5.27.2010

Camping

Last weekend the wife and I packed the car up and took our right of passage, as all good Americans should, and went camping. The day of and the trip out was filled with anticipation and excitement, as this being our first outing of the season. About an hour into the trip we sat in a parking lot of traffic for two hours only moving five miles.

Needless to say the level of excitement was geared down a few notches.

As we sat in traffic, one of the worst fears associated with a weekend camper was coming true-it began to rain.

Now I must say, growing up in Colorado, there is and was only one kind of camping-tent.

I understand the RV culture with the satellite dishes, air conditioning and unlimited showers to prep for a day filled with golfing, bike riding and driving to see the various photo opportunities.

But to the camping purist, tent camping is the only way to experience the solitude and silence of being lost in a wilderness of nature.

There is something intrinsically holy about being in solitude and silence, away from the moving and “what’s next” pace daily life holds. Listening to the rain, waking up to birds laughing, the occasional raccoon or bear wandering around the campsite opens up the senses to a reality rarely experienced.

While camping, it has always been a general rule of mine to camp in close proximity to wonderful hiking. This trip was no different!

Fall Creek Falls is a beautiful place located on the Cumberland Plateau in middle Tennessee. With multiple falls and miles of hiking trails [not terrible difficult] we spent a day wondering through the thick forest, paying attention to the sounds of life in solitude.

The day of hiking awoke something deep within me that has long been dormant. My passion and joy of experiencing the great outdoors! I love hiking, camping, having a great cigar around the campfire, cooking wonderful food, ‘smoreos’, the great conversations along the trail and the spectacular views of summiting a peak!

If I could bottle up the feeling of joy all this holds for me…I would drink nothing else!

My wildly probable hope this year is to spend more time outdoors – camping, hiking, not showering, and paying attention to the solitude and silence nature offers.

5.11.2010

What summer feels like

About a month ago, I wrote a wonderfully hopeful short piece about what summer looks like.

Today I am writing about what summer feels like.

Day 13 of being sick with allergies and believe me day 13 is no better than day 1. I never was sick with allergies until I moved to the south. It seems that my corner of the sandbox is a perfect breeding ground for ALL the various things I can be allergic to!

At day 7 I decided it was enough and pulled myself up by the bootstraps and made the seemingly routine visit to doctor. While there, the kind doctors, weoponized with needles, decided the best thing for me that day was two shots of steroids and $100 dollars of allergy medicne. You know how many things I can buy for $100?

I'm not a man who needs much, but a few things I do require in order to live more fully is beer and cigars and scotch and books. How many of those things can you buy with $100? More than I have right now!

The two shots of roids were the first two of my life, I must admit there has always been a secret desire to take roids in the depths of my heart, weather it was my competitive spirit playing college sports or me buying into the idea 'that one cycle never hurt anyone'! Roids seemed to be one of those experiments I would like to have tried for physical reasons rather than being sick for 13 days with allergies.

So I sit, kleenex in hand, $100 medicine beside me and a deep longing to be someplace where allergies don't exist.

5.06.2010

Arizona Jack

Rain pouring down, my pipe began to billow with smoke. It was one of those rainy day’s that make inside seem more comforting than it actually is. As each person walked along the sidewalk, umbrellas, held tight in hand, women were protecting their outfits of choice, the men wore trench coats and top hats and galoshes covering their hand crafted dress shoes.

In walked a stranger, as much as a stranger a fellow pipe smoker can be, whom I recognized from a previous encounter but never chose to stay as long as he stayed that rainy afternoon.

“Hell of rain out there”, back facing me staring at those who pass, staring as if he recognizes someone but too afraid to find out from where. “Helllll offfff aaaa rain” I retort, partly because nothing is more conversational than repeating what was just spoken, the only difference accompanied by elongated pauses and inflections. As he finished staring at those outside, as he finished staring at the great abyss rain causes, there was nothing more common that day than the rain. Nothing more common than two fellow pipe smokers who enjoyed being in the comfort of indoors during a hard rain.

It’s amazing those you met in a cigar lounge!

After we exchanged pleasantries of standard lounge talk, with long pause and a slight sting of disappointment, Howard said “You do it all wrong!” “Do what wrong?” “Smoke your pipe!” Being a seasoned pipe smoker of 5 years I was awe struck at the audacity of someone calling out my pipe smoking skills! But being the good student of life, and somewhere along my childhood my mom teaching me to respect older people, Howard looking like he was much older than me, I listened with eagerness as he began to explain the traditions of pipe smoking.

That chip of being a young man was quickly disarmed with beautiful talk...

“You roast a pipe, you toast a cigar”

“Think of your first love, now treat the pipe like that”

I couldn’t believe the beauty and honesty of speech coming from someone I just met.

As Howard explained all the intricate aspects of enjoying a pipe every time you smoke, I couldn’t help but wonder and conjure up stories of who Howard was, where he came from, and above all else I wanted to know who had taught Howard to smoke his pipe?

When you ask a direct question to someone as seasoned as Howard, you never get a direct response.

“In 1952 when I was 12 years old, living in Harlem at the time, I frequently sold soda at a local smoke shop.”

At this moment I am caught up in the lost art of being able to tell a good story.

Howard continues...

“It wasn’t much money at the time and I mostly just drank all the soda. But every now and then, at the cigar shop, a fellow by the name of Arizona Jack bought Dr. Pepper from me. I never knew his real name, but everyone called him AZ or just Arizona Jack. One day, the weather being completely different than what it is today, I found myself sitting in the pipe shop trying to escape the heat...now listen here, it was so hot my mom fried bacon on the roof that day...and that’s no joke!”

A slight hint of suspicion ran across my mind wondering how many other times Howard told this story...if this story was true?

“As I sat there drinking my profit, I could feel the heavy eyes of Arizona Jack piercing to the soul of who I was about to become, as he made his way over to my corner of the shop, time ceased to exist as AZ taught me two things I needed to learn about life...How to make love to a woman and How to smoke a pipe”

Looking at me Howard made the remark

“Now I just taught you one of those things, and by the ring on your finger I’ll assume you already know the other”

I am continually amazed at the stories that accompany people on their journey of life. And no less amazed at the stories, true or not, that people can tell because they are just good stories to be told.

I have told this story time and time again because in the pipe world the question ‘who taught you how to smoke a pipe’ is greatly misunderstood.

Weather or not Arizona Jack or AZ or whatever people know him as exist, it is with great pleasure and much hilarity that I am a proud student of Howard who was the proud student of Arizona Jack or AZ or...