Tuesday, January
4th, 2011 at 7:00 PM or meet early at C.B.
Perkins at 5 PM or Five Guys at
6PM
Cobb's Corner, Canton
Meeting
Club
Info & Events
Details of
the December Meeting We
had a good crowd on hand for our December holiday meeting but
we did missed having some of our regulars like Joe, Ken and Eric
join in the festivities. But it was nice to see Steve Gutz back
again as well as Ryan. Unfortunately, I just found out that Ken
Collins is not doing very good health wise. Contact info has been
sent out to you all so please connect with him and send him your
prayers and well wishes for a quick recovery and return to the
club (which he misses desperately).
Our meeting started as usual at CB Perkins and everyone seemed
to be in a good mood (then again, why wouldn't they be). We did
our usual thing at Perkins and even got Prabahka the manager involved
in some of the action. After a quick reload of cholesterol at
Five Guys, we headed to the meeting to begin the festivities.
Tobacco Yankee Swap As
we have done the past two years, we bought enough tins of tobacco
for everyone and had a tobacco yankee swap. This year was more
interesting (once we got the rules figured out) and lots of swapping
was taking place. Sillem's Black seemed to be one of the favorites.
Pipe Raffle This
year we decided to take some of the proceeds from the sale of
the SHPC
Tobacco Blends and buy a few pipes to raffle off at the holiday
meeting. We purchased a Luciano,
a Mastro Beraldi
a Savanelli
pipe for the raffle. Members who wished to participate in the
raffle needed to purchase only one ten dollar raffle ticket for
a chance to win any one of the three pipes.
Tamper Raffle As
reported in last month's Gazette, we received
two tampers from Mark Schloemer
to raffle off to our members as a way to get the word out about
his new company, Granito Tampers. The tampers arrived so well
packaged that we decided to leave them a mystery until they were
revealed by the raffle winners. The two lucky winners of these
beautiful tampers were Steve Gutz and Tony. Here's what Tony had
to say about his tamper:
This
tamper has it all. It is visually very appealing; the white band
and granite bottom complimenting the wood of the rest of the tamper.
It truly combines function and form perfectly. When held in hand
feels extremely nature. My only compliant is I now notice a difference
when I use the standard pipe tool. It is like driving Rolls Royce
for a weekend and then going back to my 03 Echo.
-- Tony
What? More Members!
It seems that Christmas time and the winter months in particular,
tend to bring pipe smokers out of the woodwork. At our December
meeting we had opportunity to meet up with three pipe smokers
at C.B. Perkins who came by to find out about the club. Two of
which, Andy and Ron were able to attend our meeting (more details
on these guys next newsletter). The third gentleman (whose name
I unfortunately forgot) we hope will be able to join us in January.
Also, I've been communicating with Charles from New Bedford who
plans to join us in January and Jeff from Bedford that hopes to
join us as well. We look forward to meeting you all.
Suspension of Club Dues
Due to the proceeds generated from the sale of our SHPC
Tobacco Blends we have decided to suspend dues this year on
a trial basis. If we continue to generate enough funds to pay
for our club expenses we may be able to suspend dues indefinitely.
A Big Thank You!! I
would like to take a minute to give special thanks to Rick, Neil
& Ernie for their contributions to the club and newsletter in
2010.
Rick has been the treasurer for many years now and does
an outstanding job of keeping track of the clubs finances and keeping
club members informed. He has also contributed a number of items
to the newsletter which is always greatly appreciated (and encouraged).
See Rick's write up of the latest NY Pipe show
below.
Neil has sort of become the club's photographer which has
allowed us to bring a little more life to the newsletter on a regular
basis. I would also like to thank Neil for the enthusiasm he brings
to the club each month. He has definitely played a big part in boosting
morale and bringing excitement to many of the club meetings.
And finally, I can't forget Ernie. Ernie has given
us a look back into the better days of pipes and smoking. His contributions
to this newsletter have undoubtedly made the SHPC Gazette a must
read on many pipe smoker's list. In 2011, Ernie will be bringing
you a new feature we've named Plugs & Dottle. An occasional
piece on pipe and tobacco trivia, history and other tidbits of pipe
and tobacco related information.
Kaywoodie Holiday Party & UPCA's
Northeast Regional Pipe Smoking Contest Unfortunately,
time does now allow for a full report of the event in this months
edition of the Gazette but I can assure you it continues to be the
main event of the year. As we did in 2008
and 2009
we hope to have a new video for you in February.
