From: ?????????????????
Subject: Greetings

Happy New Year, Steve, to you and your bride. May it be a good one. As
I approach my 71st birthday in February, I think back on when I first
began smoking a pipe (when I was 16), and I look at my collection,
each pipe having a history of its own. I smoked a pipe while a Marine
in the Pacific War, and I was a pipe smoker when I was in the Korean
War. In Seoul, the British Commonwealth Division had a NAAFI
(Navy-Army-Air Force Institute) which was the British version of a
PX. The had Dunhill pipes for sale at $7.50 each. I bought two, and
now wish I had bought more. I also bought Balkan Sobranie there for .50 
a can. I enjoy my pipes now as much as I first did, perhaps even
more, because when I first started smoking, the tobaccos were either
Revelation or Rum and Maple. I now enjoy the latakia-laden British
styles more. I particularly enjoy Barrister, an excellent blend sold
by Faders of Baltimore, which has a shop in Annapolis, not too far
away from Bowie, MD. I also enjoy good cigars, almost anything in a
Rothschild shape. Well, enough of this wool-gathering. To my fellow
digest members, all the best for the New Year and Happy Smoking. Ben
Frank ?????????????????


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