Daily Archives: May 4, 2016

It can only happen when you are afflicted with PAD

Blog by Jeff and Steve Laug

A few weeks ago my brother Jeff and I had a great interchange on Facebook Messenger. He has become a great source of pipes for me from antique shops and malls. On top of that he has added a new source for him – eBay. He haunts it and is perpetually finding unusual and interesting pipes for me. We often talk in the evenings on Messenger and my kids continue to laugh at us. His sons and my daughters are quite convinced their old dads have really slipped a cog. They are going by the sheer volume of estate pipes that are traveling between his home in Idaho and mine in Vancouver. When I read them our conversation about a current lot of purchases he had made, they encouraged me to get him to write up this conversation for the blog. I sent him the piece in hopes that he would write it, but he said I should go ahead. I ignored it for weeks but I am finally giving in because as I read it over again this evening I could not stop laughing. I wrote the first draft of the blog and then sent it to him to edit and add to. He sent it back later this evening. The combined efforts of us both have finally gone into this piece.

The first half of the conversation revolved around the topic of PAD (Pipe Acquisition Disorder). I am sure that many of you who read this blog can commiserate with us in our affliction with this disorder. It is both a blessing and a curse. It sits in the back of your head and whispers in a siren voice that not even Odysseus could withstand. In the story of Jason and the Argonauts, Jason takes along Orpheus to play his lyre to drown out the voices of the sirens. But even then one of his crew heard the song and leapt into the sea. He is rescued by the goddess Aphrodite or he would have perished. The sirens song unexplainably causes men to plunge to their death. While PAD does not kill us its call is irresistible – it simply sings that there is one more beautiful pipe that needs to be found… no, one more… no, more…and it never ends!My brother started the conversation that he had at least 2 or 3 more boxes of pipes to send to me. He said that a lot of them were going to be temptations for me. He said that he had some really good luck lately in his purchases. (Then as an aside he said that his wife probably wouldn’t agree!)

I responded that she probably wouldn’t agree. I went on to tell him of the sheer number of pipes that I already had to clean up. You see he had already sent me several boxes of pipes that he had found. There were some real beauties in the boxes and I was sorting and picking what would come next. My daughters think I am absolutely nuts.

He replied, “My whole family thinks that I’m nuts! Only Dad seems to be interested in them.”

When he spoke of our Dad being interested I laughed. It is true. During some of the FaceTime conversations that we have, Dad is right there showing me the pipes and talking about them. I think that he enjoys the huge variety of styles, shapes and designs that Jeff is bringing home.

I replied to Jeff that his oldest son seems to have had some fun looking at the pipes with him when he was visiting.

Jeff said, “Until this week…. now he thinks I’ve gone overboard.”

I have to say, at this point I missed where the conversation was heading. I thought he was talking about how the sirens voices of PAD suck you in and you are never the same. I said to him that it is hard to quit buying pipes – there are so many good looking pieces of briar out there… that was my trouble. Now it is yours

Jeff did not explain what he had meant by the going overboard… he skipped that for the time being. (Somehow I missed how he was like the sailor who traveled with Jason and upon hearing the song threw himself into the sea.) Rather he said that he totally agreed with me. He said, “It’s like a fine combination of art and history… a perfect match for us since these are two things that we both love. Yeah that is the trouble… but then throw in the enticement of competition and I’m hooked! That is the combo. It is hard to walk away from. I look at the Gentlemen’s Pipesmoking Group (Facebook Group) and I think that it’s an epidemic!”

That was when I introduced him to PAD, the acronym for Pipe Acquisition Disorder.

He said it was the perfect description for his ailment… He would have to tell his wife that she needs to be kind and patient with him since he had PAD! I told him that there is no known cure for the illness and lots of folks laugh about it.

Things got quiet for a few moments and then Jeff came back saying, “I read our last few lines to my wife and she can’t stop laughing!!! But I think that it is an unrecoverable ailment. I vow that I won’t look at eBay, but no matter how hard I try to resist it beckons me with its siren call for just a peek at what’s new.” At this point we were both laughing. Slowly but surely the conversation came around to the point that I had missed earlier – his going overboard. I had no idea what was coming but I could not stop laughing once he started to tell the story. At this point rather than narrate the story further, I invite you into our conversation.

Jeff: I’ll have to fill you in on my latest pipe misstep… it’s a doozy!

Steve: oh oh

Jeff: It took some “splaining” to my wife!

Steve: did she buy the splaining

Jeff: It wrecked my Saturday! I spent all morning trying to fix it!

Steve: oh boy… what did I get you into?

Jeff: Have you ever had several shipments go to the wrong address?? It’s not fun!

Steve: no.

Jeff: Somehow, back in 2008 my wife used our eBay account to send something to our son at Whitworth University in Spokane. Guess where I sent a couple hundred dollars’ worth of pipes? Good thing they’re Presbyterians!

