The Orphan
Monday, April 2, 2012 at 2:35PM | Neill Archer Roan | Permalink tagged Dunhill, Estate Pipes | in Collecting, Pipe Tales, Successful Smoking 
A couple of weeks ago, during a trip to Memphis, I visited with an old pipe friend there. My friend had recently purchased a collection of estate pipes from a widow who wanted to see her beloved husband’s pipes in the hands of pipe men who would continue to appreciate them.
Although my friend had already started to clean these pipes up, there were still a few of the old duffer’s friends that were untouched. Although his pipes weren’t what many of us would call “high-grade,” they were nonetheless nicer than what I’ve seen many a pipe smoker put match to. There were Ferndowns, Dunhills, Castellos, Caminettos, Savinellis, and Charatans, among other lesser lights. Although there were a few pots and billiards, most of the pipes were bents.
It is probably just my over-active imagination, but I’ve always felt like I can tell something about a man by looking at his pipes. Was he a soft-spoken man? A wearer of tweeds or twills? Was he a slow smoker, thoughtful and restrained? Or was he loquacious? A joker with a quick smile? A fast blinker or a slow talker?
Was he a Mason? (He was.) Would his brothers grieve long? Would they gaze at the chair where he always sat–missing him–feeling their own bond of mortality? Would they remember the smell of his pipe when they walked past his open station wagon window on the way to their own car?
Few things pain my heart so much as slowly sweeping my gaze across a rack of orphan pipes. To see these little briar crucibles of comfort and solace abandoned to settling dust motes and withering sunlight evokes those small, dry throat catches that click when I sigh. No. Nothing is sadder than an orphan pipe, especially the beloved orphan, the one most reached for when secret sadness or just plain nothingness washes over us.
Few parents will admit it, but we do have our favorite child – the heart of our heart. We can’t help it any more than we can help loving bacon, grilled onions, or clementines. Pipe men feel the same about their favorite pipe.
Chances are it’s not the loveliest nor the best grained. Its stem will likely be both toothed and stained. Compared to its fairer siblings, it may appear the runt pup, but few pipe smokers love a pipe for its looks.
As I walked with my friend to see the orphans, I knew what I would look for. I would look for tarred rims and green buttons, for handling marks and bowls turned dark chestnut from a multitude of comforts. I would look for the beloved runt pup – the loneliest orphan on the rack – for these pipes would be the sweetest smokes and the loneliest fellows there.
I would also look for the newer, unsmoked (or almost so) orphans. I call these pipes “optimists.” They are the pipes we will smoke someday. When the time is right. When the moment is propitious. These are pipes we buy and keep to remind us that there will be a tomorrow and a tomorrow and a tomorrow after that. These are the pipes we buy because we can’t help ourselves. And we keep them that way because we don’t want to help ourselves.
It was there among the orphans that I found this Dunhill spigot bent bulldog – a magnificent example of both pipemaking and silversmithing. It was there that I found this optimist. This orphan. This tomorrow.
I will treasure it always. I’ve smoked it. When it is someday plucked from a tray of orphans, it will sport a tarred rim and a green button, I’m sure.
Reader Comments (9)
Here's to hoping none of us have to orphan any for a long time to come.
A while ago, I bought an old book of sea poetry, a wondrous thing which seems to contain more poems than its three hundred or so pages ought to permit.
In the front is inscribed a name, N. I. Langley. I hadn't noticed the name when I first found the book, and when I did notice it about a week later, I acknowledged the wonderful modern times we live in and googled the name. The first page to appear was from a website dedicated to the documentation of second world war graves, and to be sure, there was a picture of the grave of Norman Isaac Langley.
As I read the wartime report that was included, I discovered that sergeant Langley had been a wireless operator and airgunner in the RAF, and that he had died shortly after taking off from an airbase near Dry Doddington, having crashed in a storm. This happened in 1944, and there is a monument to the crash to be found in the church in Dry Doddington, where sergeant Langley's name is cut in marble amongst those of his comrades.
But then I saw the crushing particle of information: Sergeant Langley was twenty-two years old. He was as old as me. He wasn't sergeant Langley, he was Norman. He was twenty-two years old, he read poetry about the sea, and this was his book. I'm twenty-two years old, I read poetry about the sea, and this is my book. I've only just started my life; how could it possibly be the end? The thought that he was struck down right where I was standing shook me to my very being.
When I see that immortal inscription above the title of the book, even time seems to melt away. It's as if Norman Langley has put out his hand and introduced himself to me. Every folded page and torn edge conjures up a living, breathing human being who is holding this book as I am, sitting where I am, reading those same words.
I do not know what happened to this book. When its owner died it was presumably returned to his family; perhaps it was sold and resold for the sixty-odd years following. Whatever the case, after all these years it somehow managed to slip away to traverse the ocean. And now here across the sea it lies, as if Norman Langley's spirit lives on in its pages, having finally made that long lost journey east. What little I know of him, I will not forget.
Until by the coming of our one appointed wave,
We're swept into th' eddy of that universal grave.
-- Mary Cowden Clarke