Cruising The Information Highway
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Kevin Godbee - May 12, 2015
- 5 min read
Marshall “Butch” Armstrong
Getting in touch with people who enjoy the same things you do has been made almost effortless these days because of the internet. Those of us who where born in the dark ages before the time of computer enlightenment know that this wasn’t always so easy. Today there is an online group or website for virtually anything you’re interested in from dating services to cooking websites to politics and religion. Not only websites but groups and forums too, where the average person can get involved in asking questions, offering their own viewpoints, and giving and receiving new and old ideas. The entire world lies just at your fingertips provided you have an internet connection and a computer or smartphone.
Obviously, this includes pipe smokers. In as little as five minutes I compiled a list of over thirty websites, blogs, forums and groups devoted to all things pipe and tobacco. And that’s just the start. There are many more than thirty, but those alone would keep anyone busy for a lifetime. As I said earlier, this wasn’t always so. In the days before the internet you got your news and information from television, radio, newspapers and magazines. You may have known a few other pipe smokers in your area and possibly found an ad for a pipe club in a magazine or your local paper. But beyond that, it wasn’t easy to connect with others in the pipe smoking world. All that has changed. It is so easy to connect these days that it’s almost unreal. And for me, it makes smoking pipes and collecting so much more enjoyable. It’s great to be able to go online and see what kind of pipes people have and what they’re smoking. Finding all these pipe makers online has also been fun and adds to the excitement of pipe collecting. The passion and work they put into their pipes makes them real works of art and to be able to share that with them is a real treat. Reading all the comments people write on the groups and forums makes it obvious that it’s a treat for nearly everyone else as well.
Logging onto the Pipes Magazine forum page I found twenty separate forums listed, and in the General discussion forum there are over 12,000 topics and almost half a million posts! That’s incredible! And that’s just one forum page on the net. Quite a few pipe makers have their own websites where you can see and buy their work. It was a lot of fun to discover Rich Lewis’s website (http://www.lewispipe.com/) and then go and visit his shop. He put a new stem on my Meerschaum pipe and we talked a bit about pipe making. His shop is in Minneapolis so it was easy for me to check it out. I was able to see his photos online before I went so I had a good idea of the work he does before meeting him. The same goes for Kris Edwin Barber, a great guy and pipe maker whom I met at the Great Northern Pipe Club. He’s got a website (http://edwinpipes.com/ ) and I was able to see some of his work in person and talk to him at the pipe club. I have interviewed pipe makers such as John Hines, Josh Whitehead and Jonathan Lavezzo online. All great guys and wonderful pipe makers and I would never have been able to know about them, let alone "meet" them if not for the pipe groups and websites on the net.
Say what you will about Facebook, (and people have a lot to say about it) one of the aspects I really enjoy are the pipe smoker groups. I belong to a few different groups on Facebook and though I rarely get time to post on them it’s nice to know they are there for those who do have time to enjoy them. One of the groups, “Briar Nation,” started by Jeremy Feliciano, now holds regular “video chats” where you can connect up online with other Briar Nation members. I was able to get in on a couple of them. It was a lot of fun meeting the members who joined in. All of them were very welcoming and we had good conversations about pipes and tobacco, and other things as well. It’s the next best thing to meeting in person. It is nice to know that we can all have our differences in life but are drawn together by the enjoyment of pipes and tobacco and for a time, nothing else matters.
Of course there are plenty of websites devoted to the sales of pipes and tobacco like Pipes and Cigars and Smoking Pipes.com to name just two of them. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention PipesMagazine.com. Kevin Godbee does an excellent job of bringing us all the latest in pipes, tobacco and accessories, news of the pipe smoking world and who can forget the Pipe Babes! Now some of you younger readers may think the internet is no big deal because you’ve had it all your lives, so I’ll tell you a little story. When I was a kid I got a pocket size transistor radio. It had a telescoping antenna and picked up AM radio stations from 50 miles away. 50 miles away! It was the coolest thing anybody in the neighborhood had. And the really cool thing about it was that late at night, if you moved the tuning dial real slowly you could pick up stations from all across the country. So yeah, being able to access all these great pipe and tobacco websites online is a pretty big deal to me. It helps to bring people together who would probably never have known of each other and makes you feel like you’re a part of something much bigger than yourself. So stoke up that pipe and get on the “information super highway” as they used to call it in the old days!
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Marshall Lee Armstrong enjoys camping, fly fishing, kayaking, painting, drumming and writing. He has published two books of poetry and writes a blog called "The Window". He is 58-years old, and has worked as a Rock Band Drummer, Electroplater, Chemical Process Technician, and Circuitry Manufacturing Supervisor. He is currently a Medical Lab Technician. He started smoking pipes in 1980. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
I grew up with three channels on TV and sometimes PBS. One delivered newspaper. A shared party line. The news was just two hours of stuff a day, and most of it was about someone’s cow. The party line was your facebook gossip. And, the Sear’s catalog and the newspaper was your Amazon and ebay. The nearest pipe shop was the Tinderbox in the mall. But, we knew lots of people who smoked pipes. You’d see them all on their front porches as you drive by.
I can do without the hundreds of 24 hour news channels, and I can do without news bloggers. All of the rest of the stuff is pretty cool though. I still have lots of friends who have never gotten on a computer, no online accounts of any sorts, no cell phone, no tablets. They seem to be pretty happy people. And, I’ve thought about it…
Cosmic, like you, I can remember all those same things and although my kids tell me I’m “technically challenged” this internet thing has opened worlds we never knew existed. Back then almost all of the old timers smoked pipes and the drug store stocked all the “cogger” blends, with display cards featuring over the counter brand pipes and always a basket full of “no names” for us beginners. There were guys I can’t remember ever seeing without a pipe hanging out of their mouth. And who knew artesian pipes even existed. The guy with a great collection belonged to Wally Frank’s pipe of the month club. Are we happier? Who knows but we are certainly aware of a much bigger world. Like you, I’m pleased my world expanded. If there is one regret it’s the 24 hour a day talking heads that passes for news. I miss me Walter Cronkite every day!!!