Steve: ouch… these were the eBay wins? What happened?

Jeff: I noticed that two of the orders were marked delivered on eBay. I thought that our mail lady screwed up again and really hadn’t delivered them. So just to make sure, I checked the address that they were sent to… sure enough they went to Spokane. I checked the tracking numbers and two of the packages had been delivered to Whitworth. Two were still in transit (one from Greece!).

Steve: Oh no. What is going to happen? That is my biggest nightmare

Jeff: I talked with the Spokane post office that services Whitworth and they showed that 3 packages had been delivered to the school. As far as they were concerned, their job was done and they couldn’t help me! The school post office was open for 2 hours on Saturday and I was able to locate 1 of the 3 packages by talking with a student working there. The other two had been taken by the supervisor to be sent to the last address that they had for my son. She wouldn’t be at work today but would call me with details early the following week.

Steve: Oh no

Jeff: She called me at work a couple of days later, and mentioned that she had the other two packages and had not sent them to my son. (This was after I got him riled up the night before about how out-of-control I was!). She told me today that since my son has not been a student at Whitworth for at least 2 years, they couldn’t be forwarded to him. Also, since I wasn’t the addressee, they couldn’t by law send them to me either. Instead, they would be returned to the sender. Therefore, I contacted each of the 3 sellers to give them heads-up and to confess my stupidity. Most were cooperative and I believe will work with me on this. I’m hoping that Whitworth will work with me on the package from Greece and will send it to me directly. That seller from Greece was obnoxious. I’m really hoping that the package won’t have to go back to Greece… I might just write that pipe off as a loss!

Jeff: When and if you get these 4 pipes, you had better enjoy them and smoke the living daylights out of them!! Hopefully this has made you evening enjoyable… I can laugh now!

Steve: Lol. It is hilarious.

There is a happy ending to this mess… one of the writers here on rebornpipes, Aaron Henson, was willing to go to Whitworth and deal with making sure that three of the packages got sent on to my brother Jeff. The fourth one had been returned to the seller and after paying postage for a second time (totaling more than the original price of the pipe!), the pipe arrived in Idaho Falls. The humorous thing is that this particular pipe turned out to be a nicely carved pipe with beautiful ornamental leaves on the bowl… 7-lobed leaves popular in Colorado, but not in conservative Idaho! Oh well, the plight of PAD! I picked them up (except for this one pipe!) on a recent trip to Idaho and have them in the box of pipes to be refurbished. All in all, a nice haul! Better yet… a great story!

Spotlight: Ladies Pipes, Part 1/7, a FRASA French Bent Billiard

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Guest Blog by Robert M. Boughton
Member, International Society of Codgers
Member, North American Society of Pipe Collectors
http://www.naspc.org
http://www.roadrunnerpipesnm.biz
http://about.me/boughtonrobert
Photos © the Author

A pipe in the mouth makes it clear that there has been no mistake–you are undoubtedly a man.
— Alan Alexander Milne (1892-1956) – English author, playwright, poet essayist and storyteller best known for Winnie the Pooh – from “Smoking as a Fine Art,” in Not That It Matters, 1919, a collection of wide-ranging and manly essays

INTRODUCTION
I admit, my choice of the above quote was calculated, but not to raise the ire of any female smokers I indeed admire and whose attention I hope to draw to this forum and others, with the goal of opening a dialogue between the genders who share at least one common love. Of course, as with all well-meaning attempts at good natured humor mixed with more than a grain of satire, I should not be surprised if this one, in the spirit of political incorrectness, backfires in my face like a good ole boy’s sawed-off shotgun packed with too much rock salt.

But no, I think my message is clear. A.A. Milne was a good man and without doubt one of the most celebrated and creative writers of children’s stories of his time, albeit the product of the languid ease and floating, hypnotic comfort of his youth in the English countryside and predetermined defining crucible at Cambridge’s Exeter College at a time when his contemporaries were such traitors as Guy Burgess and Kim Philby to name but two. Yet Milne chose the right path, whatever unavoidable world-view of woman and their “rightful places” in the homes and gardens and still grander scheme of the universe. Milne escaped the abyss of prison, execution or exile to a dacha on the steppes of Mother Russia – outside of his day-to-day harrowing home life. All in all, notwithstanding the opening and somewhat tasteless quote, Milne turned out a bit alright.

So now, a few words about the earth-shattering day at the Stag Tobacconist in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US of A, deep in the Land of Enchantment. How â propos is that, I ask? Holy Shades of a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Batman! You see, I was sitting in my customary spot with a view of the entire room against the unlikely and therefore ever-present threat of imminent attack by unknown sinister forces, which seem to lurk in every corner of this wannabe city. The place continues to groan and grumble with unnatural growing pains.

