Gentlemen - this is a true story circa 1915 from the Allagash region of New England. Hope it doesn't offend anyone or violate the rules to put it here. Figured I'd make a poem out of it as best I could 'cause.....why not...
BTW - I am a cigar smoker. At least two a day. Acids are a favorite.
Pipe Tobacco Story:
Once in the Great White North
Where loggers worked through long hard days
Men sat by campfires through the night
And shaved with Bowie Knives
There was a Russian, right off the boat
Who after dinner spoke
“Tobac Tobac” the man would say
To bum tobacco for his final evening smoke
And the men would grumble among themselves
Then accommodate the gent
But there was an evening with patience spent
Firewater fueling their ire
My grandfather took a rifle shell apart, the powder to acquire
Into the tobacco pouch it went with enough tobacco to fill one bowl
And this he handed to the gent, courtesy of those men of old
Well that old Russian he did sit
Upon a log to smoke
He filled his pipe with this PIF’d tobac
And lit himself a match
Placing it above the bowl he took a draw then two
Out of the pipe a fireball flew - high up into the sky
Which rivaled any firework set off on the 4th day of July
And the Russian gent did a sitting back-flip, injuring his backside
Those Old Northerners had a hearty laugh, and then went off to bed
But my grandfather slept not a wink that night, for a noise filled him with dread
The Old Northerners in that camp, well, the Gent’s anger they did feel
For at a whetstone the Russian gent sat, sharpening his steel
All the while glancing up, and wishing my Grandfather dead
That night did pass, and all seemed to be okay
The men all returned to work, early the next day
But never again would the Russian ask for tobacco for his pipe
And no hardened man from the Great White North ever crossed that Russian gent again.
-Yep, he was a character, a pipe smoker, and a straight razor shaver, my Grandfather!
BTW - I am a cigar smoker. At least two a day. Acids are a favorite.
Pipe Tobacco Story:
Once in the Great White North
Where loggers worked through long hard days
Men sat by campfires through the night
And shaved with Bowie Knives
There was a Russian, right off the boat
Who after dinner spoke
“Tobac Tobac” the man would say
To bum tobacco for his final evening smoke
And the men would grumble among themselves
Then accommodate the gent
But there was an evening with patience spent
Firewater fueling their ire
My grandfather took a rifle shell apart, the powder to acquire
Into the tobacco pouch it went with enough tobacco to fill one bowl
And this he handed to the gent, courtesy of those men of old
Well that old Russian he did sit
Upon a log to smoke
He filled his pipe with this PIF’d tobac
And lit himself a match
Placing it above the bowl he took a draw then two
Out of the pipe a fireball flew - high up into the sky
Which rivaled any firework set off on the 4th day of July
And the Russian gent did a sitting back-flip, injuring his backside
Those Old Northerners had a hearty laugh, and then went off to bed
But my grandfather slept not a wink that night, for a noise filled him with dread
The Old Northerners in that camp, well, the Gent’s anger they did feel
For at a whetstone the Russian gent sat, sharpening his steel
All the while glancing up, and wishing my Grandfather dead
That night did pass, and all seemed to be okay
The men all returned to work, early the next day
But never again would the Russian ask for tobacco for his pipe
And no hardened man from the Great White North ever crossed that Russian gent again.
-Yep, he was a character, a pipe smoker, and a straight razor shaver, my Grandfather!
