What a smoker smokes can reveal personality. (original) (raw)

venture to guess that almost every family history contains one or more members who seemed to always be smoking a cigarette, cigar or pipe. For some reason, smoking a cigar or pipe seemed different from smoking a cigarette.

My grandfather Charley Trew was a devout Christian yet smoked a Roi Tan cigar once a week during his favorite Sunday-morning church radio broadcast. I can still smell the cigar odor and see grandma fanning to clear the air as she sat nearby piecing quilt tops.

Remember the little square table in many houses with an ash tray and pipe holder on top? When you opened the small door the smell of blended tobacco contained in a press-top can was presented. In addition to the tobacco humidor other smoking aids might be present.

My father was a chain smoker and every so often he quit cigarettes and tried to smoke a pipe hoping to taper off completely. It never worked as he always went back to cigarettes. I loved to smell his pipe and I believe he smoked Prince Albert tobacco if my memory serves me right.

I can see him now, pull out his pipe, knock the ashes loose, fill the bowl and press the tobacco down with his thumb. When all was ready, he swiped a kitchen match across his trousers and lit his pipe. The entire episode seemed to give him great satisfaction.

Pipes required some maintenance. The ashes caked inside the bowl and some smokers used pipe reamers for cleaning. Some reamers reached great sophistication along with cigar cutters and pipe bowls. The small passages of a pipe could be cleaned with pipe cleaners consisting of small wires twisted around lengths of fuzzy felt material. Later model pipes sported filters.

Incidentally, those same pipe cleaners could be sneaked out and used to make little animal silhouettes, clean cap pistols or tickle the student's neck sitting in front of you at school or church. Stealing pipe cleaners, playing with matches and smoking might get the seat of your britches warmed if you were caught.

In retrospect, the type of smoking also revealed the smoker's personality. In my family, cigarette smokers were impatient, worried and often changed their minds. The cigar smokers seemed to have more responsibilities, and appeared more prosperous than others. The pipe smokers were a patient, laid-back lot who were easy to get along with and fun to be around.

A good-smelling pipe seemed to add dignity to the user whether deserved or not. Pipe lighting methods varied with each smoker. The old cowboys lighting their cigarettes or pipes while mounted on horseback and in a breeze always had my admiration.

Best of all, I remember playing with the small red tobacco cans. We hid treasure, secret messages and orders from the high command inside the cans and protected them with our lives against theft or demand. Boy did we have fun back then, how about you?

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