pipe burnouts

I used to call myself “the Human Torch,” not because I aspired to Marvel Comics superhero status (if you recall Johnny Storm, one of the Fantastic Four), but because I seemed to have burned out more pipes than anyone I’ve ever met. Truly. My first burnout occurred not long after taking up the pipe—couldn’t have been more than eighteen. It was a basket pipe and I was so scared of the proprietress at my local tobacconist (my mentor Beth Kanaly of Ted's Pipe Shoppe in Tulsa, Oklahoma) that I asked my dad to go with me. And it was a good thing, because she was mad. Like many retailers I’ve known in more than forty years since, she was pretty much convinced that the fault was all mine. Well, yes and no. I remember her asking me if I'd been smoking my pipe while riding a motorcycle. "No," I demurred, "my Mom won't let me have a motorcycle." "Well what, then? Skydiving? Skiing in gale winds on Grand Lake?" Even my Dad was somewhat taken aback. All I remember after that is that money exchanged hands at some point and I walked out with a new pipe. My pipe-smoking mentor, the red-head Irish fireball Beth Kanaly, five years before I walked into her shop. Fast forward many decades and I come to the “Inflammatory Stage” of my pipe-smoking career. In the space of two years or so, I witnessed the burn-out of 3 Julius Vesz “Bilbo” pipes (that’s three in a row), a Peterson POY and a Peterson special-order high grade. I’m sure there were more, but trauma of this magnitude sometimes does funny things to one’s memory. Recently, my friend Ralle Perrera had a beloved Pete burn out on him, and from his detailed account, I could not only commiserate with him but knew from my own bitter experiences that it wasn’t his fault. In our emails, he agreed to let me share his story in relating the typical causes of burnout and pass along some of my own cautions and remedies. Causes The first thing no one will tell you is that experienced pipemen (and women) have all gone through burnouts. They just don’t talk about them. But any good 12-stepper knows that the only way forward is simply to admit it: “My smoking life is unmanageable and I know I have to give it over to a Higher Power.” Or words to similar effect. To borrow a battlefield analogy, a burnout is similar to a Purple Heart, that badge of honor given to wounded soldiers. But if you know any vets, you know these guys don’t talk about it, at least not at first. Just like those vets, there sometimes wasn’t anything you could do to avert the maelstrom. And that brings me to the second thing: briar is an organic substance. Because the white heath tree (the briar) grows in sandy soil and it is the root ball that is used to make tobacco pipes, bits…