mahogany mistress

On chilly days I miss my pipes. I had a box of old pipes of varying colors, a rich red dapper looking pipe from England with a fine medium size bowl and straight, short black stem, and a deeped-bowled Italian pipe with wood so blonde it was almost orange (in fact, the longish stem was a golden/orange color.) I had a couple of others, but my favorite was a burly, knarled, stub of a monster, with a thick, fat, irregular bowl that was black and burled and rough on the outside. It fit my left hand in a natural way. There was something reassuring and settling about it. I would sit outside and smoke a savory Danish blend. Sometimes I would try a golden, mellow Virginia leaf that tasted sweet like molasses and woodsmoke. Then there were the Turkish blends that had a hint of spice and smoked fruit. What I miss most was lighting my own private campfire in the pipe and tamping it down a bit until an orange ember burned quietly at the center. Usually it was in the evening, when the light was dimming, and my thoughts could curl into the twilight with the smoke. Some evenings I could make a pipe last an hour or more, gently breathing the aromatic smoke but never drawing it into my lungs. The pipe. I stopped smoking the pipe because it's no fun to smoke when its hot outside, and my wife was becoming alarmed (bless her.) I may take it up again some day when I'm a little older. But be warned - a pipe involves tobacco, and when you quit, it takes about three months before you stop licking your lips lustfully at every cigarette butt in the parking lot of HyVee. (seductive demon weed)