sketch: Pipe Organ (More of the Pipe Saga), by douglas brent smith
During the period of time when I occasionally drew an addition to the Pipe Saga, my dad smoked a pipe. He had sense to quit later, but while he did the smell was wonderful. The pipes I drew were humorous and with a nod to the surrealists, especially Magritte who was at the time perhaps my favorite artist.
On a more fantastical note, I really would like to play that pipe organ, wouldn't you?
Note:
My dad smoked a pipe for years. He favored two flavors of tobacco , one was Old Hickory and the other I do not remember. It's a filthy habit of course but I did enjoy the smell and he did seem so peaceful whenever he had a pipe in his mouth. It was no good for his teeth of course, which he lost and wore dentures for years but that was also probably because of the gallons of heavily sugared iced tea that he drank.
We all drank too much iced tea.
I haven't been to Alaska yet as of this date but it is one of only three states that I have not been to, the others being Hawaii and Montana. Funny, two of them were not states when I was born -- as I often say "that's how OLD I am..."
I did contemplate traveling to work the Alaskan pipe line -- the actual oil line and not the cartoon -- but correctly determined that it was all probably too rugged for me. Life certainly would have changed in a different path, even I'd even survived.
Any way -- that's my silly cartoon.
-- doug smith
my father's house bears change
these days
the voices bouncing
off the walls
are not those of my family
but
of strangers
taking the space
i once knew so well
they speak with West Virginia accents
strangely
and treat me as a stranger
there are few things left
in my father's house
to remind me of familial love
to comfort me in shared history
something has been transplanted
and another thing supplanted
my father's house which
once was also mine
is no longer even
my father's house.
douglas brent smith