A Pipe Smoking Man

I never smoked cigarettes during my High School years. This was something you did when you got older, like drinking coffee. The only thing I smoked as a kid was rolled up fallen oak leaves in the autumn as I and other kids played outside after supper in Kasson, MN.

At Rochester Junior College in Rochester, MN in Fall of 1960, I was learning that the transition from Lourdes High School to college (even a Junior College) was not as seamless as I thought. Much more work was required in the college classes to keep one's head above water.

So about one-third into the school year I decided I should improve my image and perceived intelligence by smoking a pipe. Cigarettes would not do the job. If I just needed the nicotine, cigarettes would be fine, but smoking a pipe was not about the nicotine, it was all about image. Therefore, I needed to smoke a pipe.

It was well known that some great men (and some brave great women) smoked a pipe. The most notable men to me were the physicists Albert Einstein (of E = MC^2 fame) and J. Robert Oppenheimer ("Father of the Atomic Bomb"). A photo of them working together (but not smoking pipes)  is shown below.

[Note: I got this photo from Wikipedia which stated that : "This image is a work of a US Military, or the Department of  Defense employee, taken or made during the course of the employee's official duties. As a work of the Federal Government, the image is in the public domain"]

What I hadn't figured out yet, however, was that just because some great men smoked a pipe, smoking a pipe didn't make a great man!

None-the-less, I dove deep into the art of smoking a pipe, complete with leather tobacco pouch, various brands of aromatic tobacco, tobacco tampers, special matches, a special pipe lighter, and of course a variety of nice pipes. One needed a "man purse" to carry all the stuff around. At first I started out with one inexpensive pipe but soon added to my collection, pipes made of brier, clay, ceramic, corncob and meerschaum. I also got my friend Larry interested.  Below is a collection of pipes similar to ones I would be collecting and nurturing.

This photo is from Wikipedia released into the "Public Domain" by Daniel Halton on January 31,2009

Larry and I would make our way to the college "smoking" lounge between classes and go through the ritual of carefully tamping tobacco into the bowl of the pipe so it would burn evenly. Then after lighting the tobacco, and blowing the aromatic smoke into the surrounding air, we waited for another student to say "That smells like, cherries" or "What kind of tobacco is that? It smells great!" We were especially pleased if we got an affirmative comment from a female student. The pipe would always extinguish after several minutes and we needed to light it again and again. Also, the more tobacco that had burned, the more foul smelling was the smoke that would emanate from the top of the bowl.

One day Karl Dubbert, our much feared mathematics instructor came into the lounge, staying a while, maybe to smoke a cigarette and/or to talk to a student. On leaving, after watching Larry and me smoke our pipes,  he wondered out loud: "If you guys spent as much time studying instead of smoking your pipes, your grades might be better!"

Larry and I continued smoking our pipes and occasionally had "smoking contests" in which we each chose our favorite pipe, agreed on a specific amount of the same brand of tobacco, tamped our pipes, and allowed ourselves only 3 matches to see who could keep their pipe burning the longest. One such contest was around a campfire one day (see photo below) when we were out "hunting" crows. The hunting is in quotes, because we never killed anything (nor really wanted to) while hunting. It was just an excuse to get out into nature. 

Larry (Left) and Humble Blogger having a smoking contest.

In the 1965 photo below, your Humble Blogger is reading the news with first-born son John in his lap.  Smoking pipes collected thus far are shown on the fireplace mantel.   The water pipe to the right was not used for its intended purpose and was for display only!

Another photo below, shows your Humble Blogger smoking a pipe at a December 1967 graduation party in Minneapolis, MN after having received a undergraduate diploma from the University of Minnesota. Because of my extended time in earning a degree (while working at 3M), my younger brother Jim also graduated at the same ceremony and we celebrated together. Except for the glare ice on all the roads that night, we had a great time.

This bad habit stayed with me until 1980 when I moved into an apartment and didn't want to smell up the place. I smashed all my 20-30 pipes that I had lovingly managed for 20 years, and tossed them out with little consideration. Times were a changing. It was getting harder and harder to smoke at 3M Company and in other places around town. In addition, I was part of a Medical Products Division at 3M and I was getting more health conscious.  I could hardly justify smoking anymore.  This was all preparation for taking up running in 1984 when smoking would have been anathema to that activity.

Most important of all was that I finally realized that smoking a pipe had not made me great!