The Pipe in Venice
By Gene Aronowitz
When my ex-wife Judi and I were in England, I bought a pipe, which I assumed would help me reduce my cigarette smoking. I wanted a really good one and Charatan pipes were considered among the best in the world. Smoking it resulted in an air of unaccustomed sophistication.
The pipe cost me $20, which doesn’t sound like much but that was 1965 and $20 would be worth $165.26 in October 2020 when I am writing this recollection.
Our next stop on that journey was Venice, Italy. On our first full day there, we had breakfast, took a walk, and a gondola ride. After lunch, I reached in my jacket pocket, felt and pulled out the leather tobacco pouch, reached into my other pocket but felt nothing. I unbuttoned my jacket and reached into the inside pocket and it too was empty. The pipe was missing. I had left the pipe somewhere. We retraced our steps but were unable to find it.
As we were walking, I noticed that we were about to pass a police station and decided to go in. I told one of the officers that I had lost my pipe. He apparently didn’t understand what my problem was but imagined that it must be serious for me to appear in person. He found someone to translate and rolled his eyes when he learned I had been concerned about the loss of a pipe. He took my name, the brand and description of the pipe, and the name of our hotel. I was a little embarrassed to mention the hotel because it didn’t match the opulence expected of an owner of a Charatan pipe.
The next day, a police officer called me and said that he had my pipe and I should come over to retrieve it. Once there, I learned that one of the newspapers, apparently during a slow news day, carried the story of my lost Charatan (which they misspelled in the article). You can imagine how much anti-American mirth that created but someone saw the story, realized he or she had found my pipe and returned it.
Here is a translation of the newspaper article:
He goes to the police headquarters
to report the loss of his pipe
An American tourist, 28-year-old Eugene Aronowitz of Chicago, presented himself yesterday in the police headquarters, claiming that he had lost his pipe. At first the guards, not understanding the speech the stranger was making, thought that he had at least lost his son.
Only later with the intervention of a person in charge of the foreign office was it possible to deal with the complaint. As the young American explained, the pipe was of the "Charleton" (sic) brand, it was worth twenty dollars and had been bought in London before starting the journey to Venice. Mr. Aronowitz pleaded with them to look for it and find it
