I was about 11 when my Grandpa Doublestein passed away. Unfortunately I was pretty self-centered at that time and I can't look back with too many memories of him. When I knew him he was a fairly old man. His didn't do a lot of talking but when he did his voice was raspy. He didn't have any of his own teeth anymore and I remember him slicing corn off the cob so that he could eat it. I remember the coffee he always had percolating in the kitchen and the way he loved sharing a German Chocolate cake with me when we celebrated our birthday's (I was supposed to be born on his but actually came into the world later in the month).
Much of what I learned about the patriarch of the Doublestein family came much later. I learned about a hard working farmer who ushered his family through the Great Depression with care. I learned about a mysterious first marriage to a woman disappeared within a year of the nuptials. I found out that my grandfather was one of the last Constable's that my hometown of Wayland ever had. How, late in the evening, he would patrol the business district with his faithful dog, Savage, making sure that all the businesses were locked up tight.
I'm still trying to learn more.
My goal this year is to buy a corn cob pipe, load it with Prince Albert and learn just a little more about this man who I barely got to know. I think I'll like it alot.
Thought you would enjoy this essay
ReplyDeleteBy Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 19, 2005; D01
It smelled like cherry or chocolate or chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Or leaves burning in the back yard in those long-ago autumns when you were still allowed to burn leaves in the back yard.
In those days, pipe smoke was a man's signature scent. It was the incense in the Church of Dad, a burnt offering to the god of domesticated masculinity, a symbol of benevolent paternalism.
A passing whiff of your father's or grandfather's brand -- Erinmore Flake, say, or Royal Yacht Mixture -- can summon vivid memories even decades after his death. Smell is a key that unlocks the vault of memory, and the rich aroma of pipe smoke conjures up a lost world of armchairs and ashtrays, humidors and dark-wood racks holding pipes with WASPy names like Dunhill and Ferndown and Hardcastle.
It was a world of wise, contemplative men who sat and smoked and read serious, leather-bound literature, as well as a world of rugged outdoorsmen, canoeists and fly fishermen and clipper ship captains who puffed their pipes as they pored over nautical charts before sailing 'round the Horn.
It was a magical world, part reality and part myth, and now it has all but disappeared, fading like smoke.
"A lot of pipe smokers have died and new ones aren't coming along," says David Berkebile, owner of Georgetown Tobacco.
"The decline has been persistent and unrelenting," says Norman Sharp, head of the Pipe Tobacco Council.
Sharp rattles off the statistics: In 1970, Americans bought 52 million pounds of pipe tobacco. In 2004, they bought less than 5 million pounds. "That's a decline of 91 percent," he says.
In a 2003 survey, the Department of Health and Human Services calculated that there are 1.6 million pipe smokers in America. The same survey revealed that there are 14.6 million pot smokers and 600,000 crack smokers, which means that if an American is smoking something in a pipe these days, it's more likely to be dope than Dunhill's Mixture 965.
But the evidence of the pipe's decline goes beyond statistics. Fifty years ago, nearly every male movie star who wanted to be taken seriously posed for PR photos smoking a pipe and looking contemplative. These days, about the only pipe smokers found in the movies are the hobbits in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
Pipe smoking is going the way of the shaving brush, the straight razor, the fedora, the Freemasons, the liberal Republican.
Maybe that's good, considering the risks of mouth cancers. But there's something charming about pipe smoking -- an appealingly retro air of reflection and relaxation, a uniquely masculine mystique that's somehow large enough to include tweedy professors and Maine hunting guides, detectives and novelists, Santa Claus and Gen. MacArthur, Albert Einstein and Popeye the Sailor Man. And, of course, the kind of father who always knew best.
I certainly hope he is incorrect about the disappearance of the Pipe Smoker. What I see personally is a lot of young guys on the forums I frequent (college age through mid-30's). And I know I'm constantly inviting men to try smoking a pipe. I believe the new breed of Pipe Smokers are of the same type as those who spurred the micro-brewing, Starbucks, and premium cigar trends of the past couple of decades. I just hope they have the staying power.
ReplyDeleteI believe they will, pipe smoking - to the fair minded has no shortfalls, and several perks. Pipe smoking calls forth nostalgia and a romanticized reminiscent view of the past, the better days. Dads and grandfathers, uncles, all gentle men, strong men, good men. The articles on blogs are abundant concerning the smell of the pipe and the memories recalled. Most honest women who ape on their hatred of cigarette smoke, admit a fondness toward the scent of a pipe. Those of us who have smoked a pipe for years, and had our predecessors as models, understand this. I have never ever heard anyone reminisce about remembering grandpa setting in his favorite chair chain smoking through a pack a day leaving the house smelling foul at the morning breakfast. Not once. It is always, "Oh, i remember loving the smell of my grandpa's pipe." And even though many of us who remember those times, are ourselves getting older, the bottom line hope for the upcoming pipe smoker is that it is just plain good and fun. I love the toys, the pipes, the scents, the hobby, the history, everything - this is old enough to attract the new guys and give them something to research, and to discover for themselves. I really do think the guy is wrong, i liked the article because of its anecdotal content, here by the way is the link - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801145_pf.html > you will find in the rest of the article a few more great comments on the perks of pipe smoking. am enjoying this blog fr tim, thanks again.
ReplyDeleteI liked his nostalgia too. I hope that one day my girls will be talking about "Dad and his Pipes". They already will tell me how much they enjoy the smell of certain blends.
ReplyDelete