Hello Pipers!

Hope all is well, and you have survived the Halloween sugar hangover. Can’t believe almost another year has passed and next month will be our holiday extravaganza! Please mark your calendars and don’t miss it. Also Don’t forget about a possible trip to the Humidor in Cranston on November 9 for a pipe event the Erik Stokobye and the Kaywoodie Pipe show and slow smoke contest coming up in early December. We will certainly discuss these in greater detail at the next meeting as well as hopefully firming up the Pipe Show.
Our last meeting was a packed one with about 16 members in attendance including Steve, a potential new member; Greg, an old member from before my time back for a visit; and Al who we haven’t seen in a number of months.  Also in November, those of us who purchased the 2019 30^th Anniversary Club pipe will receive them just in time to smoke over the holidays.  These are the best times of the pipe smoking year.
Andy Camire posted about the re-launch of the Merchant Service Pipe on our Facebook page.  I was intrigued and purchased one right away.  I will have a review of that pipe in the next Gazette.
November brings us National Novel Writing Month and National Peanut Butter Lover’s Month. So, for all those who bring Ernie a package of peanut butter cookies will get another raffle ticket good for a chance at winning something from my private collection. Ernie is automatically entered.
I’d also like to thank all our members who are Veterans for their service and extend my warm wishes to all for a Happy Thanksgiving.

All My Best, Kevin

By Horace Harker
I guess you could say I have a thing for clay pipes. I'm not a fanatic or anything but there is something intriguing about them that draws me in. Maybe it's the history behind them, I can't quite put my finger on it. But over the years I have purchased a few and found that although I'm fan of clays, most of them don't smoke well enough to keep in the regular rotation. Back in 2004 I took a trip to Virginia and while there I purchased two clay pipes, a long handsome churchwarden style pipe that I found at the Blacksburg Pipe & Tobacco Shop and on our way home I we stopped at Colonial Williamsburg where I found a simple clay pipe around 7 inches long. What drew me to this pipe was the size and shape of the bowl and the stem was long and slender enough that it would probably smoke comfortably. From what I can tell without doing a ton of research is that it is a 1900s style clay pipe. So I laid down a whopping $8 and brought it home. I never really had intentions to smoke the churchwarden clay, I bought it mostly because I liked the way it looked but I was looking forward to trying my Williamsburg purchase.

Unlike some of the other colonial tavern type pipes that have smaller, thicker walled bowls and thicker stems and are not all that comfortable in the mouth; the bowl on the Williamsburg was oval shaped, fairly deep and the seven inch stem tapered to a comfortable diameter that was easy on the mouth. It looked like it could hold a decent amount of tobacco and had a waxed tip for comfort. So I loaded lit it up and found that it was as easy to smoke as I suspected.