From: ???????????????????????????? (Norm Carpenter)
Subject: A couple of questions.

I am very happy to see the amount of interesting traffic  in  our
small  mail  circle.  I  really  enjoy  the article about growing
tobacco (keep 'em comming).  I am  afraid  that  I,  like  Steve,
wouldn't know a tobacco plant from beans.  But I do love to smoke
the stuff in my pipes.  Which leads me to my first question.

When I first light my pipe is the best time to  enjoy  the  aroma
and  taste  of the tobacco.  When I get down to the bottom of the
bowl, a lot of the flavor is gone and I seem to be sucking ashes.
Is  there  a  good  way  to  smoke the tobacco all the way to the
bottom (got to get that heel cake established)  and  still  enjoy
the tobacco as if it were first lit?

My second question I hesitate to bring up because my  foolishness
might  have  cost me a  valuable possesion.  We have a local flea
market here which is on the parking lot of a  college  campus. It
is  held only once a month so there is still a pretty good mix of
household treasures along with the commercial junk.  While I  was
there  I kept my eye out for pipes.  I happened along a pipe that
was a cross between a freehand and a more standard pipe.  By this
I  mean that the bowlwas a freehand cube and the shank was square
flaring out towards the fitting end.  The stem  was  one  of  the
freehand  variety,  turned  and  not motised into the shank.  The
pipe was a Ben Wade and he was asking $25.

In the standard tradition of the flea market society,  I  offered
him  $15  for his pipe.  This guy was a non-conformist.  He stuck
to his original $25 price.  I left  and  went  around  the  whole
place.  A couple hours later, as I was leaving, I returned to his
booth and found that all his other pipes had been sold,  but  the
Ben  Wade  was still there.  I gave it one more pitch and offered
$20.  He still held on to his price, and  my  wife,  who  doesn't
smoke, was indifferent to the transaction.  I left in disgrace of
not having accomplished barganing skills (with the right person I
might  normally have gotten them to give me the pipe 8->).  Did I
miss a golden opportunity?

Smokin' the same old pipes in CA.

Norm


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