Nostalgia for Pipes and Matches

In 1970 I was wearing army olive drab and enjoying life at Fort Ord ,California, near Monterey & Cannery Row. I ate that stuff up ...the local history of the old days on Cannery Row and the tide pools...and vowed to return as a civilian and live there.
Instead, I ended up in Indiana wearing polyester double knits and smoking a pipe like all those Watergate lawyers and defendants...it seemed as though all American men were smoking tobacco pipes that year. I asked my wife tonight, after seeing a particularly touching photo of Jerry Ford smilingly smoking his pipe, how long it has been since she saw a man smoking a pipe outside of TCM movies....she said YEARS AND YEARS!! Same for me...and my pipes gather dust in my den, still on my desk, after 20 years of dormancy!!
I must be waiting for the second coming of John Mitchell to get inspired to go buy some tobacco and matches!
As far as Watergate goes, I still occasionally think of Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina...he was a rock.