I've bought several pipes from Marty over the last couple of years. He's always great to chat with during the email exchanges when completing transactions. He's a fellow Bay Area piper, which is nice. I used to work about two blocks straight down the street from his store in the city. I would pass it all the time, but, as I've mentioned to him several times, I was not a pipe smoker at the time and, while curious about the place, never went in.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
-C. S. Lewis, English essayist & juvenile novelist (1898 - 1963)