It Pays to Call the Post Office

[Briar Lee]

About two weeks ago my friend telescopes informed me there was a lightly smoked Marxman 400 on Etsy.

I’d just collected a rent check from my farm at Bug Tussle and felt rich and privileged and spent $175, the most in my life I’ve paid for a pipe, to buy that 400.

The seller immediately shipped from Tulsa to Missouri and I watched the tracking information on my email.

Then it got hung up, in Kansas City on November 11. It just sort of stayed there.

The tracking window read it was delayed but was coming, and should be there by November 17.

When Monday the 20th arrived with no pipe I used the USPS online service to inquire.

Then this morning I called my local post office. They got right on it.



I swore I’d never be a cantankerous, venomous old sinner who’d complain about his own post office, after all the good work the postal employees do to deliver the mail, and what happened was the rare misrouting of my package.

But within 4 hours of me having my local post office check on my package they located it on the day before Thanksgiving and it should be here by Saturday.

What a wonderful world it would be, if every thing in this world was a cheap and efficient as the United States Postal Service.

 

[Sigmund]

It often depends on where you live. Some offices are helpful. Some are completely useless and their customer service consists of making your life even more difficult.

 

[telescopes]

Can’t wait to see it posted.

 

[OzPiper]

Hope it arrives on time and you waste no time posting it and firing it up
Happy smokes

 

[bullet08]

Is it uncolored Algerian briar?

 

[Briar Lee]

Is it uncolored Algerian briar?

All Marxman pipes except the cheaper Mell-o, the Dunsboro, and Morocco seem to be not deliberately stained.



Part of the charm of a Pre 54 Marxman was the $5 and up pipes came a light tan color, and very quickly color to the reddish brown hue the Mell-o was stained with umber to begin with.

——
Umber is a natural earth pigment consisting of iron oxide and manganese oxide; it has a brownish color that can vary between shades of yellow, red, and green.[3]: 39  Umber is considered one of the oldest pigments known to humans, first seen in Ajanta Caves in 200 BC-600 AD.[4]: 378  Umber's advantages are its highly versatile color, warm tone, and quick drying abilities.
—

In 1938 the first minimum wage was 25 cents an hour and in my corner of Missouri a teenage boy worked for fifty cents, to a dollar at most, a day.

A $25 pipe was an extravagant luxury when this crop land was $3.50 an acre.

 

[didimauw]

All Marxman pipes except the cheaper Mell-o, the Dunsboro, and Morocco seem to be not deliberately stained.

View attachment 263741

Part of the charm of a Pre 54 Marxman was the $5 and up pipes came a light tan color, and very quickly color to the reddish brown hue the Mell-o was stained with umber to begin with.

——
Umber is a natural earth pigment consisting of iron oxide and manganese oxide; it has a brownish color that can vary between shades of yellow, red, and green.[3]: 39  Umber is considered one of the oldest pigments known to humans, first seen in Ajanta Caves in 200 BC-600 AD.[4]: 378  Umber's advantages are its highly versatile color, warm tone, and quick drying abilities.
—

In 1938 the first minimum wage was 25 cents an hour and in my corner of Missouri a teenage boy worked for fifty cents, to a dollar at most, a day.

A $25 pipe was an extravagant luxury when this crop land was $3.50 an acre.

View attachment 263743

Did they get paid bi weekly back then???

That pipe looks untouched! Should be a wonderful addition! Remember, no steel wool needed!

 

[Briar Lee]

In 1876 my Great Grandfather, a veteran of the US 12th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, and recently widowed with 2 children, purchased the land we still own as a dowry to marry my Great Grandmother.

80 acres was for her parents, her father being a veteran of the (Loyal) 8th Missouri State Militia Cavalry. 240 acres was for her, and him.

(My mother always quipped Paralee knew the true value of the price of a virgin bride. )

At the time the closest post office was the store at Sexon, which changed names to Hamlet about 1900 when a man named Hamlet bought it.

Place name:	Hamlet (earlier Sexson, q.v.)
Description:	Hamlet is the same site as Sexson and was called Hamlet for Charles Hamlet, the owner of the store. It has been under this name but a few years. (J.D. Hendricks; J.A. Gunnier)
Source:	Meyers, Robert Lee. "Place Names In The Southwest Counties Of Missouri." M.A. thesis., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1930.

About 1921 a young man named Emmet Molder and his wife purchased the Hamlet store and changed the name to Bug Tussle:

Place name:	Bugtussle
Description:	Bugtussle is a store established about 1921 east of Arnica. After the name was jokingly applied to the place it came to be used by common consent. (J.A. Gunnier; A.M. Weaver)
Source:	Meyers, Robert Lee. "Place Names In The Southwest Counties Of Missouri." M.A. thesis., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1930.

Robert Lee Meyers got very close in his master’s thesis. It was Bug Tussle, as we call it.

Emmett closed his store about the time I was born in 1958, and raised livestock . He lived to extreme old age and is buried at Alder.

Emmett G. Molder (1901-1988) - Find a Grave...

www.findagrave.com

So is Harry Hosterman, who squatted in front of my father’s milk barn and spun all those stories and unintentionally taught me to love his pipe.

Harry Lee Hosterman (1916-1992) - Find a Grave...

www.findagrave.com

The best stories, were of bushwhackers (common criminals who favored the South) and Jayhawkers (union thieves and murderers from Kansas)

 

[Briar Lee]

It arrived today in perfect, smoked half a bowl condition. 95 grams of gnarled Algerian briar. Smokes as good as all my other Marxman pipes only cooler.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Didn't read every word in the Hamlet discussion, so:

One Q: Is Hamlet a hamlet?

 

[jpmcwjr]

And was the 80 acres awarded to your relative given as two forties, or one 80?

 

[Briar Lee]

And was the 80 acres awarded to your relative given as two forties, or one 80?

Elmer had 60 acres, a square 40 and the East half of a 40.

It wasn’t enough to keep his family fed in 1936.

The Bug Tussle store at Hamlet was a quarter mile from his house.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Elmer had 60 acres, a square 40 and the East half of a 40.

It wasn’t enough to keep his family fed in 1936.

The Bug Tussle store at Hamlet was a quarter mile from his house.

My question was how the acreage was awarded.