Diana, our son Hunter, and I went to my folks' house to spend Christmas. My Dad was a long-time pipe smoker (he quit several years ago) When I divorced my ex-wife back in the late 80's, Dad and I started smoking pipes together. I bought a couple (a cheap one I paid $15 for with a mail order coupon from a package of Captain Black, and a good one from Edward's that I paid about $35 for back then). Dad even had his own blend of tobacco on file with Edward's (a blend of Honey, Cherry, and Black Cavendishes with a touch of vanilla and bourbon thrown in). Then I discovered Edward's cigar humidor. But I digress...
Anyway... A couple of months ago, I sent off for that free Altadis pipe tobacco offer. I searched high and low through all my stuff and couldn't find my pipes. Diana couldn't remember me ever smoking a pipe. So this weekend, I ask my Mom if she knew where Dad had put all his pipes. I'd thought that maybe when I moved in with Diana in 1990, I'd left mine and somehow they'd gotten mixed in with Dad's. She pulled down a couple of boxes which held about 40
of Dad's collection of pipes. Mine were nowhere to be found. Dad came in and asked what we were doing. We fessed up and said, "Well, it's Christmas. I'll give you two." The first picture is one that my Mom bought him as a gift in the early 1980's. The second is one that my Dad believes was one of my Grandfather's that he had a new Lucite stem back in the 1980's as well. I should have taken a picture of the rest of them. I'll do that the next time I'm out there. There are so many stories and memories in those boxes. Even after being boxed up for 10-15 years, they still smelled like our den did when I was a kid...