This text message out of the blue from my good friend Jerry appeared in my inbox. It got me to thinkin.’
Back in the day, Jerry and his family lived in our small town. Jerry and I worked together on a few local committees. He helped with my unsuccessful campaign for the Oklahoma House of Representatives in the year 2000. Our youngest daughter and one of his daughters were friends and classmates. Great folks! Jerry and his family moved some years ago to the big city.
Over the years, Jerry and I, by various means, have shared God’s Word. We also share a diagnosis of prostate cancer; with I believe, successful outcomes in both our cases.
When he and his family moved to the city some years ago, we bought their house. It is still our home. “As we speak” on this frosty morning, I write from near the fireplace.
I hear from Jerry occasionally. Most recently, the text above, which displays his witty sense of humor.
With “looks like,” he was surely referring to my white beard, yet another thing we have in common. His comment, along with his serious, manly image, took me back in time, a dangerous place sometimes, for me to find myself.
I have in the past been a pipe smoker. I gave it up when a much younger but already assertive Aspen, our youngest daughter, said to me one morning, “If you don’t quit smoking that pipe, I’m going to call that number on TV.” She was referring to an anti-smoking commercial she had seen.
So, not wanting to further provoke her, I set aside the manly habit.
Back even further in time, during my early Navy days at Great Lakes Naval Training Center I developed an interest in pipe smoking. On liberty (Navy talk for time off) in Chicago, I discovered stores selling nothing but pipes, tobacco, and accessories. Occasionally I was around someone who smoked a pipe, and I liked the look of the pipe, and the pleasant aroma of the glowing pipe tobacco. I bought a pipe or two, some tobacco and other accessories.
After some months of training both at Great Lakes and then NAVRADSTA (Naval Radio Station) Northwest in Virginia, the Navy issued orders for me to report to the Naval Communications Station in Keflavik Iceland (there is another whole story here).
I eventually found myself at Remote Site H2, an isolated communications station on a small mountain overlooking the Norwegian Sea, approximately 400 miles as the crow flies, from civilization. Our “crow” was an ancient C-47 Navy cargo plane.
When the Site Bird, the C-47 from Main Base at Keflavik touched down on the small, dirt strip next to the Norwegian Sea and taxied to a stop, we were met by a motley crew of men who had traveled down the mountain. Their vehicles were pale grey, rugged, 4WD trucks, and large extended cab pickups. They were nothing like the clean, shiny, neat vehicles the Navy normally drove.
I could see right away this Navy was different from the “school” Navy where I had been for many months. None of the guys from the mountain had been anywhere near an inspection for quite some time as evidenced by longer than normal hair and more than a few beards.
I do not recall any obvious signs of rank. Later, I learned that everyone on the mountain knew who they worked for and who was in charge, so there was no need for a lot of formality. They were a team, and important work was being done here. Now, I would be part of the team. Exciting stuff for this old country boy! I liked it right away.
Soon I discovered I was not the only pipe smoker on “Misty Mountain.” The look of the guys and the ruggedness of our environment lent some credence to my thoughts of who pipe smokers were. Pipe smokers, I thought, were individuals if for no other reason than they smoked a pipe. They were rugged looking with a no-nonsense attitude about them. They were intelligent, meditative, and friendly guys, usually better-looking than average.
Many Icelandic men were pipe smokers. They were also usually a bearded, ruddy, longer haired, manly lot in their warm looking hand-knit sweaters and extra warm coats. Their country was called Iceland for a reason.
The wee village of Torshofn at the edge of our peninsula had a small harbor, so some of the Icelandic men had a connection to the sea. This added another characteristic to my image of pipe smokers, a connection to the sea.
I would be one of them, because up on our little mountain, we Navy pipe smokers, also manly, ruddy, good-looking individuals, had our own connection to the sea; we could look down and see the sea every day…assuming there were no clouds blocking our view.
Many famous men were pipe smokers, Albert Einstein, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Mark Twain, Clark Gable, General Douglas MacArthur, and many British spymasters of WW2. They also were manly, rugged, intelligent, meditative, and successful individuals, for the most part.
While at H2 a friend and co-worker Steve Wilman made a pipe rack for me. Most pipe smokers had several pipes; a rack was a nice accessory to hold and display them.
Steve made my pipe rack from some cedar he found in what remained of the Air Force’s DEW Line radar instillation that at some time in the past had been operational at our location. It should tell you something about our site on the mountain that the Air Force, some years before, had abandoned it because the weather was too severe. Never let it be said that a little adverse weather bothered the US Navy!
Pipes are I believe a very personal item. A good pipe might be much like a favorite pen or pocketknife. (With apologies to my UK friends).
On the base of the pipe rack Steve had embedded Icelandic 2 Kronur coins for the pipes to rest on.
That rack, with a few of my old pipes, sits proudly in my office.
After Iceland I received orders to NAVSECGRUACT (Naval Security Group Activity) Edzell Scotland. It was located at a Royal Air Force base near the lovely little village of Edzell in the county of Angus.
I arrived with a brand spanking new British sports car, a Triumph TR6. It had a convertible top. I had a mental picture of me driving the narrow, curving roads of the historic and exceptionally scenic Scottish countryside, top down, woolen scarf trailing out behind me, smoking my pipe. In actual practice, it did not seem as nice and exotic as the mental picture might have indicated.
In Scotland, I would still have a connection to the sea. It is said that no place in Scotland is more than seventy miles from a sea or an ocean. At our home in Inverbervie, we could look out of the upstairs windows, and there was the North Sea, only a short walk away.
While living in Scotland, I discovered a tobacco shop in the town of Montrose. The shop featured tobacco from all corners of the world. The various tobaccos came loose, each in individual ceramic jars labeled with the country of origin. The jars sat on shelves lining the shop’s walls. The blending of the various tobacco aromas gave the shop a fascinating atmosphere. It was there I bought most of my tobacco.
The manly aura I unconsciously attached to the smoker of a pipe may have been part of my attraction to the pipe, but I was never certain whether the aura transferred to myself or not. No one ever said to me, “You look more manly, intelligent, studious or imaginative when you are smoking your pipe, possibly you belong at sea!” But, as I always say, “What’s the use of having an imagination if you don’t use it once in a while?”
As I mentioned, Steve’s hand-crafted pipe rack rests proudly in my office, the pipes all waiting for a rugged, manly, meditative, maybe sea-going, individual to light them.
Jerry, I will just finish with the lyric Bob Hope used to sing, “Thanks for the memory…”