I was sitting there in my comfortable cushioned chair in the smoker’s lounge, working on my laptop, when I overheard a woman who had come in looking for a “lady’s pipe.” I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just couldn’t help overhearing, along with the rest of the conversation, although my interest was piqued and my ears pricked. From her demeanor, I guessed it was her first visit to the shop. She was a rather large lady, dressed in a heavy long black coat. I knew right off that I had exactly what she was looking for at my apartment in an assortment of nice smaller pipes that nevertheless were not minis. I knew not to interfere with Chuck Richards, my friend and mentor, who had engaged the good woman

Scanning my mental knowledge of the shop’s inventory, I settled on a few of the no-name Italians and some mini carved meerschaums in the glass case below where Chuck and the lady stood at the end of the service counter, only a few yards from my curious ears and eyes. To my immense surprise, I watched Chuck (whose lips were pulled back in a look of distaste I recognized, whether or not the woman detected it) as he produced with appropriate care the open box of one of the meerschaums. The woman made a definite sound of pleasure that was stifled by Chuck’s masterful discourse on the pros and cons of meerschaum minis. He went on about the quality of the material and their ability to burn any type of tobacco without a lingering taste; their fragility and special precautions needed to use them, and in particular their construction with small push-in tenons that can be difficult to maneuver the vital cleaners through. He demonstrated and then explained how the cleaner would also be inserted into the shank after smoking but that he couldn’t handle the surface of the pipe because of its porous nature that absorbs skin oils and dirt, leading to serious damage.

Choking back a laugh, I thought I could not have discouraged a sale better if I had tried! I happen to know Chuck despises fancy, carved meerschaums for his own collection but would never hesitate to sell one to the right person. And so he moved on to several nice, shiny, natural finish no-names of medium length and bowl size. My excitement was growing. I decided if and only if Chuck proved unsuccessful in matching the female customer with a pipe – a wholly unlikely event – would I scurry out the door after her and offer the prospective customer my card and services.

But of course, Chuck sold her a very nice pipe, albeit twice the size of those I will show in this series. Thus was conceived the idea for this series, which, in my original plans, I envisioned, as usual, in a single blog. After a mere glimpse at the boggling research needed to undertake the endeavor, however, not to mention the difficulty of blogging seven restores in one space, I had the brainstorm of splitting the project into a series.

My friend on the Smokers Forums UK (http://www.smokersforums.co.uk/), who goes by the username “im2for1” there, is a Team Member at the Forums and owner of Ladies of the Briar for women only on Yahoo Groups and Friends of the Ladies of Briar of Facebook. She is also vice president of New Jersey Fellowship of Pipe Smokers on Yahoo and Facebook. With some careful, specific prodding, I hope to elicit some invaluable intelligence from Liz as this series progresses.

Here are some pictures of the seven pipes, which I relegated to a special pile on the big work desk in my office. I automatically segregated them for their unusual small sizes but had no idea that distinction would someday come in handy. Now, for a description of my first foray into a so-called Ladies Pipes, although it could be smoked without shame by a man (if I didn’t already sell it to one of my best customers, known to some readers here as Ashley and going back to my first real restore). This is a FRASA (from the brand mark on the shank), a French piece of work about which I can find no background. I wonder if the larger capital letters indicate an acronym. It’s a lovely, little, delicately curved, natural, dark red briar billiard. RESTORATION
This was one of the cleanest pipes I’ve ever come across in a lot, but I’ve never seen one yet on which I couldn’t improve. I showed all of the pipes I’m restoring for these blogs to Ashley at one of our weekly pipe meetings a few weeks back, and I had a good idea which one she would like best. I’ve come to know her tastes, having sold her several pipes, not to mention one to her husband, Stephen. Her hand went straight for the FRASA and her eyes sparkled with P.A.D. I knew I had her. I pointed out the clean but slightly rough to the touch chamber, which took a flashlight to determine that it had indeed been lightly smoked. Then there were some minor blemishes on the bowl. I also said I’d like to lighten it up a bit, unless she liked it the way it was.

“Go for it!” she said.

And so I tossed the bit in an OxiClean bath.Moving to the stummel, I wiped it down with purified water and soft cotton cloth gun cleaners before using 320-grit paper gently and evenly before micro-meshing from 1500-12000. Removing the bit from the OxiClean and rinsing it, I wet micro-meshed it to a nice dark shine.I sanded the small chamber with 200- and 320-grit papers and retorted it just to be thorough, but I didn’t expect to find anything, and I didn’t. Now, that’s a clean pipe!

I finished by buffing the stummel with white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba, and the bit the red and white Tripoli, White Diamond and carnauba. CONCLUSION
In the next installment, I plan on getting more to the meat and potatoes issues of relative numbers of women who partake of the magic instrument of divine contemplation – recognizing, of course, the futility of trying to get anywhere near exact numbers. I also hope to have feedback from Liz and others like her who are as active as any men in their smoking communities, with some insights into the kinds of pipes they actually enjoy, whether “ladylike” or more “manly.” Yes, sir (or ma’am), the times, they are a-changin‘.