Pipes and Leaf to Chaplain Jim

Sent off a box of five pipes and five or six samples of blends to Chaplain Jim at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan today. If you'd like to do the same, contact him for the APO address by emailing jjmitchem@gmail.com. You have to fill out a customs form at the P.O. when shipping. Of course, I had to ham it up a little and find socks for each pipe. Then I wrote out little descriptors on the pipes on slips of paper and rolled them up and put them in the bowls like fortunes in fortune cookies. I sent the samples in snack zip bags with a slip of paper giving the names and sources of the blends. As with restaurant food, a little presentation never hurt anything. Chaplain Jim distributes these to active duty people at the base. Hope they experience this as a little support from home.

I didn't really have any pipes I didn't want, but this kept nagging at me, and I do have many pipes, so I carefully picked out a few. These were an English, Italian, and French briars and two cobs, an MM and an Old Dominion. The tobaccos were mostly aromatics -- most of a pouch of PA, a black Cavendish aro, PS Pistachio aro, Chatham Manor, a home mix I call Carolina Shout, and some Peretti Thanksgiving Day, just a sample from a nice quantity sent from a member here. Maybe the postal service to Bagram isn't so speedy, but I think it will get there in a week or two, anyway. It was a compact little box, less than ten bucks to ship. It took me some weeks to get on the task, but once energized, I had fun doing it up right. I think tagging the pipes with some information makes receiving a pipe more interesting; I just think that's human nature. It makes a story, something a service person can mention in an email home. I wonder if Chaplain Jim has any women stepping up for a tobacco pipe; no reason not to, if one is so inclined.

folanator, oh yeah! A good cigar after a risky patrol would be a lovely thing, to celebrate your return and to cool down and rest.

I don't give away my pipes lightly, but among the ways I've done so, this is about the most satisfying. I hope some of our people in the service enjoy those pipes as much as I enjoy mine.