Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 378
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Kevin Godbee - Dec 10, 2019
- 1 min read
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 378! Our featured interview tonight is with pipe maker and repairman Mark Domingues from Lone Star Briar Works. He learned pipe restoration out of necessity, buying estate pipes on eBay. After he honed his skills, and posted his before and after photos online, people just started sending their pipes to him for restoration. In the Pipe Parts segment, Brian will have a review of Robert McConnell Red Virginia. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
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The Pipes Magazine Radio Show features interviews with pipe makers, tobacco blenders, pipe and tobacco aficionados, collectors, and more. Episodes air every Tuesday.
Our show is sponsored by SmokingPipes.com, Cornell & Diehl, Missouri Meerschaum, and Savinelli Pipes and Tobaccos. Please give them some consideration when making your next pipe or tobacco purchase.
We hope you enjoy our 1-hour show produced just for you—the pipe smoker and collector.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Ok, so it’s that time of year, as we all know. Family feasts, houses, yards, and big trees festooned with lights and dangling ornaments, just high enough to keep the cats from reaching a paw into the greenery. It’s also the time of year when your pipe-smoking-significant other makes vast hints about a new pipe. That’s to be expected since he or she was a good boy or girl during the year. Yes, ladies smoke pipes, too. Oh, you want an example? Okay, try Actress Greta Garbo, Millicent Fenwick, Mary Frith, and my late grandmother (who died when she was 93) dipped snuff and smoked a cob occasionally. So now that we have settled that the gentler side of life will puff a pipe too, let’s move on to the upcoming biggest holiday of all. Of course, that huge event is brought to us by the hefty fellow in a red suit, puffing his pipe all the way in a sled filled with presents, being led by a reindeer with a red nose. Or some such. That’s Santa Claus, of course. Becoming a bit more serious, Christmas is such a wonderful time for families and friends. It’s also quite special for pipe puffers. For many of us, this brings up a nostalgic look back to our pipe-smoking or cigar-smoking friends who have died during the current year. A great journalist pal whom I often joined in a local brick-and-mortar pipe and cigar shop. I puffed my pipe, and occasional cigar, as he enjoyed a cigar. He died in October and will be missed. On the happier side of things, Christmas is also a time when mind workers of the world renew their collections with fresh additions. Pundit included. A French passion has overtaken Pundit, from reading more Albert Camus, a heavy cigarette smoker, as were many French intellectuals of a certain time. Instead of cigarettes many of us prefer the more relaxed enjoyment of pipes for that “calm and objective judgment” in the comings and goings of the world. This brings me to French pipes. While visiting France once in the long ago, I happened by a “Tabac” shop in Paris, Tabac Des Vosges. I purchased a beauty of a Chacom bent. I also later bought a Ropp made from ancient briar. To learn more about the dawn of briar pipes and beginnings, take a peek at a well-done piece by Davin Hylton in Pipe Line on April 12, 2023, on Saint-Claude, France, the birthplace of briar. Also in the long back when, on a cold Christmas afternoon, Pundit wandered into an Atlanta bricks and mortar pipe shop to look around. There, resting in an enclosed glass counter was an exquisite Comoy. An older gent, smoking a beautiful bent, asked me if I wanted to look at that pipe. It had a $100 price tag. A college student working for a grocery store chain to help with college tuition at the time, Pundit didn’t have one hundred cents, let alone a C note! I declined and found a $5 basket pipe. A Christmas tradition had just begun. Since that early time, Pundit has made it a holiday ritual to either reward himself, or a special friend, with pipe or tobacco. A Claudio Cavicchi would be nice. Just sayin.’ And now for a couple of December-born Pipe Smokers of the Past: Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on Dec. 30, 1865, and died on Jan. 18, 1936. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble—Rudyard Kipling. Martin Van Buren, born Dec. 5, 1782, and died July 24, 1862, U.S. President, 1837-1841 As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it—Martin Van Buren. And one more note to recall a deceased World War II veteran who loved William Somerset Maugham, the author. Maugham, a pipe smoker, was born in Paris, France, on Jan. 25, 1874, and died on Dec. 16, 1965. One cool afternoon as the veteran and I talked while sitting in his backyard patio, he looked off into the distance as if studying something. Nothing in particular. Just looking. He turned to me and said if I wanted to learn about life, “read Somerset Maugham.” I did. It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know’ –W. Somerset Maugham And now a Parting Shot: Any day with an old friend with pipes and tobacco is a good day.
