Dad's Pipes

Dad loved his pipes.  He had two of them.  One was silver and one was brass.  I remember him using the brass-colored one more than the other.  They were odd-shaped pipes and I don't remember ever then or even now seeing any other pipes like his.

The brand name was Brial.  They were really easy to keep clean.  He would just pull the mouthpiece end off, pull out the old cotton balls, and replace them with clean ones.  After some searching, I found a You Tube video of a man who was showing off his grandpa's Brial pipe. But that's pretty much all there is out there about these weird little pipes.

One of Dad's great pleasures when he got home from work was to pour himself a drink, usually some awful bitter whiskey-type drink, get out his well-worn leather tobacco pouch and take a bit of cherry-scented tobacco out of it.  He would put that little pinch in the bowl of his pipe and light it with his butane lighter.  Then he would relax in his yellow La-Z-Boy in front of the TV, away from the ear-piercing noise of factory workroom floor, with his faithful dog Tiny sitting next to him. That was Dad's "Me time."