…it was Irish. No graphic art skills employed there. Nothing clever was going on, one could be confident of that. Nothing deceptive or seductive either. This outstanding looking tin (in the strict sense of that word…it stood out) was colored graveyard gray, with simple black letters: “Gallaher’s (not Gallagher’s. Don’t make that mistake) Guaranteed Pure Latakia Tobacco. Gallaher’s Ltd., Belfast & London.”
Gallaher’s (may their tribe increase) Latakia presented new and strange horizons with its very name. It evoked no thoughts or dreams or drool from my salivary glands. But the simple message of purity, the extreme confidence exuded by the absence of pretty and alluring colors, made me think “if they don’t have to draw you in with Madison Avenue bullshit, it must be that the tobacco in the tin is what does the selling. That’s the part that has to be good in this case.” Summa Cum Laude quality thinking? Worthy of a MacArthur Grant? Hard to say. But unlike a lot of the effort that ensues from people on those stratospheric planes we can take a look at what that cogitation wrought here.
Managing once again, with a will power reminiscent of a real Achilles, I eschewed the school work calling my name and opened up this new tin and took a look, pure black, took a smell, pure smoke, and took a puff. Pure Eden.
For some of us, the predilection for Latakia is innate. It’s a wonderful genetic inheritance. Sure I might never be a student. Sure I might get expelled at the end of the semester. (Yeah…they tried that mean trick on me twice. I outlasted the buggers.) But I would be a pipe smoker. A much better prospect with a much longer shelf life.
A word to all those concerned about the West Coast Pipe Show scheduled for Nov. 6th & 7th at The Palace Station Hotel in Las Vegas. Concern, and the deluge of inquiries, has grown since Chicago has been cancelled. Here is the latest scoop on the Vegas show and it’s easy to follow. The show will go on if, by the very beginning of Sept., all of the restrictions on gathering together are lifted. It’s that simple. If we can get together as we have in the past, there will be a show the first weekend of Nov. Thus, don’t call or write to me or Steve O’Neill. Don’t offer to make reservations…nobody wants to do all the paperwork taking payment and then all the paperwork to return it, if necessary. Use your noodle. Pay attention to the doings in Nevada. The action the state takes will determine whether we can proceed. We need to know by Sept. 1st. in order to attend to all the details. Learning in Oct. that a show would be possible is too impossibly late.
Later news: I saw a headline today (May 4th) that says “New York Region Preparing to Lift Nearly All Limits.”
If that’s the case with New York, can Nevada be far behind? Remember, we need all restrictions to be lifted by Sept. 1st for the West Coast Show to go on. We can be cautiously optimistic. I think that’s the stance to take.