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Well I finally did it! I have finally caught up to be current with next weeks episode. What a wonderful and informative journey it has been listening to 378 episodes which didn’t start out with that number as the finish line kept moving ahead while in progress. It comes as bitter sweet however as now like most, I have to wait a week for the next episode. I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every weeks offerings and thank Brian, Kevin, and everyone else involved in making my horrific commute to and from work actually enjoyable and at times something to look forward to. Thank you again Brian and company for a great asset to the pipe smoking community.
Good show. The review of McConnell’s Red Virginia was good but as I don’t like Virginias I’ll have to pass on it. Leaves more for you.
Domingues sounded like a nice guy. He must have a good side income to sell pipes at a $100 a piece. I am surprised his mentor Mike Butera is letting him do this. Mike normally squeezes blood out of turnips when he sells a pipe. I would be real interested in hearing what kind of pipes he is restoring/repairing. I don’t know why I am asking, George Dibos does mine.
I’m working my way back through the episodes, and I have enjoyed them all. Mark sounds like an interesting fellow. I’m a pipe maker, and do it similar to Mark, in my spare time. I make 20 – 25 pipes a year. I also was extremely fortunate to have a master pipe maker as a mentor. I live in Glendale Arizona, and bought a DeJarnet pipe back in 2002, made by the late renowned Arizona pipe maker Horace DeJarnet (DeJarnet Pipes). There was a contact card in the pipe bag, and I noticed that Horace also lived in Glendale. I called him up, and told him that I would gladly pay to watch him make a pipe. He asked me “whatcha doing next Saturday”? So I made a commitment to go to his house the next Saturday. Before he hung up he asked “you got $40”? I said yes and thought “Doh! he’s actually going to charge me to watch him make a pipe” but oh well I did offer. I showed up on Saturday, and Horace met me at the door. He said” come on, we’re going shopping “. I was totally confused, he’s taking me shopping? We loaded up in his Cadillac and headed out go shopping. We ended up at The Pipe Makers Emporium, a small warehouse sized business that sold everything needed to make pipes. He introduced me to the owner, Paul Hildebrand, and we picked out a very nice piece of Spanish Plateau Briar and some acrylic stem material. My total was just under $40. We went back to Horace’s house and under his close supervision, I made my first pipe! Horace was disabled, he had an above the knee leg amputation. I could see that cleaning the shop was probably a pretty big chore for him, so I cleaned up the shop ‘Army clean’. I offered to come back, from time to time, and trade pipe making lessons for a shop cleanup. This began a three year apprenticeship and an amazing friendship. Horace was about 30 older than I, and had gone through a couple of other young applicant’s, but they fizzled out. I was the only one who showed up, with a note pad and pencil, and that apparently impressed him. He told me that he had been looking for a younger man with whom he could pass on his hard earned knowledge to. I’m honored to have been that man. Following Horace’s lead, I only use Plateau Briar for my pipes. I make both freehand and traditional shape pipes. Plateau Briar is more expensive than ebuchon, but it’s absolutely worth the price, it makes gorgeous pipes. There’s a lot you can do with the bark side of the block. It’s bumpy and knoby under the bark, and makes a beautiful pipe rim left as is, or beautiful birdseye if sanded smooth. Sadly, Horace DeJarnet passed away a few years ago, and the pipe making community is an emptier place now.