I'm Going to Russia!
Enroute to Saint Petersburg, I fret about the work that I should be doing instead of jaunting off to a very foreign contry. Fret. My father is scheduled for cataract surgery on Wednesday. Fret. Six days with a man I barely know. I should build an online shopping cart. I should buy my father a mobility scooter. I should arrange heat for my unheated new house.
I fret about things I can no longer change. It's too late for all that. Wise decision or not, I'm in the air.
Tom Pfaeffle, a neatly dressed and courteous dancer, has a secret life: a collection of 500 pipes, enough tobacco salted away to last until 2068, and the intriguingly whimsical title,"North American Pipe Smoking Champion."
He was gong to miss competing in the World Championship. Oracle cancelled vacations through Octuber (typo, but October is a tuber month) because they were in a crunch. "Tom, you have to defend your title!" I cried. "Go anyway! Call in sick! You have to go to Saint Petersburg!"
What with one thing and another, I accidentally wound up going to Russia with Tom. I don't want to talk about it. Here I am, on a plane, too late to turn back!
How does one win a pipe smoking competition?
Less is more. This is no Darwinian effort to smoke as much as you can. On the contrary. They give you a pipe (this year's model is Italian with silver bands) and 2.2g of "white cube-cut burley" tobacco and two matches. They give you 5 minutes to meld with the new pipe, 30 seconds to light up, and the last man smoking wins.
Competition tobacco is not the best. Even saying "cube cut burly" causes Tom to grimace in pain. There are many lovely tobaccos. Naturally aromatic, sometimes blended with small amounts of spices. Cinnamon, bergamot, nutmeg, coriander. Tobacco is like wine. Why would a pipe smoking championship mandate smoking unpleasant tobacco, any more than a World Wine Competition would select only wines from Zambia?
Fortunately, this year, the traditional model is thrown on its ear. The competition tobacco is 3 g of Heritage, a Virginia/burley blend.
Puff puff. More to come.