This year we were at capacity with club members from the Sherlock
Holmes Pipe Club of Boston, New York Pipe Club, Hudson Valley Pipe
Club, New Jersey Fellowship of Pipesmokers, Christoper Morley Pipe
Club of Philadelphia, Chesapeake Pipe Club and the return of the
Pocono Intermountain Pipe Enclave. "Is it alright to yell FIRE
at a crowded pipes smoking contest?" You damn right it is....
now FIRE up those pipes.
Pipes
& Tobacco News & Info
A Petition to Repeal the State Tax
on Tobacco I don't know how much strength this has but while
a my local Brennan's
Tobacco Shop yesterday I saw a petition to repeal the
state tax on tobacco. I guess they figure that if they can
do it with alcohol, they might be able to do it with tobacco.
Of course I signed it and maybe you can too. Stop in at your
local Brennan's or other B&M and see if they have a petition
to sign. If they don't, tell them about this and see if they
will start one. Maybe we can take something back in 2011.
This
Month's Tobacco Raffle
We had some tins of tobacco left over from last month's tobacco
raffle so we will raffle a few of them off each month until
they are gone.
MacBaren Burley London Blend (3.5oz.
tin) A
very distinct tobacco. made from white Burley, well matured
in wooden casks. A real smoking pleasure!
Ashton Tin - Winding Road (50g) A
mellow mixture designed to bridge the gap between aromatic
and english style blends. Comprised of golden and dark brown
Virginia with a sprinkling of black cavendish, this excellent
blend bears a natural fragrance accompanied by subtle notes
of caramel and apricot.
Rattray's Red Rapparee -
50g tin Exhilarating,
elusive, quaint and seductive. Red Rapparee is prepared from
choice Red Virginias and heavily flavored with Orientals
The infant efforts at TV programming during the
late 1940s into the 1950s were fraught with problems from program
material to skilled production people. The natural and safe thing
to do was transport successful radio shows into the new medium.
Perhaps the most successful to make the jump to TV was "Gunsmoke".
It was some time before the radio shows were dropped from broadcasting
and most ran concurrently for several years.
Martin
Kane, Private Eye made its radio debut in 1949 on the Mutual Broadcasting
Co. under the sponsorship of the United States Tobacco Co. Three
weeks after the radio debut NBC introduced the program to television
– both were broadcast live. The series ended in 1954 after
several changes in the lead actor had occurred.
Initially,
William Gargan played the part of Martin Kane on both Radio and
TV. Despite occasional bad camera work, set mishaps and script flubs
the show was popular and successful. A comic book soon appeared
featuring Gargan.
Kane,
a pipe smoker would wander into Happy Mc Mann's Tobacco Shop, where
little could be seen of tobacco other than the sponsor's products,
to purchase a fresh supply of Old Briar Tobacco and often have discussions
about Kane's current case and the sponsor's other products. Once
in a while another character from the show would show up at the
shop along with Kane. This type of commercial was far less intrusive
and somewhat entertaining.
This was one of my favorite shows and I was disappointed,
after not watching it for two years while in the Army, to find Gargan
had been replaced as Kane. The character was completely different.
New
York Pipe Show – A Reflection by Rick Frederics
The December New York Pipe Show has come and gone and I fear that
there may not be many December shows left. These shows are a lot
about connecting with old pipe smoking friends that we don’t
see often enough but reconnect at pipe shows like the New York show.
This is what made this show once again special to me. And what has
become a tradition is going to the show with Tim Hynick and catching
up on a lot of things that we just don’t talk about at our
own SHPC meetings.
But unfortunately there were not many attendees this time and
it is hard to figure out why. The weather was great, it was the
Holiday Season and there haven’t been a lot of shows in the
area in the last several months. But whatever the reason –
not many people came. It could be the economy has not recovered
enough to warrant people coming to a show and buying; and going
to a show and not buying is hard to do. Maybe pipe smokers feel
that at this point in time they have enough pipes to smoke –
at least for now. And the fun of going to a pipe show and smoking
is a thing of the past.
That is a shame, because these shows are for many the only chance
to see – to actually feel new pipes that are out there and
to talk to the pipe makers and pipe collectors and maybe find that
very special pipe as I did. Of course this pipe happened to be made
by my friend Tim Hynick, but buying a pipe at the show is what also
made this one special to me.
I would hate to see these shows become a thing of the past. I
plan to be there again in March. Maybe things will be different.
I hope so.
Do you have any thoughts about Rick's
article or pipe shows in general that you'd like to share with our
readers? If so, please email us at shpcboston@yahoo.com.